REPUBLICAN ACCOMPLISHMENTS SINCE 2005

“Promises Made. Promises Kept. A Promising Future.”

Change You Can Count On!

Sen. Eric Johnson

President Pro Tempore

April 2008

CREATING JOBS:

Georgia is one of the fastest growing states in the nation. But we are feeling the effects of high gas prices, plummeting real estate prices, health care costs, and a drought. Rather than relying on raising taxes and spending, Republicans have focused on saving costs for employers to keep jobs here and encouraging growth of existing businesses. We believe that the fruits of Georgia’s economy will be realized with limited government, individual rights, and a culture of innovation.

· Passed civil justice reform that ended junk lawsuits.

· If approved by the voters this fall, we created Infrastructure Development Districts (IDDs) that require developers to install infrastructure instead of local property taxpayers.

· Cracked down on illegal immigrants that were taking jobs from Georgians.

· Helped businesses and consumers by preventing unfair class action lawsuits that increase prices and enrich a handful of lawyers.

· Reduced regulations and improved the regulatory environment.

· Allowed telecommunications companies to go into cable TV to compete with local cable monopolies.

· Designed a comprehensive Statewide Water Management Plan, including $120 million in funding for water infrastructure and expansion of reservoirs to increase our storage capacity that will allow Georgia to continue to grow.

· Streamlined the permitting process for expanding and constructing new reservoirs.

· Passed the Telecommunications Competition Act to encourage more competition in the telecommunications industry.

· Passed an energy tax cap for manufacturers that will help save jobs.

· Passed tax breaks for film and video projects to attract projects to Georgia that employ our citizens.

Next session?

· Clean up the Georgia DOT and put a new system in place that delivers projects on time and on budget.

· Create a statewide traffic relief plan and budget that includes roads and transit.

· Give local communities the option for a T-SPLOST for traffic relief without raising their taxes against their will.

IMPROVING EDUCATION:

Parents, not government, have the primary responsibility for the education of their children. We believe that every child can learn. We believe that it is in the state’s best interest to fund a portion of the cost of providing an excellent education. We believe that every child should have access to a competitive market of public, private, charter, and home schools. We believe that parents and taxpayers at the local level provide the best decision-making. We believe that educators should be respected and discipline must be enforced. We believe that success should be rewarded and failure must have consequences. Georgia teachers are the highest paid in the southeast and we spend an astonishing $135,000 for each child to go through our public schools. It’s NOT about money. It’s about improving outcomes. What have we done?

· Established Charter School Systems that allow flexibility and expanded local control.

· Funded Career Academies that provide a valuable partnership between our high schools, technical colleges and surrounding businesses. Career Academies will significantly impact our future workforce development and give students the training they need to obtain well-paying and secure jobs.

· Permitted the Bible to be taught in High School as an elective course.

· Created the Georgia Virtual High School that gives students all over Georgia access to college prep and advanced learning programs via the Internet.

· Saved the HOPE Scholarship program from going broke.

· We have increased the ability of teachers to remove unruly children from the classroom and protected them from civil liability.

· We require school systems to spend at least 65% of all tax dollars for instruction inside the classroom door and not on the bureaucracy outside the classroom door.

· We are now funding an on-line SAT prep course for EVERY student.

· Established a Master Teacher designation to publicly recognize teachers who consistently raise test scores. They can receive 10% higher pay if they agree to mentor less experience teachers or work in under-achieving schools.

· Created scholarships for children with special needs that can be used at any public or private school that meets the child’s unique needs.

· Reduced class sizes and funded “graduation coaches” to increase our graduation rates.

· Allowed school systems more flexibility in regulations in exchange for performance measures and loss of governance if they fail to meet their goals in 5 years.

· Created School Scholarship Organizations and allowed tax credits up to $50,000,000 a year to fund tuition for children in public school who want to go to private school.

· Encouraged more Charter Schools by granting a new state commission the power to approve one if denied at the local level.

· In addition to regular funding of public education, we restored $50,000,000 of the cuts made during the last recession.

What’s next?

· Provide scholarships for children stuck in chronically failing schools.

· Fairly distribute state funding of our share of educational costs.

· Make our schools safer and allow selectivity at Charter Schools.

STRONGER FAMILIES:

The family is the building block of society. When marriages and families are healthy, communities thrive. We want to strengthen families and respect life. We believe that individuals thrive when they are rooted in a strong value system that is imparted through the family, church, or other institutions of civil society.

· Stopped non-elected governmental agencies from using the awesome power of eminent domain and restricted the ability of elected governments to take private property for the benefit of developers.

· Protected unborn children by creating a crime of feticide, require that women considering an abortion see a sonogram of the child inside their womb and be told of the medical risks of abortion.

· Allowed tax deductions for expenses required to adopt special needs children.

· We gave Georgians the ability to freeze their credit reports to protect themselves and their family from identity theft predators.

Where do we go from here?

· Restrict doctors from playing God. Ban human cloning and “designer babies”.

REFORMING GOVERNMENT:

Our forefathers risked their lives and their property to break away from the King of England to establish a government run by the people. They went to war and risked death for a cause, not glory. They won that war and created a country where the government serves the people and not the other way around. In our unique and complicated system of checks and balances, citizens actually represent each other. Power is temporarily granted by the voters and can be taken away. Public service is an awesome responsibility shouldered by men and women who must answer to their neighbors. We have fought for a government that is more responsive to its citizens and more responsible with their tax dollars. We believe that government should be customer-friendly and performance-based. We believe that we should focus on the interests of the governed, not the government. According to the Center for Public Integrity, we have moved from 26^th to 6^th place as an ethical state. And the Pew Research Center named Georgia one of the “best managed states in the nation” and the best in the southeast.

· Passed comprehensive ethics reform that increased transparency and reduced conflicts-of-interest. It includes stricter financial disclosure for candidates and elected officials, an end to the revolving door from politicians to lobbyists, and higher fines for violators. It protects whistleblowers from retaliation and creates a new Legislative Ethics Committee to deal with accusations of legislative conflicts of interest.

· Required a photo ID to vote to ensure fair elections and reduce fraud.

What’s next?

· Create a statewide conflict-of-interest statute for local governments.

· Require annual training for registered lobbyists.

· Disclose all spending on legislators by those seeking to influence legislation or the budget.

· Ban contributions from vendors actively seeking a state contract.

· Prohibit unsecured loans to legislators by individuals or companies.

· Cap expenditures from any single source to an individual legislator.

SAFER NEIGHBORHOODS:

Protecting our citizens is the Number One responsibility of government. We take that responsibility seriously. We believe that citizens are safe when criminals are in prison. We believe that justice should be fair and blind.

· Passed the strongest sexual predator law in the nation to protect our children from the worst criminals that exist in society. The measure raises sentences for many sex crimes, particularly against children, to a minimum of 25 years in prison and requires lifetime monitoring of the most serious offenders using advanced GPS technology.

· Permit families to defend themselves with deadly force if necessary without calling a lawyer first.

· Granted persons the right to use deadly force to protect themselves and their families without having to call a lawyer first.

· Required retailers to place products with pseudoephedrine (like Sudafed) behind the counter because it is a key ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

· Provided prosecutors with the same number of jury strikes as the criminal defense attorneys to strengthen the rights of victims over criminals.

· Began tracking sex offenders in cyberspace. Sex offenders who are required to register with the state would have to turn over their e-mail addresses to authorities. Also gives parents a product to keep certain websites off limits for their kids and requires schools to provide children with one hour of how to avoid sexual predators on-line.

· After the Georgia Supreme Court threw out the state’s restrictions on where sex offenders could live and work, we passed a new law that bans them from living, loitering or working within 1000 feet of where children congregate. We also banned photography of minors by sex offenders.

· Strengthened Georgian’s gun rights and carry laws.

What is next?

· Make sure that the courts are operating rapidly and effectively.

· Reform the juvenile code to acknowledge the shift to younger criminals and the need for alternative treatments and punishment.

· Assure that the death penalty is imposed carefully and carried out quickly.

SPENDING & TAX REFORMS:

We want a government that is efficient, customer-friendly and performance-based. We believe that we should focus on the interests of the governed, not the government. We believe that spending more on a problem doesn’t necessarily make it better. We believe that citizens bear responsibility for their actions and that every person is not a “victim” that needs compensation from taxpayers. We believe that government should help those who need government spending to live, not those that make a living from government spending. We believe that government programs must produce results or they should be abandoned. We believe that we must prioritize spending just like a family does at its kitchen table or a business does around a conference table.

· $1.7 Billion in Homeowner Tax Relief Grants to lower property taxes since 2005.

· Eliminated the state income tax on retirement income for Georgians 65 and older who earn up to $70,000 for a couple.

· All budgets are now on-line for citizens to see.

· Reformed the budget process to create “program-based” budgeting that gives more control over the bureaucracy. This will increase accountability and improve efficiency and customer service.

· Changed the way Georgia companies are taxed so they can invest in plant expansion and job creation.

· Created the State Accounting Office to consolidate all spending and revenue for stronger accountability and better fiscal management.

· Required that special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) elections coincide with major elections to maximize voter participation.

· Passed the Transparency in Government Act that permits every citizen to see exactly how their state government spends their money.

· Required that each state department is subjected to “zero-based budgeting” every 4 years to weed out ineffective programs and force every dollar of tax money to be justified.

Next year?

· Freeze property reassessments to prevent backdoor tax increases at the local level.

· Pass the Taxpayer Protection Act that limits growth in future state spending. Any revenue that exceeds inflation and population growth must be used to cut taxes, reduce debt, or placed into the reserve fund.

· Look at every service and agency and see what can be done for less money or better quality by the private sector. Privatize it if possible.

· Cut a tax. Any tax. By any amount.

IMPROVING HEALTH CARE:

We believe that a patient-centered system of consumer choice and free market competition will reduce third party payments and the bureaucracy. We want to reduce the cost to the taxpayers for the people we cover – state employees, teachers, and the poor. We want to expand health care coverage (reduce the number of uninsured) using competition for consumer dollars, not government mandates. Finally, we want to reduce costs and improve quality by using informed consumers making educated choices on lifestyle and their providers. What have we done?

· Ended frivolous lawsuits that increased the cost of health care.

· Improved transparency of health care costs and quality so that patients can make better decisions.

· Saved PeachCare for Kids from bankruptcy.

· Prevented illegal immigrants from accessing our health care system through PeachCare for Kids and Medicaid saving the taxpayers millions of dollars.

· Ended smoking in public spaces and restaurants.

· Created the Georgia Newborn Umbilical Cord Blood Bank to promote life saving research using stem cells from cord blood, without destroying human life at any stage of biological development.

· Removed the legal barriers to providing financial incentives that encourage wellness.

· Created the State Trauma Commission in 2007 and gave them $60 million to save and expand the system statewide in 2008.

· Reformed the outdated Certificate of Need program to increase free market competition into health care delivery that will reduce costs.

· We provided tax breaks for the self-employed and many small business employees who purchase low cost health insurance coupled with a health savings accounts. These patient-centered free market measures will save Georgians money plus reduce the number of uninsured by offering affordable, low-cost health insurance options.

What do we want to do next?

· We must look into ways to fund a high-risk insurance pool that helps business provide health insurance for their employees.

· We must increase the number of Georgians covered by private insurance and avoid state-run plans like Massachusetts.

· We should expand care options for the elderly between personal care homes and nursing homes.

· We must establish a dedicated revenue stream for a statewide trauma network.

PROTECTING OUR NATURAL RESOURCES:

Georgia has experienced tremendous economic growth that has lead to many environmental challenges. We believe that preserving our natural resources and our quality of life must be based on sound science and the following principles. We believe that private property rights encourage stewardship of resources. We believe that polluters should be liable for the harm they cause others.

· Funded more than $70,000,000 for land conservation grants to purchase threatened parcels of lands and buy development rights from landowners.

· Allowed tax credits for land owners who give up development rights and establish easements to conserve land in its natural state.

· Established the Land Conservation Tax Credit. This gives landowners an incentive to donate land or agree not to develop it to help protect Georgia’s natural beauty. This tax credit upholds property rights by encouraging conservation instead of taking the property by regulation or forcing development due to high taxation.

· Protected our right to hunt and fish by amending the state’s Constitution.

· Passed the “Large Forest Conservation Use Act”.

· Began an environmentally-friendly restoration of Jekyll Island.

· We passed tax credits for solar energy manufacturers, historic building renovation, and eliminated the sales tax on fuel for mass transit and clean energy products to protect our environment and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

What can we do now?

· Use pine trees, not food, as an alternative fuel source.

· Proceed with nuclear power expansion rather than relying on terrorists and thugs for our oil.

Republicans represent real change.

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