Important context: GA’s state constitution requires us to have a balanced budget, which means that we can only spend as much as we bring in through taxes, fees, and other forms of revenue. There’s no state version of the national debtpic.twitter.com/93nLu7Lipk
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Like almost everyone who existed during the Great Recession, GA had to make DEEP cuts to our state budget and the services funded by it. 10 years later, we’ve only barely begun to put that money back, meaning our state government has been and still is about as lean as it can bepic.twitter.com/6EcNUU2ygq
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In 2018, the General Assembly cut income taxes for the first time since 1937. By their nature, income taxes give the most benefit to those with the most money. They did not replace this with any other form of income, so the state just lost that moneypic.twitter.com/4OS7RQilcw
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Add on top of that, Trump’s trade war has really hurt GA farmers, and then Hurricane Michael did unprecedented damage to Southwest GA farms that will take generations to rebuildpic.twitter.com/W722Z1NYEW
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One anecdote that really illustrates the hurricane damage: there are not enough pecan seedlings in the world to replace all the pecan trees destroyed by Hurricane Michaelpic.twitter.com/jHnFhPapvu
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All of these things combined means that the state doesn’t have enough money to run all our programs. There are a few different ways we could handle this 1) Raise more money 2) Cut spending 3) Some combination of bothpic.twitter.com/IdfkAdnaLs
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While Option 3 is probably what most of us would do if this was our personal budget, Governor Kemp chose Option 2 and is pushing the state to cut the budget by 10% over 2 fiscal years, totaling cuts of $515 millionpic.twitter.com/xsmxa4aIZ7
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Last week was Budget Week at the State Capital, meaning it was an entire week of state agencies talking through their proposed budgets, which suddenly have a whole lot less money in them. Here are the low lights:pic.twitter.com/cBkr2PBA28
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$15 million cut from county health departments over 2 years. Counties will have to close the gap, but many counties can’t afford to do that $7.4 million for adult mental health services and $14.1 for child mental health servicespic.twitter.com/BdGsg7E1RI
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$3.9 million from TANF $16 million from child welfare and foster care $3 million from public defenderspic.twitter.com/ZihnDwPSVq
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As if this isn’t bad enough, the 2018 tax cut bill set up a vote for another round of income tax cuts this year. Data tells us that the average GA family would gain about $5/month from this, and it’s really obvious the state can’t afford to lose more income right nowpic.twitter.com/1ezQoSDxhJ
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On a related note, GA has been ranked the #1 state for business for 7 years in a row, but we’re continuously ranked near the bottom for many measures of human welfarepic.twitter.com/VxVHrklcUW
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You’ll notice that out government’s response isn’t to take away big business tax breaks, or even just undo the income tax cuts from 2 years ago. It’s to cut services for the most vulnerable Georgians, folks who are unlikely to be able to pay to get their needs met somewhere elsepic.twitter.com/5yuinpFUCh
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Ok so this is super depressing. The good news is this process is just getting started, so there’s still time to shape the way things move forward. Here’s what you can do: 1) Go to http://openstates.org to look up who your state Senator and Representative arepic.twitter.com/76nIZXDQWH
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2) Reach out & tell them how your feel about these budget cuts and the potential for another tax cut. Don’t feel pressured to be an expert: this could be as simple as “Hey I’m really disappointed by these cuts to essential services. Please do this differently.”pic.twitter.com/9WOrcbEwHS
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To find your Senator and Reps’ contact info, you can go to http://legis.ga.gov , or you can just google them, sometimes that’s easier.pic.twitter.com/EcJpzHtD08
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Have y’all ever heard that saying “Show me your budget and I’ll show you your priorities?” It’s time for us to remind Georgia to check its prioritiespic.twitter.com/gXk6jkcFUL
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