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December 21, 2005

Gas Panic

Sonny Perdue has committed $20 million in state funds to reduce natural gas prices for Georgia consumers this winter. He did it by executive decree, and expects that his Republican lackees in the legislature will ratify his decision once the session started.

Hmm, too bad. I thought we had a legislature for a reason, and Perdue's willingness to just decree something and have the legislature nod OK at a later date has, in this case, prevented what could have been excellent policy from passing.

Let me explain: Perdue has already said that $20 million will be given to ratepayers in the form of an across the board sales tax cut of 2% on natural gas bills. In the 2000 census, Georgia had a little over 3,000,000 households. That means the average Georgia household will see (less than) a whopping $7 in savings on their natural gas bills.

Now, if you are on a fixed income, or live below the poverty line, you probably live in a pretty small house. And yet, with gas prices expected to be between 50% and 100% higher this winter, even someone that's only heating a small apartment will see their gas bill go up at least $40 per month this winter. That comes out to $120 (minimum) this winter, and they will get (on average, actually less since they are below the average) $7 back from the state.

So, their home heating costs will still be more than $110 than they were last winter. Some help, Sonny! Meanwhile, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, who probably have home heating bills close to $500 (I can only imagine) will see maybe $12 in savings, even though their costs will be significantly higher. The savings are negligible for both the rich and the poor, but one segment of the population legitimately needs help, while another segment of the population might have to forego the more expensive bottle of wine for the slightly cheaper one. That's an if.

Sonny could have taken that $20,000,000 and given 200,000 of Georgia's poorest households (from downtown Atlanta to downtown Cuthbert) a $100 credit to help them with higher heating costs. I don't care how he could have done it -- on their tax returns, or the state could have given grant money that people could have applied for through their natural gas marketer, which would have been pretty easy as most low income seniors and families have a special relationship with the gas marketer of "last resort" anyway.

That $100 would go a long way to keeping Georgia's poor and elderly warm this winter. And Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus wouldn't have missed their $12. Instead, Sonny's crack squad was more interested in being first to the punch and rushed out a b.s. tax cut that will generate good headlines for him.

Sonny, we have a legislature and we have Democrats for a reason. They can deliberate to find the best solution and are specifically ideologically interested in helping the lesser of society (respectively). Use them. You'll still get good headlines.

Posted by Chris at December 21, 2005 12:33 AM

Comments

Posted by: Greg Greene at December 22, 2005 12:10 PM

Posted by: chris at December 22, 2005 12:57 PM

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