🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <907@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu> chemsn@emory.edu (Sreehari Nimmala) writes:
>I lived in Michigan before moving to GA.
>Ther was no tax on food-items....Why
>is then that there is tax on food in Ga? Is it not
>possible that Georgians can bring pressure on state
>govt. to remove tax on food, specially in this
>election year? Just a thought.

Sree,

You'll find *lots* of other differences between Georgia and Michigan :-).
This is what is broadly known as "states rights".  Illinois is in the
middle somewhere, with a 2% tax on food and medicine and a 6% tax on
other items (or something like that; it's been a while since I lived
there).

Several years ago, when Georgia raised the sales tax from 3% to 4%, Zell
Miller, who was then lieutenant governor and the leader of the state
senate, led the fight against applying the tax to food and medicine.  He
wanted to eliminate the latter to offset the increase in revenue from the
extra point when applied to other items.  He was opposed in this by the
Speaker of the House, Tom Murphy.  A compromise was reached in which the
tax was not applied to foodstuffs grown here in Georgia, e.g.  Vidalia
onions and peanuts (a hand-printed list with Dan-Quayle-esque spelling
errors was made up late one night by then-governor Joe Frank Harris).  I
have yet to notice if, in fact, this compromise is uniformly applied.

In any case, Zell is now governor, so why hasn't he repealed the tax on
food?  Simply because the recession arrived at the same time, tax revenue
in general is down, and Zell is doing everything he can to balance the
budget without raising taxes further.  Maybe it will be repealed when the
economic climate is better.  I hope so, because I find this tax to be
extremely regressive.

					Scott