Ballot Amendment #1: NO
Ballot Amendment #2: YES
Ballot Amendment #3: YES
Ballot Amendment #4: YES
Ballot Amendment #5: YES

Ballot Referendum to Exempt Business Inventories from State Tax: YES

AMENDMENT 1 – Non-Compete Clauses in Contracts

This is how the amendment will read on your ballot: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to make Georgia more economically competitive by authorizing legislation to uphold reasonable competitive agreements?”

Doesn’t that just sound so warm & fuzzy? After all, “more economically competitive” kinda says “Golly, let’s make this a fairer environment so we can have more competition and bring in lower prices and higher quality…”, RIGHT?

Yeah. It “kinda” sounds like that is what this amendment will do, but, like watching Penn & Teller do their stage show, there are carefully concealed things that your eye/mind just cannot catch unless you know where to look.

Before we get to the “magic” of the legislature’s trick, let’s study one more phrase: “…to uphold reasonable competitive agreements”

Wowwww…everyone wants to be “reasonable” in their approach to agreements, right? You have your opinion, I have my opinion, but reasonable people can come together and agree on something, RIGHT? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be a “reasonable people”, would we?

Just for your information, the wording of this amendment went through several iterations as it went through the committees. Here’s Version #1:

“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to provide for contracts that limit competition during or after the term of employment or of a commercial relationship and to authorize the courts to cure legal defects in such contracts in order to protect legitimate interests and achieve the intent of the parties?”

BUT….that apparently was too informative to the voter as to the actual purpose of the amendment, so…we can look at Version #2:

“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to permit the General Assembly to enact laws that authorize contract provisions restricting or regulating competitive activities and enable courts to ensure the reasonableness of such contracts?”

Well, apparently the House committee wasn’t pleased with the concept of the wording that used “restricting” as that pretty much is a word no true “pro-competition” amendment would ever use…so, we have Version #3, which passed the House:

“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to permit the General Assembly to enact laws that authorize contract provisions regulating competitive activities and to enable courts to ensure the reasonableness of such contracts?”

When the bill got over to the Senate, those folks weren’t too keen on the use of the word “regulating”, so they revised the amendment language to be Version #4, and it passed the Senate as this:

“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to permit the General Assembly to enact laws that authorize contract provisions regarding competitive agreements to enable courts to uphold the agreements and to enable courts to ensure the reasonableness of such contracts?”

Since the Senate’s version changed the House’s version, differences got “worked-out” in conference committee to be the most blatantly-deceptive language they could possibly come up with, Version #5/Final Version:

“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to make Georgia more economically competitive by authorizing legislation to uphold reasonable competitive agreements?”

YEAH, that’s the ticket! That’ll fool ALL the voters into voting for this!

FOR more to read as to why this is a bad amendment, please visit our e-mailed edition that provided a lot more detailed analysis: Special Research Report on Ballot Amendment #1

PV Recommends: Vote NO On Amendment 1

Rumors have it that all those tax returns that gubernatorial candidate Roy Barnes posted on his Website may not be entirely accurate as to the TRUE nature of Barnes’ tax liability to the federal and state governments.

According to a blog post by Gary Scott Holt (published on 10/14/2010), for the years 1981 thru 1998, Barnes was involved in several limited partnerships with a guy that ended-up going to prison for tax fraud.

According to that blog post, Barnes stated he was not aware of the fraudulent manipulations of the cow-based limited liability partnerships that one Walter J. Hoyt, III ended-up being prosecuted for and sent to prison, where he died in 2007.

According to this blog post by Holt, by 1998, Barnes owes the IRS a total of $342,012 for the scam Hoyt perpetrated on him and a hundred other “cow-patty partners.”

PV’s Observation: According to Mr. Holt’s post, Barnes denied that he knew of the fraud. Fine. But, as I discovered in my analysis of Barnes’ 2003-2007 Schedule C income tax forms, Barnes apparently still has quite the knack for having his business expenses manipulated in such a way as to never have shown a profit until 2008 and 2009. (That profit is now explained by this debt to the IRS: He HAD to come-up with personal cash to pay the IRS back after he lost the Tax Court challenge to the IRS for a much lower settlement amount.)

Go read this post and look at all the links provided. Pretty significant research has been done.

You may think Deal’s financial situation smells due to the repeated goof-ups by whoever is responsible for filling-out his disclosure forms…BUT, Barnes’ financial situation is starting to smell to High Heaven with all these disclosures of tax issues with the IRS, and how he claims he owns property when he doesn’t.

AND that one property the Savannah Morning News discovered was based on them researching only the 141-page, 21-Meg Tax Year 2009 PDF Tax Return. Who knows how many other holes there are in ownership of depreciated properties there are on Barnes’ other tax returns?

In today’s Savannah Morning News, they reported that on Roy Barnes’ 2009 income tax return, he claimed to have owned a rental home in order to help himself to a depreciation allowance on that rental property.

Not so, according to Cobb County Property Tax Records. The county’s records show that his daughter and son-in-law have owned the home since 2007.

Barnes’ campaign manager stated to the SMN: “Because Roy owned several properties on the road,” Runge said, “an error was made in the accounting process, and that error will be fixed immediately.”

PV’s Snorts In Response: Can you say BULLSH*T!? An excuse like “Golly, my boss nearly owns the whole road, and we just had these addresses stacked-up in an Excel file” doesn’t freaking fly!

Deal’s acts were of omission (that HE discovered what was missing from his state disclosures all on his own and amended his disclosures as such).

Roy Barnes’ act was one of commission…as in, he took a deliberate act to misinform and mislead. AND, misleading the Federal & State government is a whole ‘nother level of law-breaking.

You know what? Since the White House is MY house too, how about if I take depreciation on it on my tax return? I would have more legitimate claim over THAT deduction than Barnes would EVER have with an IRS tax examiner on HIS false claim.

It’s one thing to falsely claim you own something (Lie #1); it’s quite another to claim depreciation on it as a illegal tax shield. (Lie #2)

This is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more serious than Deal’s disclosure issues. WAY. MORE. SERIOUS.

Hey, Mr. Barnes? When you go “correcting” that “error”, make sure you inform the IRS that “Hey, umm…we lied to you and we owe you some back taxes, some penalties, and some interest. What can I write this check for to make sure we settle things with y’all? We’re just good ‘ole boys down here in Georgia and we ain’t meanin’ no harm….I’ll even send my cousin Daisy Dukes over to give you a check…you’ll like her a lot…”

AMENDMENT 2 – Impose a $10 Tax to Help Fund Trauma Centers

Please refer to this link to my e-mailed newsletter for the analysis of this amendment:

PV Recommends: VOTE YES on AMENDMENT 2

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AMENDMENT 3 – Allow Georgia DOT to Engage in Contracts Longer Than 1 Year

Please refer to this link to my e-mailed newsletter for the analysis of this amendment:

PV Recommends: Vote YES on Amendment 3

Ummm…ummm…ummm…gee, this is kinda hard (not really), but let’s look at what this tax does as it exists right now:

If you have a business, and you hold inventory, SOMEONE has to finance that inventory without getting cash flow INTO the business. That’s kinda the definition of “inventory.” It is work-product or merchandise that someone else has not yet purchased from the business.

If YOU (or whoever the business owner is) are the one financing that inventory, you have cash going out the door without cash coming in the door to help you cover the costs of that inventory.

If you have to pay taxes on the assessed value of that inventory, then whether or not you EVER sell that inventory, you have to cough-up a check to ye old State Government because they think you owe THEM money just for holding inventory to sell.

SO, for how ever many years the state has been requiring you to pay a tax on your inventory, they have legally been stealing your working capital that you use to maintain the operations of the business. (Note: If you have never had a business course OR you are like Jay Bookman/Cynthia Tucker/Barrack Obama/Joe Biden et al., who have no freaking clue as to how business really works, you will never get this concept of “working capital”).

AND…if you have no “working capital” financed by, say, a bank or your own cash or your own credit cards, you’re screwed as far as being able to continue to run your business. Does the State care if you are able to continue running your business? No, not really. Screw you, they want their money and they don’t care about you.

BUT, this Ballot Referendum removes the power from the State to destroy your business. Quite frankly, we are more in favor of doing away with ad valorem taxes than we are about doing away with income taxes. Because income taxes are at least based on some net value of revenue minus expenses. Ad valorem taxes require you to pay whether or not you experience a profit.

PV Recommendation: Vote YES to Ballot Referendum to exempt Business Inventory from State Ad Valorem Taxation

The more we decrease the guvment from taxing us, the less control they have over our lives. This is, truly, a No-Brainer…unless you’re a Barrack Obama Liberal…and, you just have straw stuffed in that cranial space like Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.

AMENDMENT 5 – Amend Constitution To Allow All Property Owners To Be Treated Equally

Amendment 5 is a tad confusing when you read it, but upon research into the way the Constitution is currently written, I realized that this amendment correctly rectifies a previous amendment (either passed back in 1877 or 1945) that was written long ago by some Bubba Gumps who only conceived of a possibility of real property being located on a Georgia island (i.e., one surrounded by water) being suddenly designated as “industrial” by a state or municipality and causing their real property to go from being worth something to a potential value of negative infinity to $0.00.

All this requires is that if the property is suddenly designated to be part of an “industrial zone” that the property owner has the power to file a certificate in the superior court to convert that property to either be annexed into the city currently providing water service to it, or (if there is no water service to the property) to the municipality that serves the nearest fire station that is in the protection zone of that real property.

Before this amendment, the state constitution only allows owners of property sitting on islands to be given this capability. All this amendment does is allow equal rights to all property owners who, in one moment, can have their property designated as X, but the next moment some municipality decides to designate it as an industrial area, and render it unsalable or unusable.

I view this as providing equal rights to all property owners, regardless of whether that property is located on an island or not (and, how many islands, exactly, are there in Georgia?).

PV Recommends: Vote YES on Amendment 5

AMENDMENT 4 – Authorize Georgia To Engage In Multi-Year “Energy Performance” Contracts

Issue Background: Currently, there are hundreds of buildings the state owns that have very old and very costly heating and air systems to heat and cool the buildings, as well as lighting and plumbing systems. The state is shelling-out millions of dollars in operating costs, a significant portion of which could be saved were the state to upgrade these systems to be more energy and cost efficient.

However, the way one normally upgrades buildings to be more energy and cost efficient is to bid the project out and directly pay upfront for the upgrades. Problem with this method is that it requires upfront cash flow which, as everyone knows, the state is strapped for.

Enter-in the concept of the Energy Saving Performance Contract (ESPC). Here are a few good explanatory points from their Website on this:

Performance contracts divert funds that would be spent on utility bills into building improvements that lower energy consumption. The key feature of an ESPC is that upfront costs are paid by the energy services company (ESCO) via guaranteed energy savings. Under performance contracts, the ESCO also bears all of the risk because the company guarantees to pay any difference between guaranteed savings and actual savings.

Why don’t we have ESPCs in Georgia?
Some provisions in Georgia’s Constitution prohibit multiyear contracts and prevent the state from partnering with private companies, making Georgia one of the few states in the U.S. that cannot use this tool. The legislature overwhelmingly voted to propose the amendment and it now must be ratified by voters.

What are the benefits of ESPCs to the state?
ESPCs would allow Georgia to fast-track energy saving improvements to state-owned buildings. With ESPCs, improvements can happen immediately at no cost to the state. Without ESPCs, building improvements must be made using cash or general obligation debt, which slows down the process, wastes energy and diverts funds from other critical needs.

How do ESPCs help the environment?
ESPCs help install such technologies as efficient heating and air conditioning, low consumption lighting, geothermal energy systems, solar energy systems, and other innovations that lower overall energy consumption. In turn, this reduces state costs for energy and water.

This is the link to the Website that has more details about this issue, as well as provides several good Case Studies on how it has been successfully implemented in other states.

Really…this is a no-risk deal for the state to partake in. System upgrades are financed by only if there are savings experienced between what the state would have paid and what they are paying for with the upgrade. PV finds this to be a brilliant concept to employ.

PV Recommends: Vote YES on Amendment 4

Whether it’s the bad advice he gave School Board Member John Crooks on the change of a meeting agenda, or now we understand he also advised his client (the school board) that they could have meetings about a school board employee BEHIND closed doors (in direct violation of Georgia’s Open Meetings laws), it is far beyond time to fire his ass and COMPLETELY change law firms for this school board.

Read this story for a clue as to just how incompetent Brock is, and the MASSIVE disservice the law firm of Brock & Clay do to Cobb County for the money they get paid for Brock’s “legal advice (sic).”

http://www.mdjonline.com/view/full_story/3969795/article-Bynum–Board-violated-Open-Meetings-Act?

Enough is ENOUGH!!! Our taxpayer dollars are being WASTED!!!

As of 8/16/2010, the Georgia Gubernatorial Run-off Results are as follows:

290,734 = Nathan Deal
288,297 = Karen Handel

Deal wins by 2,437 votes. This total may change as military absentee votes come in and some provisional ballot votes.

BUT…parallel to this race was another race waged between two blogs in Georgia, this one and PeachPundit.com. Peach Pundit had at its helm RedState.com blogger Erick Erickson and a whole cadre of brainless sychophants who were all behind Karen Handel.

Similar to the Handel campaign’s “Bring It On/Scorched Earth” strategy, PeachPundit engaged in a parallel strategy of scorched earth with the multiple posts showing Handel as the “Dreamy” candidate and everyone else as the “Good Old Boy” candidate. And, in doing so, PeachPundit drove itself down into the ground of now having ZERO credibility in this state.

PV, on the other hand, helped provide fuel for the fire that catalyzed the opposition to Handel and helped defeat her on Run-Off Night.

SO, with this in mind, this is how the scoreboard between PV and PP now sits:

Wins/Losses

PV = 1
PP = 0

Credibility

PV = 100%
PP = – 100%

Style*

PV = 100%
PP = 100%

Substance

PV = 100%
PP = – 100%

Influence on the GOP Landscape

PV = 100%
PP = – 100%

* PP has a completely different style than PV, and for what PP does and how it does it, PV will acknowledge that their “style” is in a class all its own. [No comment necessary as to exactly how that “class” should be defined.]

Excerpted from the August 9, 2010 edition of The Beacon:

“We know this woman. Her ambition appears, at times, blind. Her thirst for power often approaches the throws of narcissism. Apparently, she’ll do anything to win, as evidenced by her nasty and appalling direct mail piece trashing Nathan Deal, a veteran who served his country admirably, putting his life on the line for freedom. For us, that mailer, beyond the pale of dignity, was the last straw. At the end of the day, respectable behavior matters. Is getting elected governor that important to her life? Does this woman who craves and covets the governor’s mansion so blatantly have no sense of decency?”

Read all about it HERE!

Interesting video by Mark Lane about Handel and the Voting Machines: