A break veterans have earned
State Rep. Richard Smith, R-Columbus, had, and has, the right idea. He’s had the right idea for a dozen years now. What he hasn’t had is enough political support — or, it now seems, the right legal opening to make is idea into law.
His idea, as you are no doubt aware, is to make military pensions exempt from Georgia’s income tax.
That would seem to be a more than reasonable policy, especially in this state with such a significant military presence and historic military tradition.
The snag, according to a letter Smith received earlier this week from House Deputy Legislative Counsel Rick Ruskell, is that Georgia law wouldn’t allow the state to exclude armed services pensions from state income tax unless it would also ”provide for a similar exclusion with respect to all other public pensions.”
Such all-or-nothing tax policy is certainly not a moral imperative. With no disrespect to the importance of other public employees, state or federal, there is no inherent unfairness in enacting a special tax clause for those who have served our country at the possible cost of their lives. Fifteen other states, including Alabama, already have such exemptions.
And yet, Smith said after the letter from the House attorney, “If we give it to retired military, we have to do all retired federal employees; and if we do that, we have to exempt all state employees.”
That’s not just a ridiculously big barrel for lots of very different kinds of public services; it’s also a prohibitively expensive one. The projected $110-$120 million cost of the military exemption would multiply if all public employee pensions had to be exempt.
Smith had hoped this was good timing for another try at the tax exemption, because of House Speaker David Ralston’s statewide focus on military issues. It’s also timely because, since the terror attacks of 2001, many military retirees now include veterans who served in the wars in Iran and Afghanistan.
Fifteen other states have found affordable ways to give retired veterans a tax break they earned in our service. Georgia should be able to as well.
No mercy
For those unalterably opposed to capital punishment, the hideous crimes of Charleston church mass murderer Dylann Roof probably did not change their minds about the death sentence he received Tuesday.
Some formerly on the fence, and certainly all who believe execution for such heinous crimes is true justice, probably feel today the sentiment President Bill Clinton articulated after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995: If any crime ever warranted the death penalty, this one does.
Roof has never shown the slightest remorse. What he has shown is closer to defiance and even pride: “I felt like I had to do it, and I still feel like I had to do it.”
Hate and rage thrive in a moral vacuum. Nobody need feel the slightest sympathy for this malignant hollow of a human being
This story was originally published January 11, 2017 at 1:08 PM with the headline "A break veterans have earned."