House Small Business Development Committee
Chairman Mike Cheokas (R-Americus) and his Committee and adopted its Committee Rules. This Committee will operate with four subcommittees: 1) Barriers to Regulation (chair is Representative Tim Barton (R-Calhoun)); 2) Retail Hospitality (chair is Representative Bill Yearta (R-Sylvester)); 3) Incentives and Education (chair is Representative Dale Washburn (R-Macon)); and 4) Agribusiness (chair is Representative Steven Meeks (R-Screven)).
The Committee heard presentations from NFIB, Nathan Humphrey, which indicated that the small business climate in Georgia was overall good Georgia has AAA bonds; low tax rate; it is a “right to work” state; has a solvent unemployment trust fund; has a workers’ compensation fund; and is a diversified economy. NFIB’s Humphrey pointed out the COVID-19 response and allowing businesses to open; the passage of HB 486; passage of covid liability protection law, SB 359; and the $1.5 billion for unemploymen
Here s How Much Every State Spends on Public Health
By Andrew Lisa, Stacker News
On 1/30/21 at 10:00 AM EST
Public health is the branch of medicine that deals with prolonging and improving the quality of life across entire populations. Such a task is wide-reaching and can include anything from public education campaigns and hygiene mandates to disease-prevention initiatives and anti-addiction or non-smoking initiatives.
In the United States, individual states are responsible for creating, administering, funding, and overseeing public health policies, services, initiatives, and governing bodies but not all states put an equal amount of resources into the cause.
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Topics of conversation today under the Gold Dome covered a variety of policies from vaccine availability and distribution, to the FY 2021 Amended Budget, and casinos and horse racing. Georgia schools are pressing for vaccines for the teachers and staff while the Department of Public Health has ratcheted down vaccine distribution to at least one county for their taking educators “out of order.” Late yesterday, Senator Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) placed in the hopper his legislation establishing the Horse Race Commission, SB 30.
Meanwhile, the House tackled its first major bill with the passage of a Committee Substitute on HB 80 with a vote of 149-20, our state’s spending plan for the remainder of this fiscal year.
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Lawmakers returned to the Capitol despite the downpour of rain and quickly got down to work for the people of Georgia. The first task tackled was the House Appropriations Committee taking action on its complete recommendations for the FY 2021 Amended Budget. After hearing the presentation of the recommendations by Chairman Terry England (R-Auburn) which he acknowledged had been on a “harried pace”, and swiftly moving the legislation forward out of the Committee, the Chairman announced that HB 80 would be on the floor of the House on Thursday morning. Our team will keep you posted as the budget makes its way through the process. The Committee Substitute on HB 80 is found in this link. The Committee Tracking Report is in this link, showing differences between the Governor and House versions of the proposed FY 2021 Amended Budget.
“We asked that patients don’t start texting or calling that number until 8:30 (a.m. Monday), (and) by about 9:30 we had already received 2,000 text messages and almost 400 voicemails, so we are slowly making our way through that,” said Jade Ranger, co-owner of The Prescription Shoppe, on Monday.