Continuing its tradition from last year of inter-party venom and rancor, the Georgia legislature deadlocked on many key issues, even as the House Speaker denounced the Lt. Gov and the Governor dismissed the House Speaker as engaging in "tirades."  Most major issues were left unaddressed, although corporate interests managed to do quite well for themselves in the session.

On one hand, the broad deadlock saved state residents from House Speaker Richardson's stated goal to eliminate all property taxes, which would have plunged local government into crisis, and the legislature rejected a proposal for private school vouchers.

Instead, the legislature enacted a few modest achievements:

• Approved a $21 billion state budget, with a 2.5% pay raise for teachers and state employees

• Created a new state agency dedicated to building and expanding reservoirs to help Georgia through future droughts.

• Approved SB 169, which authorizes the Georgia Student Finance Authority to provide direct loans to students at an annual interest rate of 1%.

• Enacted a bill to freeze three major credit vendors to protect against identity theft.

On the other hand, the legislature largely failed to deal with two looming crises, the deteriorating trauma care across the state and traffic gridlock paralyzing commutes. 

• The legislature failed to pass HB 1158, which would have created a 15-hospital trauma care network funded by a $10 vehicle registration tax to help fund the hospitals.  Sen. David Adelman (D-Decatur) said, "It was a victim of petty politics," although a one-time $58 million appropriation will defray some trauma care expenses.

• The legislature also failed to pass SR 845, which would have allowed counties to join together and implement a 1-cent transportation sales tax.

Even as legislators gridlocked on these key issues, they did make time to pass a slew of corporate tax giveaways, so many in fact that the Chamber of Commerce declared the session "our most successful and productive, far exceeding our hopes and expectations."

The Georgia Budget Policy Institute identified over $200 million in special interest tax breaks rammed through the legislature, from exemptions of machinery from sales tax to cuts in energy taxes by business to timber industry tax breaks to film industry credits.

The worst industry giveaways of the session were in the area of health care. 

• First, HB 977 will give $146 million to insurance companies over the next 5 years by subsidizing high-deductible "Health Savings Accounts," squandering money that analysts estimate could have added an additional 31,000 low-wage workers and about 100,000 more children, to state Medicaid and PeachCare insurance by 2013.

• The state also will now allow surgeons to siphon off high-income patients to specialty surgery centers, even as they will be able to reject the uninsured, Medicaid patients and others in need of care, who will continue to burden underfunded state hospitals.

The legislature also weakened the independence of the statewide public defender system through HB 1245, by making its director a political appointee of the Governor.

Finally, in a nasty attack on undocumented immigrants, the legislature approved SB 350 and HB 978, which would jail and impound the vehicles of anyone caught driving without a valid license.