Here is the audio of House Speaker Glenn Richardson blasting Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle during the session yesterday. You can download the classless comments here (1.6 MB)

Here is the transcript:

The chair has a report for you on tax reform. I want to tell you that we've now passed the eleven o'clock hour out of abundance of caution trying to hope against hope the Senate would allow Georgians to have tax reform.

We passed a conference committee out that we had signed in the House and given to the Senate that they declined to sign. Only a few moments ago, the Senate indicated that the Lieutenant Governor of this state, Casey Cagle, would not allow a vote on tax reform in the Senate that let Georgians decide.

You can henceforth, when you go home on the tag tax, tell everybody that it has a new name, it's called the Cagle birthday tax. And every time they pay it they can think of Casey Cagle because Casey Cagle solely and exclusively left it on for them and I hope Georgians by the 9 million will thank him tomorrow and will flood him with e-mails and tell him "we're sick of Casey Cagle. Time to get a new Lieutenant Governor in this state."

Well, his obstructionist tactics served no useful purpose this session. He has been obstructionist on water, education, transportation, trauma care and all issues important to the people of this state, and he has stopped meaningful chance for tax reform for the people of this state and it's time we call it what it is.

We're gonna try to do one or two other little things, but tax reform, and all the work that was put into it, is now dead.

The Speaker can blame Casey Cagle if he would like. But the reason there was no meaningful tax reform in Georgia this year is because House Speaker Glenn Richardson would not back away from the car tax. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle's proposal to cut the income tax would have been more of a pro-growth tax policy move because it would have reached more people and put more money back into the economy.

If the legislature had cut ad valorem tax the state would have had to subsidize the portion of the ad valorem tax owed to local governments. That would have likely result in a tax increase somewhere else along the line.

Cagle may have wanted the income tax cut because it could be vetoed by the Governor, who has cold to the idea of allowing Georgians to keep more of their hard earned money. Perdue isn't up for re-election and Cagle could have just passed blame off. Remember the Speaker's ad valorem tax cut was a constitutional amendment and wasn't subject to a veto.