Gov. Kemp and Lawmakers Ignoring Proven $100 million Annual Revenue Source
Opinion, Politics January 20, 2021
System working in Oklahoma since 2010 involves no sports betting
Written and submitted by D.A. King
Georgia voters should be asking why Governor Kemp and all concerned under the Gold Dome are ignoring a proven successful process to create a new revenue stream estimated to add about $100 million to Georgia coffers annually.
It’s a refundable fee on money wired out of the state that has been working in Oklahoma for more than a decade and will not cost state tax-filers a penny.
Many of us would be keen on hearing about this from the assorted state lawmakers pushing to start the casino gambling stone down the hill by legalizing sports betting as source of revenue. With the current ongoing pandemic budget woes, $100 million in new, yearly revenue seems like real money.
Well-written legislation was introduced in previous years that would mimic a working system in Oklahoma that has added to that state’s budget since 2010. The Gold Dome legislation is still readily available. This idea may require citizen pressure to receive the focus it warrants because the “business first” special interest lobby in Atlanta has worked hard to keep the proven system out of public sight or official consideration. The measure has never seen a hearing.
Oklahoma has shown us a way to tap into the enormous amount of money that is sent out of Georgia every year that now goes nowhere near the Georgia economy or state coffers – and the best news is that the majority of that money comes from drug dealers and illegal aliens!
What is it? A small, 100% refundable fee on funds wired out of Georgia that tax-filers easily recoup on their state tax returns. In simple terms, it goes like this: Let’s say you wire $1000.00 to Aunt Tilly in New York to help with her rent – or you send part of your under-the-table cash wages from your landscaping job to family in Oaxaca. When the payment is sent out, the wire service would add on a small extra fee (around 2%) – which you would get back when you file your tax return or a simple, short form explaining that you are not required to file a return.
The wire transfer agency would be compensated by the state for the collection effort.
The fee would be added to all the money the criminal black market – including illegal drug dealers and “undocumented workers” wire home literally every day.
The government of Mexico alone received about $25 billion American dollars in 2019, mostly from its citizens living here in the good old USA. That is more money than Mexico made on oil revenues. “Against initial estimates and despite the COVID-19 crisis, we estimate that remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean will reach US$ 70.4 billion (+6.0%) and in Mexico to US$ 39.5 billion (+8.4%) in 2020” according to economists who study the topic.
According to the Oklahoma Tax Commission for the year 2019, Oklahoma realized more than $19 million from the refundable wire transfer fee system, largely provided by black market labor. According to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, Georgia has more illegal aliens than Arizona – and many more than Oklahoma. We don’t have figures on how many American dollars are sent out of Georgia by drug dealers, but Atlanta is a known terminus for that insidious organized crime.
The income for the state in this genius plan comes from the fact that the huge majority of criminals in the underground economy do not file a tax return.
Everyone who files a state tax return or special short form can get the fee back. Fake news from the Atlanta Journal Constitution on a previous attempt to see passage of this available revenue stream bill requires me to repeat: The fully refundable wire transfer withholding would apply to everyone who wires money out of Georgia, regardless of its final destination.
The AJC falsely reported that the fully refundable wire transfer fee concept is a “tax” and apply only to foreigners sending money to their home countries. And they didn’t seem to like the idea that it would affect illegal aliens.
We hope the Governor Kemp and concerned, responsible legislators will take a hard look at the proven $100 million a year revenue program for themselves – maybe even give it a hearing.
Georgia voters should do more than merely hope. Governor Kemp’s office is 404-656-1776.
A recognized authority on illegal immigration and Georgia’s General Assembly, D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society. He is not a member of any political party. @DAKDIS
Gov Kemp Appoints Replacement Insurance Commissioner with Ties to Anti-enforcement Immigration Lobbying Group, GALEO
Politics, State & National June 18, 2019
By: D.A. King
Last week, Georgia Republican Governor, Brian Kemp, announced his appointment of a metro-Atlanta police chief, John King, to be the replacement for the now-suspended elected Insurance Commissioner, Jim Beck. In Georgia, Insurance Commissioner is a statewide, constitutional office.
Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of the corporate-funded, anti-enforcement lobbyist group, GALEO, was quick to send out a media release praising the “historic” appointment and boasting that King had assisted the activist group as keynote speaker at a GALEO breakfast fundraiser several years ago.
“Congrats to Chief King, close friend of @GALEOorg !” was the much-repeated celebratory post on the GALEO Facebook page.
Kemp’s Insurance Commissioner appointee has no background or experience in the insurance industry.
Kemp’s appointment of the GALEO-connected police chief to Insurance Commissioner comes as a shock to many Republican voters in the state. Georgia’s conservative U.S. Senator David Perdue stopped the Obama nomination of a one-time GALEO board member, Dax Lopez, to a federal bench seat in 2016 because of his concern with the GALEO relationship.
DeKalb State Court Judge Dax Lopez. Image: Daily Signal
Perhaps unknown to most Republican voters, in addition to marching in the streets of Atlanta against enforcement of existing federal laws on immigration, GALEO and its director are well-known in the state Capitol for lobbying against state legislation aimed at reporting criminal aliens to federal authorities and establish an official database of illegal aliens serving time in the state’s prison system.
GALEO lobbies against voter ID, official English and local jails honoring ICE detainers. Executive Director Gonzalez is known to verbally attack female legislators when he does not approve of speeches or positions on illegal immigration. In 2011, Gonzalez posted this angry explanation of being asked to leave the Georgia Capitol when he lashed out at state Senator Renee Unterman for a speech she made on the floor of the senate.
GALEO online poster opposing 2018 legislation to improve reporting of illegal aliens to federal authorities
State rep. Katie Dempsey. Image: Georgia General Assembly
In 2011, GALEO’s Gonzalez was escorted out of a Rome, Georgia luncheon that featured a panel discussion on immigration when he began yelling at diminutive state Rep Katie Dempsey as reported by the Rome News Tribune.
Gonzalez is a former lobbyist for the radical MALDEF corporation. GALEO founder, former state Senator Sam Zamarippa was a MALDEF board member. MALDEF founder Mario Obledo is best remembered for his promise that “California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. They ought to go back to Europe” on the Tom Likus radio show in 1998.
According to the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders.
Kemp ran on a platform that included his now famous “I got a big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take ’em home myself,”
Kemp and a GALEO fundraiser – Advice from a liberal AJC political blogger
Republicans are learning that before he was elected governor, then Secretary of State Brian Kemp also gave GALEO a fundraising boost when he attended the annual GALEO Power Breakfast fundraiser in 2015.
On GALEO, the liberal AJC political blogger informed readers today that the Republicans will need to court the illegal alien lobby group as a necessary first step to “court Hispanic votes in the future” which ignores thirty years of election results since the Republican immigration amnesty of 1986.
All this creates a simple question: Does appointee John King agree with the GALEO agenda? He is due to be sworn in in the next few weeks, somebody should ask.
Governor Brian Kemp’s office can be reached at 404-656-1776 and [email protected]
D.A. King is president of the Marietta-based Dustin Inman Society