UPDATED
Speaker Richardson Has A Fall-Back Plan In Case GREAT Plan Doesn't Make It

(Update at 9:59 a.m. recasts story to add that Speaker shared same information with Georgia Chamber officials.)

(11/28/07) Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson has a fallback plan in case the GREAT plan, as initially outlined, doesn't make it.

That's based on some reporting today in The Augusta Chronicle on a speech Richardson gave Tuesday in Columbia County. It's also based on the comments of a knowledgeable source who said Richardson outlined essentially the same information in a conference call Tuesday with executives of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

In the Columbia County speech, he said if his plan doesn't make it he still has some ideas he wants to present.

Among them, limiting the reassessment of property values to 1 percent growth per year and capping the budget growth of local governments at the rate of inflation plus one percent.

The GREAT plan was originally rolled out as a plan to widen the sales tax to encompass many services that now go untaxed, in order to wipe out all property taxes. Later, the Speaker said that some property taxes would remain: those earmarked by voters to pay off debt. Still later, he floated the idea that only school property taxes would be wiped out while city and county taxes remained.

It remains a work in progress, he has said. He told the newspaper he will unveil more of his GREAT plan proposal on Dec. 10.