State Tax Revenue Dropping; Contingency Plan To Mine Shipwrecks For Gold Hits Rocks

No, this is not a reprint from last month, or the month before, or…

Overall collections were down 16.4 percent, or $207 million, from August 2008. Sales tax collections dipped 12.5 percent. Income tax revenue dropped 20.8 percent, in part because the State Department of Revenue was still issuing refunds from income tax returns filed last spring. Corporate income taxes were down only 1 percent and they are actually up for the fiscal year, which began July 1.

No worries, right? After all, we have lots of boats off the GA coast that we can clean up. Surely there’s some buried treasure hidden in at least one of them. How about some money for this shovel ready project? Feds say No.

The state Department of Natural Resources bid unsuccessfully for $7.2 million in federal stimulus money to remove 111 sunken or abandoned vessels in Georgia’s coastal waters off Savannah and Chatham County.

The grant could have solved two problems.

The work was enough for 253 jobs at a time of high unemployment, said Charles “Buck” Bennett of the DNR’s Coastal Resources Division.

Then there’s the boats – their number having grown to 129 since the DNR submitted its bid in March – which will remain at the bottom of the ocean or floating free.

Hopefully, a certain poster won’t think me mentioning shipwrecks invades the proper cone of silence demanded for a proper observance of National Talk Like A Pirate Day.