Georgia race brings competing tax relief proposals

Election day is two and a half weeks away and early voting is well underway. Tonight, we're hearing from one of the candidates for governor about her plans to try and lower prices for Georgians. Fox 5's Russ Spencer sat down this week with Democratic candidate and former mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Bottoms says to start, suspend taxes on food to make groceries and other day-to-day products cheaper. to allow local governments to suspend their grocery tax or end it completely if they can absorb it in their budgets and for the first year we are asking to set aside money in the state budget so that there can be a stop gap for local governments who want to do this and then it gives them an opportunity to plan ahead local governments collect grocery taxes but we also want to permanently end taxes on things like diapers and baby formula and feminine hygiene products. We've reached out to Bottom's opponent, Republican Rick Jackson, for an interview as well. Jackson has proposed cutting income taxes and freezing property taxes. Earlier tonight, our political panel reacted to the former Atlanta mayor's interview and the plans from both candidates on Red Clay One Down. Here's what they had to say. The income tax freeze helps those at the very top of the scale a great deal more than a grocery tax helps those at the bottom of the scale. And so it's a matter of which group of voters the tax proposals by the two parties most impact and most help. And I think that the grocery tax would be a popular new policy, and it certainly is something that in some states groceries are not taxed. This is not going to be a major cost saver for Georgia's families. You're talking about one penny on the dollar. If you have $100, $150 grocery bill, that doesn't add up to a whole lot. But what we're talking about in the Rick Jackson campaign is having triggers that do away with the gas tax. If there's a certain type of spike in gas prices, certainly we're in one of those right now. Rick Jackson's trigger would have taken off the gas tax earlier than what Governor Kemp did when he did it last week. So we'd have had a longer period of savings. And that's over 30 cents a gallon. That's a significant savings. More on what they had to say. For more on what they had to say, check out today's episode on Fox Local. You can also live stream every weekday on Fox Local at 8 p.m.