Gov. Brian Kemp is halfway to getting his income tax rate cut approved by the Legislature after the state House passed it in a mostly party-line vote Wednesday.

“It’s not the government’s money. It’s the peoples’ money,” said Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, who carried House Bill 1001 for the governor.

The measure would cut the income tax rate to 4.99% retroactive to the start of this year. It is currently 5.19%.

The bill accelerates a series of rate reductions set in place by lawmakers years ago, with the goal of reaching 4.99% as long as annual state tax revenues remained healthy.

The measure would delete the required revenue thresholds. It passed 106-66, mostly along party lines, after triggering an ideological debate.

Democrats said the tax reduction would cut $778 million from the budget, leaving less money to fill potholes, pay teachers and fund public safety. And they said it would benefit the wealthy the most.

Low-income Georgians would get an average of $60 back while millionaires would each gain an average of at least $2,000, said Rep. Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, the House minority whip.

“Can you help me better understand why it is the governor’s priority to continue to exacerbate income and wealth inequality?” he asked Wade.

Wade, a floor leader for Kemp, responded that the state has been fully funding education, while supporting law enforcement and helping communities recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene.

“What you’re discussing is more of a partisan talking point,” he said, adding that all Georgians would benefit from an income tax cut “that’s going to put that much more money back into our state’s economy.”

The measure now goes to the Senate, which adopted two income tax cuts earlier this month, both reducing the rate to 4.99% and one of them pushing it further, to 3.99%, by 2028.

Capitol Beat is a nonprofit news service operated by the Georgia Press Educational Foundation that provides coverage of state government to newspapers throughout Georgia. For more information visit capitol-beat.org.