Georgia pockets additional $5 billion, possibly giving state a total budget surplus of $10 billion

Georgia is seeing a third year of huge budget surpluses after the state collected another $5 billion. Georgia’s surplus revenue may hit a total of $10 billion.

It's the third year of huge surpluses, after $3.7 billion in 2021 and $6.4 billion in 2022, and critics say Republicans are purposefully holding down spending while cutting university budgets, refusing to fully expand Medicaid health insurance to poorer adults and watching state employees flee.

Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst with the liberal-leaning Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, said leaders "are actively choosing to leave billions on the table to accrue increasingly large reserves for no clear purpose."