Tax, water and medical issues were prominently featured Tuesday in speeches by Georgia lawmakers.

As he has around the state in recent weeks, Georgia Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson trumpeted his plan to replace property taxes with an expanded sales tax on goods and services.

Property taxes have outlived their usefulness, Mr. Richardson said during a Columbia County Chamber of Commerce pre-legislative breakfast.

Most taxes were implemented more than a century ago, when the state and national economies were agriculture-based.

Retail businesses and other commercial ventures have long since replaced agriculture as the state's driving economic force, he said.

"We'll go from taxing dirt and buildings to taxing the exchange of money," Mr. Richardson said. His proposed constitutional amendment is titled Georgia's Repeal of Every Ad valorem Tax, or GREAT.

Even if the plan doesn't win approval from lawmakers and Georgia voters, Mr. Richardson still promised some tax reform measures.

The Hiram Republican wants to limit the reassessment of property values to 1 percent growth per year and cap the budget growth of local governments at the rate of inflation plus 1 percent.

Also during the breakfast meeting at Savannah Rapids Pavilion, state Sen. Bill Jackson, R-Appling, and state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, proposed adding reservoirs to better protect the state during drought.

The Augusta and Atlanta areas would be suffering much more from the drought were it not for Thurmond and Lanier lakes, respectively, Mr. Fleming said.

Nothing can be done by lawmakers to bring in more rain, but legislators can take steps to retain more water when it does rain, he said.

Mr. Jackson agreed with Mr. Fleming's assessment and said he would do all he could to prevent the tapping of the Savannah River.

"We've got to protect our water," he said.

Mr. Fleming also said he wants the Legislature to fund the construction of a new dental school building at the Medical College of Georgia. The current facilities are too small and old to properly educate future dentists, he said.

Rep. Barbara Sims, R-Augusta, said she would like to research measures to retain physicians graduating from MCG and encourage others to locate in rural areas of the state.

"If they're training in our wonderful state of Georgia, they need to stay," she said.