TRANSPORTATION
Political Insider Republicans ready for rematch on TSPLOST Jim Galloway
Two years after the humiliating, tea party-driven defeat of
a penny sales tax for transportation, Republicans in the state Capitol are
gearing up for a rematch. It is a mere study committee, but one that includes
top House and Senate lawmakers, including those who control the state budget,
plus Georgia’s top business leaders.
The timing is the chief giveaway of the committee’s
importance. The first hearing won’t occur until after the July 22 primary
runoff. And no recommendations will come before the Nov. 4 general election –
after which Georgia will have either a Democratic governor, or a Republican one
who will never be on a ballot again. There’s no doubt about
it: The central question hasn’t changed since 2012 – how to repair and grow a
network of roads, bridges and rails that has been starved of cash for decades.
Including the mess that is metro Atlanta.
“Our goal is really the funding source for this. How do we
find the sustainable stream of revenue that will carry us into the next 20 or
30 years?” said Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, chairman of the Senate Transportation
Committee and co-chair of this particular gathering as well. Gooch’s partner, House
Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Roberts,R-Ocilla, agreed. “We’ve got to
try to figure out a way, for us as a state, to put more money into
transportation,” Roberts said.
The formal name of their group is the Joint Study Committee
on Critical Transportation Infrastructure Funding. But the better name may be
the Plan B Committee.
The 2012 $7.2 billion TSPLOST vote failed in nine of 12
regions – including metro Atlanta. Perhaps it was always doomed by the rise of
the tea party, and perhaps that movement is now past its apex. In Tuesday’s
Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed may have seen a high-speed rail
connection between the Atlanta of 2050 and Savannah. But back here in 2014, the
territory should still be considered hostile. Only last Saturday, in Clayton
County, which has no transit system, arms had to be twisted before the county
commission relented and put a penny sales tax for MARTA up for a November
referendum. On the north side, Cobb County Commission Tim Lee has postponed a debate
over a rapid-bus system linking Acworth and midtown Atlanta until at least 2016.
But if anything, the
funding situation has worsened in the last two years. The Federal
Highway Trust Fund, fueled by an 18-cent per gallon tax on gasoline, is insolvent.
Fixing it may become yet another confrontation between President Barack Obama
and House Republicans in Washington.
Georgia, like other states, is also suffering from the
success of efforts to wean ourselves from Middle East oil. Owners of gasoline-powered
cars and trucks pay a four-penny state tax on every gallon. Three of those
pennies go toward transportation. A fourth goes to the state’s general fund.
Alternative-fuel drivers now get a free ride.
Funding options that the Plan B Committee will look at include grabbing that fourth
penny, which can be worth between $180 million and $200 million a year. Tolls
are another option, along with smaller versions of the 2012
TSPLOST, involving smaller groups of counties and fractional
sales taxes.
But the most delicate, long-term portion of the Plan B
Committee’s assignment may be designing a new way to tax alternative-fuel
vehicles. “We all want cleaner energy,
but at the end of the day, those vehicles are still traveling up and down our
highways, and we’ve still got to maintain (the roads),” Roberts said.
The House transportation chairman is familiar with that Oregon pilot program that looked
at taxing motorists based on odometer readings. “I’m not saying that’s the
model you look at, but at some point you have to start addressing those
vehicles,” Roberts said.
One civilian member of the Plan B Committee is attorney
Edward Lindsey of Atlanta, who until last week was a member of the state House,
and until May 20 was a Republican candidate for Congress. He resigned his state
House seat a few months early to take a seat on the committee designated for a
private citizen. With all those political obligations now behind him, I
suggested to
Lindsey that he could now play the role of Cassandra, the
unsparing predictor of the future. “If I remember the story of Cassandra, she’s
the truth-teller that no one believes,” Lindsey rejoined. “We’re at a crisis,
and part of it is that we haven’t convinced our citizenry that this is a
crisis,” Lindsey said. Georgia is spending only 60 percent of what surrounding
states are pouring into their infrastructure.
“You’ve got to respect the history here,” the former
lawmaker said. “We were created in the 19th century by transportation –
railroads. We made our great leap forward in the 20th century because of transportation.
That was the Atlanta international airport. “The challenge of the 21st century
is whether we’re going to drown in our earlier success,” he said. Like I said —
Cassandra.
It is a point of pride among those in the state Capitol that
Georgia, unlike the federal government, is constitutionally required to balance
its budget each year. Unlike Washington, it cannot operate at a deficit. The
Plan B Committee will have to persuade Georgians that neglect is just deficit
spending by another name, a tax that is levied without a referendum. Two years
later, it’s still a tough argument.
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/AtlantaJournalConstitution/server/GetContent.asp?contentsrc=primitive&dochref=AJC%2F2014%2F07%2F10&entityid=Pc01508&pageno=15&chunkid=Pc01508&repformat=1.0&primid=Pc0150800&imgext=jpg&type=Content&for=primitive
The 2012 $7.2 billion TSPLOST vote failed in nine of 12
regions — including metro Atlanta. Republicans are revisiting transportation
issues in the state. KENT D. JOHNSON / KDJOHNSON@AJC.COM
Comments
Gasoline taxes have been squandered by the DOTs. What was a
“use tax” became a slush-fund to subsidize public transit for “the few”. All
need to return to the “use tax” and abandon the Agenda 21 model and stop
funding high density projects and fluff.
Public transportation should be reabsorbed by the private sector with no
tax subsidies to become more efficient and less dependent.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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