Taxes for Roads

30% of our federal and state gasoline taxes have been misappropriated   to fund underutilized, expensive rail and public transit.  The federal department of transportation should be abolished and the federal 18.4 cents a gallon tax retained by the states to maintain the interstates.   

Funding rail and public transit should become a question for the states, counties and cities to answer.  We need to cut these lose to let rail find a way to become economically sustainable.  Public bus service can be returned to the private sector now.  It’s happening all over the country.  That would take over $2 billion in subsidies off the table in Georgia. 

Gasoline Tax

If we can restore the gas tax to a true use tax and restrict its use to roads, bridges, highways and interchanges, we should try living with our federal 18.4 cents per gallon for interstates  and our state 29.2 cents per gallon for roads.  We would have a total gas tax of 47.6 cents per gallon.  We sell 3 billion gallons of gasoline each year and that raises $552 billion from federal and $876 billion from state for a total of $1.428 billion per year.  If we add in county car tag taxes of $383,150,850, we should have $1.8 billion a year for roads.

Padded ARC Project Costs

The Project Costs in the Region 3 list of 190 projects has overcharges of 50 to 90 %.  We believe the actual value of the road projects are closer to $2 billion, not $6.5 billion. 

Wrong ARC Projects

Most projects in the list are unnecessary and are based on projected population increases.  These projects should be tabled.  Over $3 billion in this list are to expand public transit and bail out MARTA.  This should not be done at all.  All bus service should be private and MARTA should not expand, but should find a way to save the train system.

Repeal Regionalism

The Transportation Investment Act of 2010 should be repealed along with earlier laws that authorized 16 Nanny-Regions to “help” people do what they’ve been doing for themselves for a long time.

City and County Sovereignty

The state should assume full responsibility for interstate highways and Local government must be accountable for all other roads and bridges including roads designated as state roads.   Allocation of dollars to counties should reflect the type of road to be maintained.   The lane-mile method currently used counts dirt and gravel roads the same as paved roads and that isn’t right.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader