T-SPLOST raises several questions

But questions remain.

The T-SPLOST move is an effort to add another penny sales tax to pay for various transportation needs in the region. This is not a statewide vote, however, it is a regional vote, the first of its kind.

Barrow, along with other counties, will vote on whether or not to levy the tax in the Northeast Georgia region. A number of regional, county and city road projects have been targeted for those funds if approved (see the local list in the op-ed article.) And approval isn’t by county; if Barrow County voters vote against the idea, but a majority in the region vote in favor, then the tax will be imposed.

While there is little argument that some areas of the state (especially Metro Atlanta) need to upgrade roads, there is much disagreement about if T-SPLOST is the answer. Given the state of the economy and the sour reputation of government, there is no assurance that this additional sales tax will pass.

There are three main questions that remain unresolved in the T-SPLOST effort:

1. Is the T-SPLOST regional vote Constitutional? When discussion first began several years ago about a sales tax on a regional basis for transportation, most state political leaders assumed it would be paired with a Georgia Constitutional amendment allowing for regional, multi-county tax districts. The reason is that currently, the state constitution only allows state-wide or local tax districts. But when the state began to move on this bill in 2010, that provision for a constitutional amendment was gone. This year, a Republican legislator from Northwest Georgia attempted to have the T-SPLOST vote delayed until the state could get such an amendment. That effort failed. So there is a question about the legality of regional taxing districts. The essential question is, can larger population counties in a region impose a sales tax on the smaller counties even if the smaller counties vote against the T-SPLOST?

2. The second question about T-SPLOST is whether or not the Georgia Department of Transportation should be given millions of new dollars to waste. A 2009 audit found that the GDOT was so unorganized “to the extent that GDOT was ripe for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.” Then Gov. Sonny Perdue likened the GDOT’s operations as “Enron-type accounting.” As a result of the scathing audit, the federal government froze GDOT’s grants. None of this was a surprise. The GDOT has long been mismanaged; it is a political hothouse where influence peddling and political weight is used to make road decisions. So is the T-SPLOST really needed, or will those dollars also fall into the pit of waste and abuse that has long defined the state’s top transportation agency? Adding to that are the inane decisions that routinely define GDOT operations. Need a traffic light at a dangerous intersection? According to GDOT, you have to wait until enough people get killed to justify that. And what about those HOT lanes now going into Atlanta? Despite the fact that taxes built that section of I-85, now drivers have to pay extra if they use that lane. The HOT lane created a traffic nightmare because it took away a large percentage of the interstate’s carrying capacity. Given the GDOT’s history of waste, abuse and inane decisions, should we vote to give them even more tax money?

3. The final question about the T-SPLOST relates to a provision in the law that would punish counties in a region that fail to approve the new tax. Although legislators have framed the vote as letting taxpayers decide, they didn’t create a level playing field for the vote. If a region fails to approve the tax, then the state will punish the counties in that region by forcing them to match state funds at a higher rate. Rather than a state 30 percent match, counties would have only a 10 percent state match. That’s not a fair system. It’s like saying you have the right to vote on an issue, but with a gun pointed to your head: “Vote my way or die.” Such smarmy tactics are a discredit to good government. If the T-SPLOST issue has merit, then why did the legislature create a punishment for regions that didn’t want the new tax?

There is a strong anti-tax sentiment today. As the economy has floundered, the private sector has been much harder hit by cutbacks than the government sector. Many public agencies have continued to spend rather than making cuts. The public isn’t amused and has given a strong voice to the idea of “no new taxes.”

Still, the public often supports sales taxes, figuring that they can’t fight higher taxes anyway and that at least with sales taxes, everyone pays something.

It will be interesting to see how the public feels when the T-SPLOST comes up for a vote in July.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.