Sales tax plan would fund transportation

Commuter trains, expanded highway freight routes, bigger highways skirting Atlanta and possibly new toll lanes could all be paid for by a statewide tax proposal announced in the Georgia House of Representatives on Monday.

The proposal would levy a 1-cent sales tax throughout Georgia and yield about $25 billion for transportation over 10 years, said Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain).

It includes a constitutional amendment that would require approval by the state Legislature and by voters in a referendum, Smith said.

Accompanying legislation will include a long list of projects and programs to be paid for with the sales tax money.

Smith said that it was a statewide plan designed to fill different needs in different regions, whether economic development or alleviating congestion.

The statewide approach “gives the best results to the citizens,” he said.

An 11-member oversight panel appointed by the governor, the lieutenant governor and the speaker would oversee the list, he added.

He said the projects that were ready fastest would get done first, but the panel would approve that project order.

The money would be administered by the State Road and Tollway Authority or a successor agency, Smith said.

A competing proposal for transportation funding is expected to come up in the Senate today.

The Senate proposal, introduced last month, would allow creation of multicounty regions and then require voters within the regions to vote on penny sales taxes in their areas to pay for projects there.

The regional proposal passed the Senate Transportation Committee last week by a unanimous voice vote.

Members of both chambers have said the two plans may not be priorities to pass this year because both would require approval by the voters and they wouldn’t go on the referendum ballot until 2010.

Monday morning, Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams said Smith’s measure may not even pass the House. “To get Republicans to vote for that kind of tax increase is probably pretty tough,” he said.

Williams added that in the Senate version, counties in rural Georgia would be able to decide whether to join a region, something important to rural legislators.

“We’re not imposing a tax when we vote on this plan,” Smith said. “We’re asking the people … to go to the polls.”

PENNY COULD PAY FOR:

Some metro Atlanta projects in the list:

> Expanded interstate highway interchanges

> Expanded highways skirting the area, like Ga. 20 and Ga. 92

> Commuter rail

> Beltline transit

> Multimodal station

> Arterial road expansion

> Managed lanes, possibly extra toll lanes, on Ga. 400