"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better." — President Theodore Roosevelt, in his "Man in the Arena" speech.
The Georgia General Assembly’s Joint Study Committee on Critical Transportation Infrastructure Funding recently published its findings calling for an increase in annual transportation spending of $1 billion to $1.5 billion. In doing so, it recognized a strong transportation infrastructure lies at the heart of our state’s future success, and we ignore its present weaknesses at our peril.
In response, the Georgia House leadership has placed on the table its transportation plan, and the long knives of opponents have quickly emerged. An alphabet soup of organizations are cranking out their calls to respective members to oppose the plan including GSBA (Georgia School Board Association), GMA (Georgia Municipal Association), ACCG (Association County Commissioners of Georgia) and, of course, the usual assortment of naysayer organizations who can collectively be labeled by the acronym CAVE (Committees Against Virtually Everything).
These organizations so far have one thing in common: They denounce the House leadership plan on the table but offer no viable alternatives despite the fact our transportation woes endanger our safety, dampen our quality of life and impede our economic development. It is time for these organizations to understand:
1. Almost half our roads and bridges are rated in fair or poor condition; this means our school children are riding on unsafe roads.
2. Our city residents are stuck in some of the worst commutes in the country.
3. Our economy in every county suffers without a strong transportation network when businesses cannot get the goods, customers and employees they need to grow and prosper.
4. While government should not try to do everything, there are a few things it must do well, like transportation, and that costs money.
The Georgia House leadership plan does the following:
• It phases out the practice of allowing state and local governments to divert sales taxes collected on gasoline to their general funds for spending on non-transportation items. This has crippled our ability to meet our transportation needs. Approximately $180 million in state gasoline taxes and $500 million in local gasoline taxes are diverted to state and local general funds each year. It is time for gas taxes to be viewed as a user fee devoted exclusively to transportation.
• It abolishes sales taxes on gasoline and replaces them with an excise tax that, under our state Constitution, must be used exclusively for transportation purposes. This provides security against future elected officials jeopardizing our long-term transportation needs by siphoning off money for their short-term pet projects.
• It devotes $100 million in bonds to mass transit, the state’s first major investment in this vital part of our transportation needs.
• It provides local governments with the ability to directly raise money for local transportation needs.
• It imposes a $200 user fee on alternative fuel vehicles ($300 for commercial vehicles) to ensure these vehicle owners pay their fair share toward transportation.
The Georgia House leadership plan is not perfect – few proposals ever are – and constructive debate at this point is critical in developing the right transportation plan for our state. It is time for GSBA, GMA, ACCG, CAVE and others to move beyond their “just say no” criticisms and offer meaningful alternatives if they do not like the one presently offered.
We need at this moment a lot more leaders who dare to enter President Roosevelt’s arena and “actually strive to do the deeds” to protect our future, and a few less mindless critics who are merely “cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
