My great-grandfather, William Rogers, once served on the Atlanta City Council. His son, my grandfather, my father and I all grew up in metro Atlanta. During this time, one constant has remained: traffic. Whether you are an Atlanta newcomer or your family has been here more than a century like mine, we all agree on the problem. So, what is the solution? Despite the best of intentions, it is not the T-SPLOST.
There are three fundamental reasons we should stop this massive tax increase before it starts. First, it does not solve the problem. Even proponents acknowledge that once fully implemented the plan shaves a single minute each way for an average metro Atlanta commuter. The roundtable which created the project list failed to follow the clear outline in the law which put traffic mitigation as the primary criterion for any project. Instead, the list looks like a Christmas dream for urban planners. A full 52 percent of the $8.5 billion tax increase will go to transit-related projects which have no proven record of reducing traffic congestion.
Second, it is disingenuous to suggest this is a 10-year tax. The success of Georgia’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) at the local level is that local projects are constructed and paid for during the time the tax is collected. Local schools, jails, courthouses etc. are finished during the collection of the tax. This is not so with the T-SPLOST. Many major projects will not be completed in 10 years. More troubling are the transit costs that will stay with us forever. Surely we are not going to shut down a train once the track is built. But who pays the 60 percent subsidies necessary for these trains? Future taxpayers. It is wrong to saddle future taxpayers with billions in burden, because of a so-called 10-year tax today.
Third, we are taxed enough already. Every time government comes up with some new solution, it comes looking for our wallets. Currently, most Americans pay 20 percent effective rate in federal taxes, 13 percent in FICA taxes, 6 percent in state income tax, 7 percent in state and local sales tax, 3 percent in property tax and 1 percent in various fees and taxes. All told, we pay half of everything we earn to some form of government. If government cannot solve one of its most basic functions — infrastructure — with half our money, it’s not the fault of the taxpayer.
The collective desire to relieve traffic congestions is not reason enough to make an $8.5 billion mistake. Let’s stop this train and re-commit ourselves to funding a traffic-engineer created list of projects with a single criterion: relief of traffic congestion. Along the way, let’s also be honest with the voters — a 10-year tax for 10-year projects, and nothing more.
Chip Rogers is state Senate majority leader.
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