Comprehensive coverage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will have Georgia’s largest team covering the Legislature in January. No one will have more expertise on issues that matter to taxpayers when legislators return.
Georgia Republicans are laying the groundwork for what could be a monumental effort to raise new revenue to fund transportation improvements, possibly by hiking taxes or imposing new fees.
In private gatherings and at public conferences, GOP politicians and their allies talk of the need to raise $1 billion in new revenue each year to maintain and improve the existing network of highways, roads and bridges. A larger annual infusion, they say, could speed along more projects on the state’s wish list.
“It is timely for us to take a serious look at it,” Gov. Nathan Deal said Tuesday at a state transportation summit. “The question of whether it’s going to be new revenue, and the source of that revenue, is the most important question we need to answer.”
The answer to that question is likely to dominate the legislative session that begins Jan. 12. And Georgia’s political class is far from united on the solution.
Most lawmakers seem willing to embrace less-controversial changes, such as shifting the fourth penny of a motor fuel sales tax back to transportation projects. But that will require a budgeting balancing act and only raise a portion of the funds advocates say they need. Boosting that total even more would require more sweeping changes.
A panel has spent much of the year developing options for the legislative session, and its report is due this month. Possibilities include increasing the fuel tax, imposing new tolls, employing a new scheme to tax drivers based on their mileage and adding fees for electric car owners. Another idea involves upping the state sales tax by 1 percent, an increase that could be partially offset by an income tax reduction.
State Rep. Jay Roberts, a co-chairman of the panel, told his colleagues he hopes to raise at least $1 billion a year for a long-term fix. He pitched it to wary Republicans as an economic development necessity to keep Georgia in the hunt for new jobs.
“It’s not an easy subject to deal with. And it’s going to be tough and it’s going to be something hard,” said Roberts, an Ocilla Republican. “I know it’s going to give some people heartburn, but we need to address it if we’re going to move forward.”
State Sen. Steve Gooch, the panel’s other co-chairman, cast it as an imperative: “We’ve got to start looking under every rock until we find the money to do what we need to do in this state.”
Deal said he’s willing to consider just about anything — “everything should be on the table,” he said — but his role in the debate remains unclear. He rarely spoke of transportation issues on the campaign trail, and he seems torn on the question of how much new funding is necessary.
At Tuesday’s summit, he questioned the accuracy of estimates calling for at least $1 billion in new revenue for infrastructure on Tuesday, and he cited a CNBC ranking that lauded Georgia as a transportation hub.
“We know we have deficits,” he said. “But on a comparative basis, maybe we should not be condemning ourselves too severely.”
Transportation officials point to an urgent need for more funding.
Keith Golden, who heads the state Transportation Department, outlined a list of pricey projects on the drawing board that can’t be funded with current taxing schemes, including more than $3 billion required to remake I-285 and new interchanges on I-20. The department, he said, has only $140 million to get through September, the end of the fiscal year.
“I can’t build any major projects,” he said, although other big-ticket items are underway through a combination of bond financing and new tolls.
The funding crunch is years in the making.
After years of infighting and legislative gridlock, lawmakers in 2010 allowed groups of counties to hold referendums to raise the sales tax to fund transportation improvements. That vote failed in metro Atlanta and most other parts of the state in 2012.
There has been no unified political effort behind a new effort until now, as business interests and lawmakers who were largely quiet about transportation during this year’s electoral campaigns have traded their silence for outspoken support.
It’s likely to put a bloc of Republicans, many who campaigned as fiscal conservatives with vows not to raise taxes, in a bind. Democrats, meanwhile, expect a conservative faction to revolt against the final proposal, and they want to be ready with the votes — and their own demands — if that happens.
Many Democrats privately say they hope to push for an influx of transit funding as part of the plan. They could have an unlikely ally in that endeavor.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a Republican widely believed to be seeking higher office, said that more funding for MARTA and other transit systems should be on the table. That’s an assertion that’s rare among conservatives in Georgia.
“We can’t avoid the issue of transit,” Cagle said, adding: “We have to recognize for the future that we have to embrace, and have a serious conversation, that this could become a true commuter option.”
About the Author
