It’s no secret that most municipalities are urging a "yes" vote on TSPLOST. Without it, local governments are going to have to look at other ways to raise funds for traffic and transportation projects. But did you know local chambers of commerce and even businesses have been recruited to do the same thing?
According to Jim Galloway, political insider for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, more than 400 businesses, including some of metro Atlanta’s largest, have signed on to turn out extra voters who have been given a firm understanding of the importance of a “yes” vote on July 31. Sam Williams, president and CEO of Metro Atlanta Chamber, which is reportedly coordinating the turnout effort, has said the effort is even bigger than the Tea Party.
Galloway added that most voters expected to turn out for the primary will be Republican.
"Not a deck stacked for passage of a new sales tax," he wrote. However, the voters who turn out at the behest of their employers may behave more like moderate voters, which could make a difference in a close contest.
Do you feel the pressure yet? How do you feel about such a large, coordinated effort to get you to check "yes" for TSPLOST on July 31?
This will fund projects in Fulton and Dekalb, and be paid for by folks in the surrounding counties. And pretty much none of the projects on the list will do anything to improve traffic. Let's combine that with the government's complete inability to spend money responsibly, and you can pretty much guarantee that I won't be supporting this bill, and be encouraging others to do the same.....
Pressure? What pressure? I feel as though I’m standing between a junkie and his/her fix, it’s UNNERVING… BUT I am going to “Just say NO!” If you can’t justify something clearly after spending MILLIONS of dollars to do so and then have to admit it WON’T do what your ads claim - what’s the point? Per ARC - NO impact on commute times. When officials like our governor have to say they are NOT supporting a tax increase in conflict with pledges they made to the get elected – “because the people are voting it” and it’s “NOT a legislative action” - to the point even POLITICFACTS calls Flip-Flop and Pants on Fire,REPEATEDLY. (For the record - If it wasn’t a legislative ACTION, how did it get to the ballot sir?) Many local government are planning to use their estimated 10 Percent or so cut to close out pre-existing TSPLOST projects within their own jurisdictions, could that be because they didn’t collect enough sales taxes as they forecasted locally? Transportation shouldn’t be "HARD Sold" like Mike’s Lemonade or a Time-Share, but if you have to, maybe this bill is NOT the best way to go and they KNOW it...
Sorry as soon as this fails, the valuable components will find a way to be done!!!
No, but I definitely feel pressured to vote AGAINST it, and rightfully so.
How about instead of new taxes on EVERYONE, why not just let the people who use a certain infrastructure, service or good, pay for it? Need a new road? Let the people who will use that new road pay for it with individual fees levied upon each use of the new road. Need improvements to an existing road? Let the people who use that existing road pay for it with individual fees levied upon each use of the existing road. Need a new rail or bus transit line? Let the people who will use that new rail or bus transit line be responsible for the cost of its construction with individual fees levied upon each use of the transit infrastructure in the form of FARES paid each time someone uses the transit line. If you use it, you should pay for it. If you don't use it, you shouldn't have to pay for it, it's that simple!
Enough-is-enough! The sales tax, or most any taxes will never be enough to fund this state's seemingly increasingly needs, including this wholly inadequate T-SPLOST which is a lazy, half-hearted, uninspired and misguided attempt to fund only a mere fraction of this region's estimated $160 billion in transportation needs while also attempting to shield the public from the TRUE and POLITICALLY-UNFLATTERING COSTS of providing, maintaning and expanding transportation infrastructure.
The same distance-based user fee approach can also be used to fund the initial construction and continuing operation, maintenance and expansion costs of transit lines, which collect at least a partial user fees each time a passenger boards a bus and pays a fare. Transit fares must be raised to cover much more, if not all, of the cost of constructing, operating, maintaining and expanding transit lines, if transit, like roads, is to be fully-funded to the point of being effective enough to help traffic flow smoothly.
Pressure to not support it? Y-E-S!
Dawn Siska and her husband are absolutely right. Government is an insatiable monster and feeding this monster only makes it more powerful. The government needs to learn how to use what money they already get more wisely just as ALL of us have to do. You don't end government waste by giving them more money. Please people, vote NO on the TSPLOST!
Flash forward to today. The HOV lanes outside of the perimeter are no longer HOV lanes and have been converted to pay lanes. Apparently State government decided their addiction to our money is more important than our need for clean air and less congestion. Thanks, that great, what a great bunch of great folks, our government. Here comes the TSPLOST. The problem, they say, is that our roads are too congested. We need to untie Georgia, they say. Now, instead of coming up with ways to encourage people to drive less, the solution is to build BIGGER roads. Greeeeeeat. Let's encourage people to drive even more. Now we consume more fuel, which also puts more money in the State's coffers. Pollution, meanwhile, gets worse, government waste increases, and our quality of living goes down. The TSPLOST is NOT the answer.