Vote No on the T-SPLOST

In early June of this year, Governor Deal signed an executive order freezing Georgia’s gas tax at current levels, preventing an increase that would have kicked in on July 1. The tax had been set to rise .8 cents per gallon. According to the Tax Foundation (and my math), this would have amounted to an increase of about 2.7% above the current Georgia gas tax of 29.4 cents per gallon. CBS Atlanta reported Governor Deal declaring that “taxpayers in the state should not have to take on the ‘burden’ of a gas tax right now.”

Yet Governor Deal has been very supportive of the T-SPLOST initiative across the state of Georgia, which for most areas, would amount to a tax increase of at least 14% over current sales tax rates. Of course, this new tax would apply to almost every retail purchase throughout the state (except gasoline), including prescriptions and food. It would be the largest tax increase in Georgia history.

Given that the average middle-class family spends tens-of-thousands of dollars in retail purchases every year, the T-SPLOST would add an annual burden of several hundred dollars onto these families. Such an increase is much greater than the increase the additional gas tax that Governor Deal rejected would have added.  

Of all of the arguments against this tax increase (and there are plenty), one that I rarely hear is, why is the largest tax increase in Georgia history suddenly so necessary for our transportation wellbeing? I mean, how did we ever fund, build, and maintain road projects prior to T-SPLOST?! As recently as 2010, the Georgia DOT itself pointed out that Georgia has some of the best roads in the country (which PolitiFact rated as “True”).

Last year, mainstreet.com rated the best roads in the U.S. by state. To analyze a state’s road system, mainstreet used four metrics: poor-condition mileage (percentage of roads in “poor condition”), bridges, fatalities, and congestion. Georgia ranked 10^th overall, receiving the top rating in poor-condition mileage. This was in spite of reports in 2009 by a state auditor and inspector general that prompted former governor Sonny Perdue to accuse the DOT of “Enron-like accounting.”

Now, speaking of the other arguments against the T-SPLOST, one of my favorites is that, though the T-SPLOST is required by law to expire after 10 years, we will, as Kyle Wingfield of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes, “be paying for it, or another tax, for decades.”

As I noted in 2009, often these SPLOSTs result in projects that require spending beyond the funding that SPLOSTs provide. (In the case of the T-SPLOST, this is more accurate for some regions than for others.) Of course, this requires more tax revenue, which means more and larger taxes. When it comes to the T-SPLOST, Wingfield declares, “It’s extremely unlikely that we would spend $2.4 billion on new infrastructure and then shut it down after 10 years. In that respect, the T-SPLOST is very different from a special sales tax for education, after which voters could decide they’ve built enough new schools.”

Another sad consequence of this tax is that it pits taxpayers of one county against those in another. For example, two out of 13 counties in Region 2—Forsyth and Hall—have 58% of the voters. As a sell to Hall County voters, many have deemed Hall a “recipient county,” receiving more money than it would pay in. It is EXACTLY this kind of thinking that has led to out-of-control taxes all across America.

For decades, liberals across the U.S., at the local, state, and federal level, have been notorious for pitting one voting constituency against another. As a method of buying votes and clinging to power, generous government handouts are promised to a particular group at the expense of the ever-shrinking constituency known as taxpayers. No self-respecting conservative should stoop to such tactics.

Also, as a recent Gainesville Times letter writer has noted, and as even liberal columnist Jay Bookman of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution points out, the T-SPLOST ballot language is very misleading. The ballot reads that the proposal “provides for local transportation projects to create jobs and reduce traffic congestion with citizen oversight.”

Bookman notes that in a 1974 case, Sears v. State, Georgia’s Supreme Court warned the Legislature against such actions that would “interject its own value judgments concerning the amendments into the ballot language and thus to propagandize the voters in the very voting booth, in denigration of the integrity of the ballot.”

The Court refused to declare such language illegal or unconstitutional. However, even T-SPLOST supporters should agree that such wording is nothing more than marketing language and has no place on an American ballot.

Georgians all across the state have a weak record rejecting any SPLOST. It is time to say enough. Vote NO on the T-SPLOST!

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

There’s Nothing ‘Logical’ About Continuing SPLOST

So the Times editorial board thinks that continuing the extra 1% Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is ‘logical.’ What is logical about government, at any level, continuing to tax and spend at the same, or higher, rate when its citizens are suffering under a recession and must reduce their own spending? When the public is cutting back, governments should be as well. Of course, governments should be operating with the tightest budget as possible at all times, but this is especially the case when the economy slows down.

Also, the argument that “40% of money paid into SPLOST will come from people who live outside of Hall County,” (as the Times put it) as another reason to support SPLOST, is not very logical. Presumably, governments in surrounding counties present this same argument when proposing their own SPLOST. (All nine counties bordering Hall have a 1% SPLOST. Gwinnett has only a 6% sales tax rate. It contains a SPLOST but not a LOST.) Therefore, whatever we may save in taxes by having non-Hall residents support our SPLOST, we probably spend supporting theirs.

Also, there is hardly a mention of how the 40% number is figured. “Officials estimate” is the phrase that is always used, but we’re never really told where they get the number. I’ve heard that the number comes from the fact that 40% of the daily workforce in Hall County is non-residents. If this is the case, I doubt very seriously that this number is anywhere close to accurate.

Along with the Times editorial in Sunday’s paper, Emily Bagwell and Cooper Embry of Hall Progress, who are both on the executive committee of the Hall County Chamber of Commerce, also had a column in support of SPLOST. One suspicious argument they use in favor of SPLOST is the fact that the millage rate in Hall County has decreased by 18% “from 2002 to today.” This is very misleading.

It is true, according to my own records, that the 2008 millage rate, at 24.43 mills, was less than the 2002 rate of 25.22 mills (although not by 18%). However, if we look at the millage rate year by year, along with the property tax that was actually paid, we get a more accurate picture. The following table, created from my own personal records, shows the overall millage rate for Hall County for the years 2002 to 2008, along with the rate of increase in what I actually paid:

Year	Millage Rate	% Increase in Amount I Actually Paid
2008	24.43	2.7%
2007	23.77	6.6%
2006	25.55	3.5%
2005	24.66	4.8%
2004	23.50	14.0%
2003	22.80	--
2002	25.22	--

(I didn’t include the 2002 to 2003 increase because our home was not complete during those assessments.)

As you can see, even though the millage rate decreased in some years, it rose in others. Yet even with millage rate decreases in some years, due to higher assessments I continued to pay more in property taxes. Some of these assessment increases came during times when home values were plummeting.

SPLOST supporters will argue that my increases would have been more if not for the SPLOST. However, it is unlikely that voters would have supported many, if any, of the SPLOST projects through increases in their millage rates.

Governments at every level will usually spend whatever the electorate will allow them. It is time for the frivolous spending and the ridiculous over-spending at all government levels to cease.

Philosopher and teacher Adam Smith, widely regarded as the father of modern economics, said “What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.” In other words, if my family is required to live within its means, even when times turn for the worse, this should be true of government as well.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com