The Tea Party is claiming VICTORY in Georgia having defeated a measure to raise the sales tax in Atlanta by a penny in order to address the city’s massive infrastructure issues. The measure promptly lost by 26 points because DON’T TREAD ON ME or something despite having the support of GOP Gov. Nathan Deal and Dem Mayor Kasim Reed.
The bottom line: Most voters didn’t believe government would wisely spend the new tax revenues – estimated at about $8.5 billion over a decade – and seriously address traffic, which everyone here agrees is horrendous.
A humbled Mayor Reed spoke to supporters late Tuesday night saying he would “stick out my chin and take the loss,” but urged the region to go back to the drawing board to find another plan that voters might accept. Both he and the governor have begun talks about what to do now about alleviating traffic problems in the nation’s ninth-largest metropolitan area, with a population of about 5.3 million.
“What we need now is a bigger table, a bigger table for our friends who disagreed with us,” Mr. Reed said.
The proposal lost in all 10 of the metro area’s counties.
“People as exemplified by this vote have really lost faith in their government to mean what it says,” said Phil Kent, a local conservative commentator who pushed for a no vote.
The mass transit part of the plan was “totally rejected” by voters, most of whom don’t use public transportation, and many saw the road projects as government aid programs “for construction companies and real estate moguls,” he said.
And thus, the American Way triumphs: Georgians would rather sit in traffic for an extra couple of hours a week or so rather than cough up an extra nickel on that trenta iced coffee because LIBERTY. Infrastructure comes from the asphalt fairy anyway, and besides, the argument was that rich people will just pocket the money and not fix the roads, so why try to fix the roads? Our roads are broken, government can never be the solution, so the roads remain broken. Perhaps the city can contract roving bands of nomadic road crews.
Whoever came up with “Americans are mature enough to vote on taxation issues” really needs to get a scoop of hot road tar down their drawers.
[UPDATE] Thinking about this, what are the other options? Traffic is awful and it’s costing businesses and people millions, if not billions. You don’t want to pay to fix the problem. There are no other real solutions, unless you want to go with “Let’s just get rid of all the undesirables in the Atlanta Metro area” or something stup……Oh. Yes. Silly me. Tea Party.
MikeJ
This was the firebagger argument against the Affordable Care Act too.
BGinCHI
The South will rise again!
As soon as rush hour is over.
different-church-lady
Ray-peared that fer yer.
me
Where’s Sherman when you need him?
roc
To be fair, many road projects are a big lump of corporate welfare and a regressive tax is probably the *worst* way to pay for these sorts of things.
If you count on a consumption tax to pay for infrastructure you’re going to get a nasty surprise the next time an economic downturn depresses consumption.
eric
It appears that the only infrastructure project that conservatives support is a border wall. sigh.
Redshift
Oh, no it can’t, that would be tax money! Obviously, the problem will be solved by rugged individualists contracting roving bands of nomadic road crews to repair the roads that they personally use and nothing else.
Zifnab
I’m sure the Atlanta business community will overwhelmingly benefit from this decision to embrace small-government values. Good news, Starbucks owner guy! A dozen or so daily patrons aren’t going to drive out to your stand because the traffic is too thick. But everyone else will save a few cents on that $5 frappachino!
How soon till Atlanta embraces toll roads everywhere? That seems to be one solution to the problem. Just turn the streets over to price-gouging businessmen, and when people are charging you 10 cents/mile to use a two lane highway, everyone in a position of government can just shrug their shoulders and say “Our hands are clean, cause the free market done it.”
Phil Perspective
@different-church-lady: It’s actually a bit more complicated than that. Also, too, the local Chamber of Commerce backed this. Which tells you they couldn’t tame the beast they unleashed. Kinda funny in a way. If you are a smart growth/public transit person, why would you want a ton of money spent on new roads that probably won’t solve the traffic problem? And that’s for starters.
NCSteve
If we’re really going down the tubes as a nation, I’m pretty sure “Died of Irony” will be our epitaph.
The Randian ubermensch believe we must restrict the franchise to sober, sensible, propertied white males because otherwise dusky welfare addicted parasites will just vote themselves panem et circenses until the society crumbles away and the poor, beset, Noble Job Creators have no option but to go Galt. But, over and over again, it’s the sober, sensible, propertied white males who keep voting to let society crumble away, lest a penny of their money even tangentially redound to the benefit of the feared and despised dusky welfare parasites or, horror of horrors, result in more jobs for them.
Mark S.
Who on earth ever made such a ridiculous argument?
Redshift
@roc: Yeah, but raising any more progressive tax has long since been made into an unacceptable assault on FREEDUMB!, so it’s either a bad option or nothing.
JPL
I didn’t vote for it because of the regressive taxation. This is an issue that should be addressed by our local reps but they are afraid to vote for tax increases. Environmental groups thought to little went to rail and tea party types thought to much.
roc
@Redshift: So now that they can’t get a regressive tax through, what’s the solution? Surrender?
Carl Nyberg
Creating more roads has been a failed policy in the past.
Once the new roads are created then sprawl and development put more cars on the road. And the region is right back where they started.
My understanding is the proposal was biased toward new roads, something necessary to get Republican support.
Besides, it makes more sense to fund transportation infrastructure with a gasoline tax.
politifarce
Look in the mirror then. It’s not because of the teaparty. It’s because of the voters. Voters like Cole who bitch about Obama because Greenwald told him to because…DRoNEzZZZZ!
You gotta give the right credit. They are able to get behind and support their guy no matter how big an idiot he is. Bush and Rmoney are proof of that.
JPL
@roc: The solution is to elect reps that are not afraid to address the issue.
Villago Delenda Est
@Zifnab:
If your goal is to destroy an economy, this is a pretty solid approach to doing so.
I know I say this all the fucking time, but an obscure Scotsman figured all this shit out over two centuries ago and wrote a book about it. Now, admittedly, it’s a very long book, and admittedly, it’s not the easiest read for people who get all their information from Faux Noise, but damn, the guy nailed a whole lot of concepts in it.
CaseyL
I think Georgia should try the libertarian model, where consumers pay subscriptions and user fees to private companies to build roads, and the roads can only be used by people who are subscribers.
Let’s see how fast those costs go up so the road-building companies can maintain acceptable profit margins.
Let’s see how privatized infrastructure deals with things like emergency response to breakdowns, accidents, road rage, and the associated deaths and injuries – because either the emergency response will also be privatized, or the public emergency response services will also have to pay fees to access and use the roadways.
If people have decided they can no longer be bothered to support the public good and general welfare, they should really have a chance to experience what that anti-philosophy actually means.
Zandar
@JPL:
Horribly regressive toll roads are really going to suck then, because if the conversation in Atlanta is anything like the one in Cincy, that’s the next step.
fuzed
Privatize everything is the answer (the ones the RWNJ’s and their moderate but stupid patsy’s) will resort to. Like here in VA where two major highway expansion efforts are done with private $, and allow lots of the profit to fall to the companies (refrain: public losses, privatize gains).
And of course the insiders will gain, lots of lobbying jobs and grea$e to go around.
Mattminus
@different-church-lady:
Fixed it for you.
I wish I was kidding, but that is pretty much the prevailing attitude in the suburbs/exurbs. Also, car pooling carries with it suspicion of homosexuality.
I have two co-workers in the ATL area that are roommates, yet take separate cars to work lest anyone get the wrong idea.
gelfling545
Of all the ways to raise revenue I find the sales tax to be the most objectionable as it is entirely regressive impacting most severely on the poor. I’d rather pay more in my property tax or state income tax than eat away at the purchasing power of low income people even more. Perhaps these things will need to be postponed until a few more people return to sanity (it’s bound to happen but things may get even uglier beforehand) and can recognize that taxes pay for things we all use.
Carl Nyberg
To keep bamboozling the rubes in the GOP base, the Right Wing media keeps feeding the audience more and more outlandish, disconnected-from-reality BS.
The Democrats are amoral. They are waiting for the GOP to get so unreasonable that very few practical people will deal with Republicans.
A dysfunctional GOP is bad for the country, but Democrats believe it’s good for the Democratic Party. So, Democrats wait for traditional Republican allies to abandon the party.
Villago Delenda Est
@CaseyL:
Deport their asses to the glibertarian and theocrat paradise that is Somalia.
Then we’ll find out how much they love it.
flukebucket
This one is still a sore spot for me. You just cannot reason with people once they get their coonskin caps on. It was projected that the tax would generate 18 billion dollars for the state and in my region alone create over 30 thousand jobs. I sincerely believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the state voted against it because they thought it would all be funneled to MARTA (Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta) chortle, chortle. And also the abject fear that increasing jobs and stimulating business will make it look too good for Obama. I also found it hilarious that the government that these air headed idiots do not trust are for the most part Republicans that they elected.
JPL
@CaseyL: That idea was already discussed in GA but the company wanted a guarantee profit margin.
Free enterprise means no risk.
Bubblegum Tate
Why dop they hate the rich? CLASS WARFARE! And so on.
If only we didn’t have to drag these dead-weight teabaggers every step of the way, we could really be making headway in this country.
iLarynx
Phil Kent is full of scheisse. I live in Georgia and voted against the bill because it was bad legislation created by a bad (aka GOP) legislature that benefited all the usual GOP cronies. Atlanta and GA do need more money for MARTA, roads, bike paths, etc., but this was a truly awful piece of legislation. It was a regressive sales tax that benefited suspect businesses, many of which finagled business exemptions in this proposed bill. The regressive sales tax would have hit the poor the hardest. It should have been a gasoline tax. Hopefully, saner (aka non-GOP) legislation will be created sooner than later.
One thing the Teabaggers never mention is that a whole host of Georgia groups from across the political spectrum opposed this crappy bill including The SIERRA CLUB. I suppose that now we can claim that the defeat of this bill was a victory for the environmental movement.
Bulworth
More roads and transportation stuff is just what the UN and Agenda 21 want to take away our freedoms! //
Mattminus
@flukebucket:
Fun Fact: My first time in ATL on business, a complete stranger approached me at a cab stand and told me the MARTA “joke” out of nowhere. There was no “hi”, no outside event that we were commenting on, nothing. He just saw a white person and assumed he’d appreciate a racist “joke”.
MikeJake
No problem, they can just borrow it…
MikeJ
@fuzed: In Northern Virginia there’s a privately owned toll road that goes to Leesburg. Originally ownership was to revert to the state in 2036. However, the state gave away another 20 years of ownership in exchange for the addition of an extra lane and resurfacing. A massive give away in exchange for doing maintenance on their own property.
MikeJake
@MikeJake:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/education/article_c83343e8-ddd5-11e1-bfca-001a4bcf887a.html
JPL
@Zandar: It’s unfortunate that our rail system won’t be improved. During the building boom folks were moving further and further out in order to afford that new fancier house. That was a choice they made.
wrb
Transportation is becoming unfundable not because people don’t recognize the need for transportation but because they are so deeply divided about what type of transportation to fund.
If 1/3rd of the people don’t want to spend money on anything, 1/3rd want to spend money on transit but will not support spending it on roads and 1/3rd are terrified of transit because they see it leading to forced densification you are never going to pass anything.
merrinc
@flukebucket:
This is simply brilliant. I may have to steal it.
roc
@Zandar: Toll Roads and congestion charges would be fine — if there were transit options.
Maybe putting the charges in first will bring forward stronger demand for (more/better) transit. Who knows?
rptrcub
@iLarynx: The Sierra Club, because they were either shooting heroin or smoking the finest crack downtown Atlanta can offer, opposed it because they thought they could get a better deal transit-wise. And just as I expected, guvnah Nathan Deal — who is afraid of the Teatards and is afraid one of them is going to defeat him in 2014 — said that the defeat of T-SPLOST meant that the brakes have been put on rail development.
I hate to take the Eric Cartman attitude of “Screw you guys, I’m going [x place]” but I, a native Atlantan with deep ties down here, am getting ready to leave.
And anyone repeating that stupid redneck “Delta’s ready when you are” saying should be shot on sight.
The Thin Black Duke
@Villago Delenda Est: Why go over there to Somalia when Somalia will soon be over here?
Greg
In addition to iLarynx’s points, we should mention that Atlanta is the ninth largest metro in the U.S., and the 21st most congested. Having lived in Houston and Los Angeles, I can say Atlanta’s traffic woes are massively overhyped. Plus, many (most?) of the projects wouldn’t have measurably reduced traffic.
I supported TSPLOST because I want urban amenities such as the Belt Line. I’m not going to go to the wall arguing that this legislation represented good policy, though.
Anyway, I’ve yet to read any commentary from outside ATL that demonstrated any real clue about what was going on with the referendum.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Sneaky man, tell Kent it’s his problem now to fix.
But that is the real solution; demand the Tea Tards propose a fix instead of throwing bombs and not let them off the hook when they try to change the subject because governing is hard.
Davis X. Machina
Atlanta used to be The City Too Busy to Hate. Now it’s The City Too Busy to Move.
g
Georgians would rather sit in traffic for an extra couple of hours a week or so rather than cough up an extra nickel
Because idling your engine for another half hour stuck in traffic costs absolutely nothing!
danimal
Once real businesses with real employees start moving out of crackpot-filled cesspools of political dysfunction, the tide will turn. Until then, purists on the left and crazies on the right will haggle over the crumbs of public policy.
Joshua Norton
Tea Party, my ass. In San Francisco every vote to raise the sales tax has gone down in flames for years. It’s the first place the politicians go to raise easy money. They’ll say it’s only “temporary”. But as soon as it’s due to expire they say “well you’re used to paying it so we might as well make it permanent”. If we went along with every one of their harebrained schemes, our sales tax would be about 35 percent by now.
Mowgli
@CaseyL:
Atlanta is already there. We have now done away with HOV lanes on 85 and replaced them with “pay lanes” (known locally as “Lexus Lanes”) that force you to pay (using ezpass) regardless of how many people are in your car.
So rich people in a hurry can get there faster!
Perhaps we should just call them “Rand Lanes.”
liberal
Well, let’s be consistent here.
A number of people (yes, certainly not a majority of BJ commenters, but certainly quite a few) think it’s fine that Amazon isn’t forced to collect sales taxes even though brick and mortar stores are, because the sales tax is regressive.
If those commenters are consistent, they should have no problem with this.
ET
There is a part of me that says it was a good thing this lost because the people who voted no are going to suffer just as equally as those that voted yes. Too bad the people who voted yes have suffer for others knuckle dragging decisions.
Cassidy
Let all these wingnut businesses and the Chamber of Commerce figure it out. They built it right? Free market and shit? They can pool their money, hire some road crews and fix it.
liberal
@wrb:
No, the number one reason is because paying for infrastructure improvements through taxes on economic activity (income taxes and sales taxes) is both inefficient and unfair. The right way to do it is through land taxes. (Infrastructure improvements jack up land values, and it’s not fair that landowners pocket the windfall.)
The other reason is that there are large positive externalities to mass transit (roads are less clogged), but people who don’t use mass transit undervalue that.
Jade Jordan
This measure was defeated by more than 60% of the citizens it was a dog of a bill.
In Georgia you can pass a tax and unless you pass it as a constitutional amendment there is no duty by the state to spend it as outlined. They could have simply put the money in the general fund.
This is not a TIN foil hat statement we have dozens of special purpose levies like “for driver’s training” that go to the general fund. The “for education” lottery funds are diverted at a higher percentage each year to the general fund.
There were no provisions to apply any excess funds to additional projects. The amount of money that would be raised was grossly understated and I have it on good authority that the state and local governments were going to absorb the excess. That helps explain Kasim Reeds zealous support.
Fulton and Dekalb counties have paid the penny Marta tax for over 30 years, they would pay another penny and no big projects were planned for that area (surprise – minority areas pay tax get very little).
The Northern burbs who have rejected Marta forever, even when the Feds were footing 75% of the cost would get all the major projects. Cobb and Gwinnett would get a billion dollar payment (bribe) apiece to secure their support.
I received a glossy color circular every day for the last two weeks. I received 3-4 calls per day. I have never seen a marketing push for anything that would truly benefit the consumer.
This was a bonanza for a variety of special interests and a poorly written and conceived bill.
Businesses who clog up the roads with their delivery trucks would pay nothing. Trucking firms would pay nothing.
I am far from a tea bagger and I voted no along with my friends.
I would support an increase in the gas tax so those who use the roads most would pay the most. I would support an increase in the pay roll tax so that those that earn the most pay the most.
When did progressives stop being fans of progressive taxation rather than regressive taxation that affect the poor the most.
Kane
For many years now, Republicans have argued that government doesn’t work. And with their many failures over the years, they have been quite successful in making that argument. The entire right-wing ideology is predicated on the notion that government can’t work. They don’t want government to succeed at any level, local or national. They actually encourage the public distrust of government, having no problem with spreading conspiracy theories about government. They highlight the inefficiencies of government not so that government may operate more efficiently, but rather as a reason to oppose government altogether. All the better to make the argument that government needs to be shrunk down to size and drowned in a bathtub so that corporations can rule openly.
Foxhunter
Atlantan checking in here.
The Tea Party is trying to claim credit for this ‘defeat’, but that’s not reality. Here are some facts that made this a much bigger challenge:
1) Poor communication. The supporters (ACVB, Chamber, ARC, etc), spent over $7 million dollars in messaging. What was their message? A sh*tty website, and tons of billboards that said ‘Untie Atlanta’. No one had any idea how the projected revenue was going to help them locally in their own little slice of heaven. Even the intown residents took up a little NIMBYism because they didn’t want the deal (READ: Democrats).
2) The Rethuglicans here have basically shirked their duties as ‘elected’ legislators by floating everything (that requires testicular fortitude or ovarian tenacity) on a referendum basis. Do you fvcking job and pass bills. Don’t rely the best interest theory with regards to taxes, because on a vote it will always fail.
3) GA 400 tollway. This is minor, but Nathan Deal really screwed the pooch on this one. When 400 was laid and paid, it was to be a sunset toll after (I believe) 20 years. Well guess what…when it was set to expire, Deal and Sonny Perdue (Republicans) decided to extend this ‘tax’. After much soul-searching as the TSPOLST was showing epic fail, Deal, in a rushed manner, announced “Tear down those Toll Booths.” It was a stupid and scrambled political ploy to generate some support for TSPLOT.
This was not just defeated by Republicans that were screaming about taxes. It was really a poor effort all around in promoting the specifics of the tax usage and how it really would benefit everyone, not just the intowners. And this was a state-wide referendum with something for everyone…not just Atlanta.
Joel
@roc: I’m with you here. But it seems like Georgia is down to the sales tax measures because nothing else will get approved. But welcome to life in the modern US in that case. Even lib-rul Washington won’t approve of new taxes, aside from county taxes in King.
Foxhunter
@Jade Jordan:
What Jade said, also too.
Added for effect: Dekalb County has a TEN YEAR BACKLOG on repaving projects. Patching asphalt has become king, and it’s beginning to look like NE corridor roads after a harsh winter in these parts.
Zandar
I’m not saying it wasn’t a lousy pork filled bill. It’s Atlanta for crissakes.
The point is at some eventual juncture, This Shit Will Have To Be Paid For.
Chris
Yet another mini-instance of the general way our country is committing suicide because, for ideological reasons, it simply refuses to allow things to get fixed. We’re like a family of Christian Scientists dying of something eminently curable, like the flu, and patrolling our front porch with a loaded shotgun to make DAMN SURE those EMTs don’t get into the house and take our children away from us.
I wonder how often this has happened in history. Elites gutting their own country out of stupidity and greed, sure, but has there ever been such a huge part of the general public cheerfully going along with it, even demanding it?
liberal
@Villago Delenda Est:
Smith might be adequate on this issue, but he really isn’t modern enough.
The problem with things like roads is that they’re essentially monopolies, hence generate rents. And we didn’t have a good theory of rent until Ricardo.
Though there is this gem from Smith:
MattF
@Zandar: You can let the downtown area rot and build new office parks in the surrounding suburbs around highway intersections. Then eventually the deserted downtown area can be bulldozed and then gentrified. Then everyone is happy, unless you’re one of them.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Can you make “Roving Bands of Nomadic Road Crews” one of those rotating tags up at the top?
Patricia Kayden
If Georgians don’t want to pay extra taxes, NO MATTER WHAT, my hats off to them. They’re the ones that have to live with the consequences.
tybee
@iLarynx:
you nailed it. my little corner of georgia voted against that tax for those reasons. and you could throw in the facts that some of the projects in t-splost were not wanted at all and that we’ve been lied to before about what splost monies were going to be spent on only to have the rug yanked out.
West Texan
Gotta agree with Patricia — as a native, mid-50s Texan, I’m counting down the days until I can retire (about five years) and move to a non-Southern state. The idiots around here are letting everything go to hell because they don’t want to pay a few extra bucks to maintain things.
Good riddance.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
If by “live with the consequences” you mean “wring even more subsidies out of Washington to make up for what they won’t pay themselves, because Real Americans should never, ever have to pay a price for their own stupidity…”
raven
@Foxhunter: Yep. Don’t believe everything you read. Has any BJ commenter from Georgia said they voted for it? I didn’t.
raven
Just as important is the 3% cut in budgets laid down for state agencies again. They are drowning it sure as shit.
dww44
@roc: Yes, and what’s left out of this post is that the Georgia Sierra Club, a couple of AA State Democratic officials,lots of left of center voters cast no votes, even though the Chamber of Commerce and businesses were urging a yes vote.
The pro and con sides of this issue did not adhere to the usual right vs left splits. The opposition to the transportation tax also made note of its regressive nature. The governor had just recently announced that he would NOT increase the gas tax in the state which is among the lowest in the country. The governor had also already announced he would be lifting the toll on a major North Atlanta traffic corridor. So, in every way, he was backing off from user financed road projects and opting for a “fair tax” sort of solution.
Apparently, too, voters did not buy the argument that projects would really be locally controlled, bypassing the greatly distrusted (and with good reason) Moreland-Altobelli highway lobbying group and the hated state Dept of Transportation, known simply as DOT. The TEA Party unfairly gets all the credit for defeating this measure.
Brian R.
Great story in Atlanta Magazine about how the transportation system got so fucked up there.
Surprise, surprise — it seems to have been largely the result of racism.
TOP123
@CaseyL: Sandy Springs, GA.
dww44
@dww44: Shuda read thru all the posts by others in the state before posting. My apologies.
Philo Vaihinger
No kidding, hard-core libertarians think all roads should be private and tolled.
Public highways are socialism!
Down with socialism!
For them, this is a happy step towards overcoming the disguised Marxism of the Democratic Party and that Marxism Muslim in the White House.
Comrade Dread
Toll roads. That’s the alternative. Where you pay anywhere from $1.50 to $10 one way to use the road based on traffic conditions.
Not saying that this is a good thing. Just that in the absence of a government that can fund, build, and maintain roads, you’re going to see an increase in pressure for corporate owned toll roads.
And no, at least in my personal experience, they don’t really alleviate traffic congestion.
AliceBlue
@raven:
Yeah, I voted for it, but not for any rational reason. The only thing that was going to be funded in my rural county was repairs on an intersection in one of the small towns. My “yes” vote was my private middle finger to the bagger rhetoric I was hearing from my neighbors.
dww44
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Actually Reed was complaining about the lack of a plan from those opposed in the days ahead of the vote. Heard him interviewed on radio and he was almost bitter about the opposition not offering up any alternative plan and their failure to show up at the many regional meetings discussing the tax proposal in the 2 years ahead of its being placed on the ballot.
SteveM
“… the argument was that
rich peopleni-CLANG!s will just pocket the money and not fix the roads…”Fixed.
Foxhunter
@raven: I didn’t vote for it, either. The plan, as I understood it, really did nothing extraordinary or forward thinking. Widen, widen, interchange. Beltway!
I’ve seen what widening does here…moves the parking lot 1 or 2 miles upstream. 1 or 2 more miles, again, is not really a solution that will untie anything.
Mino
@Zifnab: No, no, no, first the citizens pay to build the roads and THEN they are sold to your friends for toll roads. Get your sequencing right.
Cain
I get really irritated with all the widening projects here in Portland,OR. It’s quite annoying and I know that no matter how much you widen the problem will never go away.
We need a damn subway that rapidly gets us everywhere.
BTW the whole “inner cities folks will rape the suburbs” argument was used here too when we were going to expand the MAX to the west suburbs. Of course nothing really happened.
David Fud
@Cassidy: The Chamber of Commerce supported this one, believe it or not. They know that Atlanta can’t compete on attracting business without fixing this problem. They supported it so much that the member businesses held at-work education sessions about why it was necessary.
So, it wasn’t the typical Chamber of Commerce behavior, as far as anti-tax attitudes. With regard to it being a tax that was perceived to mainly benefit business, then yes, it was a CoC behavior/perception problem.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Dear South:
Can you please secede again?
Please?
Because you’re really backwards and stupid. And I’d like those who come after me to have a functional country. And YOU (yes, YOU) are the ones in the way of that, as usual.
Thank you. Now go eat some Chik-Fil-A and kindly fuck off.
-J.E.
Egypt Steve
@Carl Nyberg: If this was gonna work, it would have worked before now. How many more fights we got left in us anyway — two?
Mino
@David Fud: But, but, businesses don’t need infrastructure to succeed. They do it all themselves.
Maybe a business tax levy might be thought about to fund it. For once.
djork
@Mowgli: Incorrect. While I think the Peach Pass lanes are stupid, they are free to anyone (with a Peach Pass) who has three or more people in their car. So, there is a $20 up front fee, but if you have a carpool to split the fee, it is negligable. Having said that, it is also one of th estupidest ideas in awhile, but since I live ITP, it really doesn’t bother me all that much.
MaxxLange
Ha, I remember when the MARTA Lenox Square station opened. Suddenly there was a lot of anxiety from COMPLETELY non-racist citizens who had lots of legitimate concerns about what the consequences would be.
Mino
@Mowgli: Maybe you should drop bricks in them.
David Fud
@Foxhunter: One addition to this was the complete stupidity of the timing of those for this issue. Specifically: They placed this vote on a ballot that only has Republican competitive primaries where I am.
Who the hell did they think was going to go vote in said primaries, especially given the “Tea Party” know-nothing insurgency?
Had they placed the vote on the 2012 general election in November, it might have had a chance, since the turnout would have better reflected the real population of Atlanta instead of only those who could take off for a no-consequence election.
This outcome is absolutely no surprise. I am only surprised that the organizations supporting it bothered to even campaign for it, because it was obviously not going to work.
Want a classic example? Whose faces did they get on the TV to support the TSPLOST?
Answer: Kasim Reed and other current and former African-American politicians talking about jobs and benefit to the economy. That strategy would net some blacks who might have been against it because it didn’t give them their money’s worth. However, that also promptly increased the fears and no votes from every suburb who are not-so-implicitly racist based simply on the fact that those Ni-CLANGS were for it.
Is that fair, right, or ok? No, but everyone knows that racism is alive and well in the South, so putting on a bunch of Ni-CLANGS to promote TSPLOST wasn’t exactly a genius PR/marketing maneuver. Notice that absolutely zero of the white elected officials supported it PUBLICLY, even when they supported it privately, for their local pet projects. For instance, read about Saxby Chambliss doing the Tea Party shuffle after coming out for TSPLOST.
David Fud
@Mino: Good luck on that. Businesses might benefit from a livability perspective to hire talent, but “corporate people” (i.e., corporations) don’t drive cars. They will never support it, they will just shift their business requiring people to other places. Losers: Atlanta and Georgia. Might be “fair” but it isn’t the way this city works or it would have happened before now.
Jeff Boatright
@iLarynx: What he said. And more.
I participated in several of the community meetings on this. From what I saw, there were many people operating in good faith. However, the final product simply smacked of all the bad-old-days chicanery. There is a long history in Georgia of the “road mafia” (aka, GA DOT and cronies) simply enriching themselves. Goes way beyond party affiliation. At best, they do one thing well: Building very expensive, very wide roads across land that just recently was bought by crony-du-jour.
Voters have ZERO reason trust the pols on this one. Further, for many liberal groups, having the plan enacted exactly as stated would have been problematic, too. Regressive taxation to pay for more highways.
Pococurante
I like the toll roads in Texas. They are much better maintained, they are attractive to drive on, while sometimes crowded they are still better than non-tolled roads, and the people who use them pay for them.
Seems like a win to me.
Jeff Boatright
@Jade Jordan: Another “what he said, and more.”
Foxhunter
@David Fud: Well, of course they couldn’t ‘publicly’ support TSPLOST. Would go against their alleged Tea Bagger bona fides. Which explains the massive GOTV via TV spots. Reed was the only one who could put a public face on the project without betraying some bullshit Norquist principle or offend Debbie Dooley.
The fact that the Tea Party is claiming a skin in this one amuses me, tremendously. They are not nearly as powerful as they’ve made themselves out to be, but if it makes them feel good, so be it.
I read early in the marketing campaign that several other major metro areas were keeping a watchful eye on TSPLOST reception. Guess cities like Denver are going to have to rethink referendum-based tax initiatives, or at least the manner in which they sell the product to the voting public.
And I cannot stress enough…some of you read the blog entry and immediately jump to the last comment and slap us with a nice little, ‘see, teh south is teh suxxor’. Same crap in the WSJ article. This was not a Tea Bagger defeat, so take a few breaths and realize that sometimes a bad bill (or in this case) or a bad referendum, is just that. Bad. It doesn’t take a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ sponsor in this instance to realize that.
I understand that 90% of what we do is stupid, but in this instance….
pseudonymous in nc
As Atrios noted when this vote went down, it’s probably better for the city to work on its own mass transit plan and leave the metro counties to deal with their issues: urban mass transit is different from commuter transit, especially GA sprawlburb commuting that needs to reach out 50-100 miles from downtown. Metro Atlanta’s a fucking mess. I remember the drive from ATL to Athens 15 years ago, compared to what it is now.
So I’d agree with the people upthread who say that the way for the sprawlburb counties to pay for it is through property taxes, because the alternative is that Bumfuck County ceases to become an attractive place to buy that Mini McMansion because all routes to Atlanta proper are parking lots at rush hour.
David Fud
@Foxhunter: I don’t exactly disagree with you, but I would point out that Reed had a valid point: none of those who didn’t support a bill came up with a viable alternative to this bill that would actually improve the situation. So, the suburbs get exactly what they want: the Ni-CLANGS won’t carry suburban bigscreen TVs off to MARTA after they finish stealing them, and the Ni-CLANGS won’t move to the ‘burbs because their jobs aren’t there and they don’t have cars (simplistic on car ownership, but sort of true).
Mission accomplished. Atlanta strangles? So what? At least little Johnny doesn’t have to go to school with a Ni-CLANG.
And no, I don’t know how to get suburban folks, including my extended in-laws, on board with any vision of an transitly-integrated (?) Atlanta, because of precisely the issues I mentioned before, as well as their love affair with cars and complete control of their method of transportation.
I have never seen a town with such sparkling new cars. I have seen Mercedes parked in front of run-down duplexes. Image seems to be tied to cars and it is apparently important to spend as much as possible on them.
Mowgli
@djork:
Thanks for the correction djork, I did not know that there was a mechanism for not charging the fee with HOV vehicles. In my defense, there seems to be no signage to that effect on the actual roads, as I travel them regularly and try to pay attention. As an aside, I assume they enforce this via taking photos of the cars and then counting passengers? Seems an expensive way to manage it, only further making the Lexus Lanes seem like a mess of an idea.
Foxhunter
@David Fud: David, as far as I can tell, the TSPLOST community never really mentioned any ‘viable’ solutions.
It was pork projects with greenspace throw-aways: widening roads, interchange additions/construction, and Beltway/Northern Arc.
Be honest – what, outside of a massive subway system, is really going to improve Atlanta? We obviously cannot afford that route. MARTA’s route map is just a big plus sign. It’s not BART, it’s not the T. It takes forever to travel more than 10 miles if you leave that rail. Sprawl has created a metro area that extends 70+ MILES North to South and about 50 miles East to West. Getting suburban folks to ride mass transit for 1 or 2 hours, one way, is not the answer. Why? They can do that in their CAR, as awful as that can be.
I agree that it sucks. I’ve lived here, in Atlanta or it surrounding parts, my entire life. Dirty little secret – I live OTP and on the south side of Atlanta. As twisted and redneck as some of my neighbors can be, none of them have staked a position of no mass transit because of the racial element that you keep referring to. I know it exists, but I don’t think that is nearly the driving force that it was 20, even 10 years ago. Maybe that’s the majority in Alpharetta or Roswell, but not where I live.
Doug Danger
Substitute “Atlanta” for “baton Rouge” or any other southern city except Houston or Lafayette, and you have the reason why it takes forty minutes to get six miles.
All they do is complain. They never fix anything.
maurinsky
@Foxhunter:
Widening the roads just spreads the assholes out.
El Cid
Also, what types of voters did they imagine would be coming out to vote in a completely off-term special election specifically devoted to a tax hike?
Did anyone imagine a turnout consisting of anything other than demographics likely to vote against tax hikes?
It’s entirely plausible to me that were it possible (I don’t think it was) to have had the initiative on the general November ballot, it might have passed.
But given the timing and the subject matter of the bill, I didn’t see any other outcome as likely.
David Fud
@Foxhunter: My in-law relatives live in various places up 75, so that would be Cobb county and beyond. AFAICT, that is ground zero for the exodus of whites from Atlanta, and explains the attitudes there to some degree.
Re: car driving suburbanites, it costs a hell of a lot more than $5 round trip to drive that. Assuming they are not prejudiced, then something else is holding them back from considering a train option. I will take your word for it that it isn’t racism, but I find it difficult to believe that it doesn’t have something to do with it. I live slightly OTP, but only slightly. A rail transit option up my direction would be very useful and much faster than the highway most of the time.
Re: affording subway/rail is a matter of choice. We really could afford it, but we would have to de-prioritize roads and driving. It isn’t going to happen anyway, so I don’t see the point of arguing it much. The “we can’t afford it” argument is tiresome to me and deflationary to boot. So, forgive my bitter edge on this one, because I think we can afford what we want to – I suppose to some extent it is that 2/3rds of the population in ATL is insufficiently patient to allow their children to reap the benefit of a public investment made now. Either way, I should probably forget the motives of opponents and move on. There will be no mass transit in Atlanta beyond what is here now.
I didn’t study TSPLOST closely enough to come to any kind of conclusion on the merits, so I am not the best one to ask. I mostly voted for it because all of the Teabillies were against it. I am not exactly comfortable with the geographic/demographic aspects of following a spouse here, so you’ll have to forgive my rants about it. They aren’t straw men – I run into these attitudes almost every day here.
Unsympathetic
The part that frosts me is: Even after the mooslims, lazy mexicans, and welfare queens are deported in cattle cars, traffic will still suck in atlanta.
What then, teabillies? What then? If you don’t have faith in government, who and what do you have faith in? Stasis is unacceptable, people.
TOP123
@Foxhunter: Agree with much of your point. But a far-flung transit system is not in and of itself implausible. Suburbanites can and do ride the various NYC area mass transit lines in just such a fashion, with plenty of commutes well over an hour each way. All this in a multi-state system, no less!
That last detail, by the way, is why everyone in the Tri-State area should give a big middle finger to Chris Christie. Well, one reason.
Foxhunter
@David Fud: I agree with almost all of your points.
Let me rephrase one of mine: I’ll go from “We can’t afford it” to “The voters don’t want to pay for it and the elected officials don’t want to do something bold.” That should clear up the issue.
And, like you, I don’t see any hope for mass transit on a meaningful scale while I’m a resident.
BobS
@Mattminus: I had something similar happen while sitting on a bench at a freeway rest area in Alabama.
swearyanthony
Atlanta is screwed anyway, because water. They are so terribly terribly boned. Not enough water, and they are downstream of a bunch of other teabagging fnarkwits who will happily overuse all of the water because of Jesus and freedom.
Zach
The tri-county area of Detroit passed a millage increase to fund the Detroit Institute of Art, home to an amazing Diego Rivera-fresco-covered courtyard. I was pleasantly surprised.
iLarynx
@Foxhunter:
I agree to a point, but this is where the GOPtards and teabaggers have brought us. When it is considered politically “bold” to propose revenue/tax increases to pay for basic infrastructure, we are truly screwed.
wrb
@David Fud:
I deal with the public on such issues all the time and I’ve become convinced that it is fear of “smart” growth- of no longer being allowed a big back yard, no longer being allowed a workshop or a garden, of being forced into an apartment where pets are prohibited.
By being too top-down and authoritarian while implementing visions they think everyone will share, but which everyone doesn’t share, idealistic smart growthers have screwed their goals, the country and the world. Much of climate change denialism has the same root. People figure that if they admit the existance of climate change a pack of wild-eyed smart growthers will have what they need to force people into apartment living. They aren’t dumb, they’ve sussed the game and they are playing several moves ahead- “we know what will come if we let the bastards get started, so let’s just frag them climate change and anything else that might give them an opening.”
So people who would otherwise think a train inoffensive and even handy mount furious opposition because they know it will be used to justify densification.
Rail has succeeded (see 19th century England) and does succeed (NYC area) at serving low density.
It would be much easier to build rail if people could be persuaded that it won’t bring changes that they consider bad. Rail itself they like.
different-church-lady
When all the freeways are converted to toll roads, will I be getting a rebate against the tax on the gas I used while driving on those roads?
pseudonymous in nc
@Foxhunter:
It definitely exists in Winder and Cumming and Peachtree City, the places that form part of that second wave.
@wrb:
But both are based upon a spoke model, not on agglomerated edge cities. If you were to map out the kinds of commutes that now happen in metro Atlanta, you’re going to find people going from Conyers to Marietta or Jonesboro to Sandy Springs.
Foxhunter
@wrb: Well put. Your idealistic smart growther comment reminds me of a favorite blogger from the beginning of blogging. Duncan Black. I appreciate his insight into econ and social issues, but this is one item that kinds of makes me cringe. He does a good job of promoting mass transit, and I agree with all of his points…but he comes across with a smug tone that smacks of that authoritarian attitude. As long as people continue to vote against their own self interests (and they will), selling such projects is going to take finesse and some jujitsu of sorts.
Not far from my hometown, GRTA (Georgia Regional Transit) opened a ride share/bus stop on the southside of Atlanta, 25 miles from downtown proper, 30 miles from midtown. I believe it has 400 spaces for parking, several arrivals and departures per day. Within one week of operation, the station lot was full. EVERY DAY.
wrb
@pseudonymous in nc:
I favor multi-nucleated spoke models (chains of towns in countryside) over the s yncytium monotony of places like the Atlanta region.
Such patterns and rail are perfect for each other.
Foxhunter
@pseudonymous in nc: Eh, I don’t even consider Winder, yet, although it is growing. Cumming is in Forsyth County, and most of us locals can remember when…well, nevermind. Let’s just say Oprah got involved.
cassius
I’m sorry I haven’t taken the time to read all 100+ comments – I just want to say TSPLOST passed in SOUTH EASTERN Georgia, around Savannah, and we now have an 8% sales tax rate, the same as NYC. TSPLOST has been a boondoggle in this area for a decade or more. The money is simply stolen, the rich keep low property tax rates, and the poor have an incredibly high aggregate tax rate. Another tax – a raise in the gas tax rate – was voted down, which would have been the sensible solution. Sorry folks, but voting down TSPLOST is the liberal choice, unless you think the rich are paying their fair share and the poor are all moochers who “pay zero taxes.” Check out the Gaster Lumber guy in Savannah, with his sign telling Obama to “kiss my ass.” These are the anti-tax zealots who supported TSLPOST because it saves them in the long run.
smike
Though I am a liberal, I am empathize with one aspect of the argument against. There is a history of certain irregularities when determinations are made on who gets to improve what, and where they get to do it.
Why is it that contracted projects are allowed to go over cost? If I bid a carpentry job and my costs exceed what I projected, I am not allowed to go back again and again and raise the cost of project at the expense of the person who granted me the contract. Why is this allowed in government contracts? And why do the same firms get hired over and over again when they have a history of misrepresentation and/or poor performance?
If the state would simply contract out specific (very specific) jobs and enforce serious consequences for non-performance, perhaps people would feel that they are getting their moneys’ worth. And perhaps such things as road projects would result in more quality and economy.
I’m all for taxing everyone for projects of general welfare for all. And everyone should contribute, including corporations and churches.
Gordon
A poor person getting a meal for $5 would have paid another nickel in tax. A rich person buying a meal for $25 would pay an extra quarter. Now we know why rich people voted against T-SPLOST.
The gasoline tax is regressive because it is more likely poorer people will have cars that get 15 miles to the gallon and rich people may have those cars that get 45 MPG. Thus the poorer person could pay 3 times as much in gasoline tax.
Some advocate for another comsumption tax called the Fair Tax that would impose a 23% sales tax to replace all sorts of other taxes–income tax, FICA and unemployment tax, etc. To reduce its regressive side, the government would send a check each month to compensate those who may be paying too much. All you have to do is tell the government your new address every time you move, or tell your checking or savings account number. That might sound a little socialist (maybe 72 font in all capitals), but remember we keep the 23% paid by illegal aliens and foreign visitors. The T-SPLOST would have kept only 1% from those people, and included the tax on US citizen visitors, also. Non-Georgians would have helped build our roads, bridges, transit, bikeways and sidewalks.