YOUR SAY: Forget about a T-SPLOST paying for Bass Road expansion

I have some suggestions for Erick Erickson vis-à-vis his take on Bass Road rush hour issues. See his "Expansion time for Macon-Bibb" column in our Jan. 8 Telegraph.

1. Leave five minutes early when rush hour is commencing. I do just that to get to Mayhem hockey games Friday nights.

2. Ask our local government to tap into the available county SPLOST funds, currently showing $37,000,717 of city, county and 1995 transportation fund(s) on the books in our Budget Ordinance FY 2016.

3. Or wait for the cavalry. It is coming. What is that? Well, The Telegraph editorial board mentions in the opinion printed on Dec 13, 2015, that the T-SPLOST is a very good reality to be re-voted on by us for this region. Yes, we did vote against it in 2012 but our mayor very much wants us to try again. I guess he is hard-set to spend $270 million on the Interstate 16/Interstate 75 exchange (which I bet will really cost north of $300 million).

But, I say, maybe tap into other county sales taxes for Bass Road because it will skyrocket to 8 percent. What's that I say? If sanity prevails in preventing this regurgitated T-SPLOST from 2012 passing this or next year, which will be an exorbitant sales tax total for all to bear, bad news follows not far behind. Hold onto your wallets.

Our Republican majority under the Gold Dome gave counties the right to let them vote for 8 percent. How? Well, the means is through The Transportation Funding Act of 2015 and offers two mechanisms for funding transportation at the local level: A regional sales tax and a county sales tax. So, hallelujah, Bass Road can be saved and you can forget leaving a little earlier. And we will get to 8 percent. Bah Humbug.

But, you ask, why not tap into the federal highway funding bill just completed in 2015 for his road and for the mayor's I-16/I-75 exchange? Or even ask the governor for cash from his HB 170 transportation bill from 2015 that was, in my opinion, hastily forced down Georgians throats delivering to us a massive tax increase for a variety of goods and services. So, the governor wants his tax increases, the mayor wants his and off we blast to 8 percent.

Now, I can only deduce one conclusion: Georgia Republican legislators are getting very much like our local politicians -- they have not seen a tax increase they do not like. Election Day is in November.

Finally, I want to give Fred Gunter this tax update because he did not mention the second part of the funding act mentioned above. In his op-ed reply, "Here we go again" (Dec. 15, 2015), to the editorial of Dec. 13, 2015, he had issues with another T-SPLOST. I bet he did not know that Georgia counties now have the ability to instigate their own T-SPLOST. However, he needs to know that I asked the mayor and his staff a very good question at a 2015 Macon Area Transportation Study policy meeting. At that meeting they discussed the two transportation taxing schemes mentioned above. The question of mine was in essence, "Has any economist(s) calculated the effects of a high sales tax (8 percent) on our local economy?" They said no. Henceforth, the ability of local folks being able with our own money to build a spaceship that will boost Macon-Bibb County into prosperity will be stifled. This is all due to these incessant local, state and, last but not least, federal politicians' harassments for our greenbacks.

Bobby Komlo is a resident of Lake Wildwood in Macon.

This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 10:02 PM with the headline "YOUR SAY: Forget about a T-SPLOST paying for Bass Road expansion ."