A look at the Downtown Connector at 7 p.m. Saturday Jan. 14th.
ATLANTA, Ga. -- Here's a question for everyone who drives to and from work in Metro Atlanta.
How's your commute?
I have a little story to tell you about my day, Tuesday.
And about everyone's immediate future in Georgia.
I'm part of the Atlanta Press Club, and the speaker at our program in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday was Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
We're constantly inviting politicians and others, of all stripes, to speak at our programs, and they all know they can speak about anything under the sun.
And what Mayor Reed chose to speak most about, this time, was traffic, and how Metro Atlanta's traffic congestion is just killing us, killing our economy.
The only proposed solution on the table right now ("Let's not miss this moment," he said) is the referendum this July across Georgia for an additional penny sales tax, to raise billions of dollars over ten years for transportation improvements.
Ten regions of the state will hold separate referenda, and the sales tax hike would only go into effect in the regions that approve it .
The mayor gave an impassioned speech for approving the tax in the Metro Atlanta region.
He told us what his favorite quote of all time is. It's from President Kennedy, speaking at Rice University in 1962:
"I remember the line that says, 'We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard.' And I think that is where our greatness is," Mayor Reed said.
He explained. He predicted that the campaign for the tax will be tough, the vote will be close, political careers are on the line, the solutions will be expensive to implement but crucial to Metro Atlanta's prosperity, and that, ultimately, voters will do what is difficult and what is right and approve the tax.
So I drove to Gwinnett County -- going, what else, 20 mph in a 65, because it was rush hour, but that's faster than usual -- and I talked with Tea Party founder Debbie Dooley, who agreed with Atlanta's mayor; that is, she agreed that some politicians will be defeated at the ballot box this year because they support the tax hike.
Already, she said, tea party groups across the state are recruiting candidates to run against pro-tax-hike politicians in the same July primary that will hold the transportation-tax votes.
Her advice:
"Take the tax dollars you already have... show us that you can use our tax dollars effectively, then you can come back with us and you ask for more money."
We just can't afford to raise billions of dollars from a new sales tax to attack the traffic mess, she said.
Can't afford not to, said the mayor.
"If we make these investments, if we make them right now, we're going to be the center of commerce in the southeastern region for the next 10, 20, 30, and 40 years, that's what's at stake," he said.
Dooley said the city's priorities are off, since there is talk of coming up with hundreds of millions of dollars toward a new football stadium.
"Do not go out and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a stadium for the Atlanta Falcons at the same time you're asking people to pony up the extra one percent."
Apples and oranges, said the mayor, it's possible to do both, and necessary, as well.
"I'm not going to be that [mayor] that loses the Falcons" to another city, which would be an embarrassing and costly blow to the prestige and economy of the entire area, he said.
Dooley said the area's hard working taxpayers cannot afford both, and should not be expected to pay for both, through the sales tax.
She predicted taxpayers outside of the City of Atlanta will reject the proposed sales tax hike for many reasons, including this one: it would force them to pay more money for Atlanta's MARTA bus and rail system, which has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars, and which does not even run outside of Fulton and DeKalb Counties.
Mayor Reed said the economies of the entire region are so intertwined and dependent on each other, that what hurts and helps Atlanta also hurts and helps the suburbs, and vice versa.
He listed several controversial decisions that Atlanta mayors have made over the years that, to this day, benefit the entire region and the entire state.
"I mean, I can call the roll. Mayor Hartsfield got the bark torn off of him because of [his support for building and expanding] the airport. Ivan Allen got the bark torn off of him because he testified in favor of the civil rights act for President Kennedy. It ended his political career. Sam Massell took up Ivan Allen's charge, and advocated for MARTA and passed [the referendum creating MARTA] by 1,000 votes. Ambassador Andrew Young made the decision to run a highway through east Atlanta so that he could have the Carter Presidential Library [located in Atlanta]. Mayor Maynard Jackson moved an entire freeway [in the late 1970s] so that he could get [the current airport terminal] built on time and on budget. Mayor Shirley Franklin came up with a way to fund $3 billion in water and sewer infrastructure. Andrew Young made the decision to move forward with Georgia-400, and opened up the entire northern corridor. So our history is hard. Now we look at all those decisions now, and they seem like no-brainers. They weren't no-brainers then. All of these undertakings were close" and were nearly lost.
He said the projected revenue of up to $9 billion from the ten-year sales-tax-hike in Metro Atlanta would spark economic growth. "And that growth, that investment, will restore the job losses that we have seen in construction since 2007, 2008, 2009, where we've lost 57,000 construction jobs."
Debbie Dooley said of that argument, "I think that's totally ridiculous." She compared it to the Obama Administration borrowing money for the "stimulus" program to create jobs that never became reality.
So this was a day that involved a reminder that, leading up to the vote in July, we can all expect an increasingly intense debate, as voters decide between two very tough choices.
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LINK:
To find out more about the projects that would be funded by the additional one-cent sales tax in Metro Atlanta, click here.