Using Other People's Money

While working toward my undergraduate degree in college, I took an elective course on city, or urban, planning as part of my minor in political science.

One day, our professor assigned a topic for a research paper dealing with the subject of planning for the future. He wanted the class members to be able to envision the makeup of cities in the far distant future. Part of his assignment was that we must not worry about cost, or even if our ideas would work, but just to dream about what we would believe cities would look like and what services or infrastructure would be needed to sustain the system we would build in our fantasy city.

One of the statements made by the professor that lingers in my memory is: “Don’t worry about the cost; you will be using other people’s money for your projects.”

As the promotion has started for the vote that will be taken in July for the additional tax on already over-taxed citizens that statement sticks out. “Other people’s money,” is now my money to be used by the dreamers and planners for, someway, dealing with the transportation nightmares we have in the urban areas of our state. Gridlock is the best way to describe the interstate system in Georgia. Enjoying the freedom of movement and vehicle use as we do in the south, mass transit has never been an appeal to the majority of people even though we are trapped in traffic jams trying to get to work or leisure activities.

There are 12 counties in the Northeast Georgia Regional District. Those counties are Barrow, Athens-Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Madison, Morgan, Newton, Oconee, Oglethorpe and Walton. As best I can understand the formula of the TSPLOST pay out, 75 percent of the one penny new tax will go toward individual county lists of projects and 25 percent of the one penny new tax will go toward regional projects.

Sounds like the assignment I had in college.

The plan is to make up a city with projects but don’t worry about the money because we will be using “other people’s money” to get the job done. Our 12-county region is one of 11 regions across the state that submitted projects to address the transportation needs of the citizens of this region. The Georgia Department of Transportation had the task of approving and cutting the projects down to its liking and then announcing back to the regions which projects were approved. Sounds like someone in a government agency has decided what is best for us, but then, now they want us to vote an additional new tax to be paid by us, the taxpayers, to fund the list they approved. Other people’s money is now my money that is going to pay for road improvements in other counties where I rarely drive.

From where I stand, I understand with current government-think that works for them but not for me.

Why should we vote to pay more taxes? Tell us what you think about the TSPLOST in comments. 

Follow Ray Newman on Twitter — @RayNewmanSr.