Posted on 08/01/2012 4:11:21 AM PDT by from occupied ga
Atlanta Metro area rejects a massive tax increase (an additional one percent sales tax on the existing 6% - 8% around the metro area.) The county by county results are as follows:
| County | YES | NO | Total | Ratio yes/total |
| Cherokee | 9105 | 35280 | 44,385 | 20.51% |
| Clayton | 16750 | 19303 | 36,053 | 46.46% |
| Cobb | 38703 | 85412 | 124,115 | 31.18% |
| DeKalb | 57915 | 61792 | 119,707 | 48.38% |
| Douglas | 6383 | 13534 | 19,917 | 32.05% |
| Fayette | 6677 | 21712 | 28,389 | 23.52% |
| Fulton | 69064 | 72365 | 141,429 | 48.83% |
| Gwinnett | 28884 | 70273 | 99,157 | 29.13% |
| Henry | 9405 | 23371 | 32,776 | 28.69% |
| Rockdale | 5433 | 12484 | 17,917 | 30.32% |
| Total: | 248,319 | 415,526 | 663,845 | 37.41% |
It can come up again in two years (Funny how if it's defeated it can come back in two years, but if it passes it passes for twn years). Expect another all out assulat of lies and more lies from the construction and real estate interests in trying to get the government to do their stealing for them>
Also note how the counties with the highest percentage of Democrats had the most support for the tax increase
Every time they raise gas taxes they claim it will help build roads and bridges - but it never does.
One can only imagine what kind of skimming (i.e. 100%) would go on with a sales tax slush fund. You couldn’t get a crack in a sidewalk repaired.
The whole attempt to stick this to the citizens was based on lies. 52% of the plunder was going to MARTA. MARTA does nothing to help traffic congestion in the surrounding counties and damn little in the city itself.
So I am in the River Valley district which includes Muscogee County (Columbus) maybe the most liberal county in the state overall. Does this mean that the taxes in this district go up the 1%? In a way I hope so. I live in north Harris County so I can shop in Troup county easily and not pay a penny of this.
Muscogee County has never seen a tax or government program they did not love. I notice the project list for River Valley district includes the Columbus RiverWalk. How that applies to transportation I will never understand.
Just make it a ‘temporary’ tax, like the one-year ‘temporary’ tax enacted by Rutkowski in Erie County, NY 30 years ago (it’s still in place- we don’t even get news reports any more of the dog an pony show each year when they ‘renew’ it)
Interesting in that the polls showed many making an association between expansion of public transport and increasing the reach of gangs of thugs. Once again, voters aren’t stupid and can connect cause and effect, even if liberals want to pretend no link exists.
It sure does. Funny who the media, which was in favor of this big time, inadvertantly let out the truth this morning when one of the news weasels said that "the poorest countes voted FOR the tax PLACING THEMSELVES AT AN ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE TO THE REST OF THE STATE" Well duh, if countines voting for the tax placed themselves at an economic disadvantage, how about the whole area placing iteself at an economic disadvantage if the thing passed.
I seem to remember reading that if any regions voted it down, (T-splost), that the highway dollars they receive from the state will go down? Any truth to that?
I can see it now. The districts that voted yes will collect the taxes, the state will reduce “normal” transportation funding by the same amount or more so that it can cover shortfalls in the other districts, and the yes districts end up in exactly the same place while paying higher taxes.
Ha ha - you're a prophet. They DID tout it as a temporary tax (ten years). Funny how if the tax passed we'd be stuck with it for (at least) ten years, but when it failed they can bring this up for a vote again in TWO years.
I heard the same thing, but I likewise don't know if it's true or not. It would be ironic if it were true.
Thus rewarding the stupidity of of voting yourself a tax increase with a well deserved screwing. I like it. The only downside is that those who voted NO will be screwed along with the idiots who voted yes.
Scott Walker taught us something that Reagan tried to teach us. The way you destroy liberalism is to bankrupt it.
More Special Interest money that would have went to Obama flushed down the toilet.
I just drove from Atlanta to Memphis a few weeks ago so Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Georgia’s gas cost at least 20 cents higher than any of these states. All of that is taxes, not 20 cents worth of taxes, 20 cents MORE tax per gallon that these other states taxes.
Where is all of that money going? The same place the majority of the TSPLOST money would have gone. Inefficient public transportation, huge boondoggle projects such as high speed rail, and projects such as the Columbus RiverWalk which has nothing to do with the transportation of the citizens of Georgia.
I took my 18 year old son to vote for the first time with me yesterday. I printed out sample ballots early went through all of the people and issues on it and talked to my son about why I was going to vote for or against. I told him to mark his sample ballot and take it with him so there would be no confusion. Get to our polling place in a county that usually votes over 60% conservative, not many people there, yet we stand and wait 30 minutes for a voting machine because it was obvious that the people voting in front of us were clueless. They were having to “think” about every issue and person before deciding.
I do not have much hope for the future as I think at least 70% of the voting public have no idea. I have at least 10 people outside of my family that I know that just vote the way I tell them because it is too much trouble to inform themselves. The always call me and ask what they should do. I guess I should pray that I can get that number up to a million then we will be talking!
Thanks. That answers my question.
Yes it is all set up so you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
In all the ads, the crooked pols in Atlanta never explained where the billions they already have are going, or what they were going to do with the extra cash if TSPLOST passed. They only screamed that there would be “Dire Consequences” if it failed.
WooHoo!
One of the funnier reasons the ads gave for voting for it was that it would be administered by a board of “citizens,” instead of by politicians.
If you could find out WHO paid for the ads pushing the atrocity, you would see WHERE the dollars are going. The rancidly corrupt Reed administration would funnel it to his suporters who would then funnel a tithe of it back to him in "campaign cvonributions"
Not just special interest groups. The fix was in by the potical and economic kingpins of Atlanta. The ballot question itself read like an advertisement for creating new jobs and better commute times. Big business like Office Depo and Cox had donated $10MM toward the effort, including free billboards and TV ads. The financially insular CEO of our own Fortune 500 company used the quarterly employee meeting as an infomercial to try to convince us all that we should vote for the T-SPLAT-- replete with guest appearances from the town mayor and the campaign organizer. They had their talking points down about how this would not be like the lies surrounding the use and duration of GA 400 toll booth when it was voted in years ago. The one brave soul who dissented in the meeting was cut off at the knees.
I wondered, "Now, what's in it for the CEO? Special local tax breaks for the company? "Economic development funds" largesse when a commuter light rail is placed nearby? Personal influence? Or some combination of the 3?"
Anyway, I'm delighted he did not get his way on the backs of his underpaid workers. But even with this landslide, I doubt that he and his political cronies will ever get the message of just how sick we are of government avarice and deception. But this vote makes me proud of Atlanta this morning.
The board of citizens was real. The only problem is that they had no more veto power over the spending than you or I do. The bureaucrats and politicians had total control. This was just another lie by the bureaucrats to get their hands on our hard earned money.
Did it ever. Like we could tax ourselves into prosperity. I guess we could tax ourselves into prosperity for the kingpins behind this blatant attempt at robbery. If anyone on this thread has not already read Bastiat's That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen this give a good explanation as wto why job creaton by taxation is a complete lie.
Our grande frommage did the same. Special employee meeting (voluntary attendence - I passed)to push the thing encouraging employees to :volunteer" to drum up the yes vote. I also wondered what was in it for him, because if he had the sense God gave a gnat he would have known that it would be bad for our business - consumers have less to spend on our products and services when they're paying more taxes. I am SO RELIEVED THAT THIS POS WENT DOWN IN FLAMES.
The only problem is that they'll be back again looking to loot us some more in two years. Politicians just don't get it. Until they lose an election to someone who opposes this endless government spending they'll keep it up.
Along those lines, Judy Manning, an anti-gun Republican, lost. I THINK she came out in favor of the tax. One of my friends told me that she did, but I don't really know. I do know that a few republicans around the state who were pushing the tax lost their re-elecion bids.
The graph of city densities at traffictruth.net told the tale. More rail is insanity in Atlanta just because of that, and they weren’t even going to be building much new rail, just maintaining what they have with a huge new tax.
Go to the 4th slide here.
http://www.traffictruth.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DebatePanel.slides.pdf
Anyone with half a brain who understands 1/10th of what this means knows rail is a loser.
Your numbers are way off. Get the gasoline taxes map from this page:
http://www.api.org/Oil-and-Natural-Gas-Overview/Industry-Economics/Fuel-Taxes.aspx
GA is 7.7 cents more than AL, 9.8 more than MS, 7.2 more than TN on taxes.
TN is way behind the curve on highway construction. I-75 should be 3 lanes each way all the way through the state; it is not. I-24 should be 3 lanes each way all the way from Nashville to Chattanooga; it drops to two lanes in Murfreesboro.
One of my friends did a bunch of the engineering design on the new International land side terminal at Hartsfield several years back. He had some sweetheart deal stories on that thing that would curl your hair.
Like the way the concessions at the airport were handed out to Reed supporters?
This was more on the construction side. Things like transaction counters that should have been $5k-7k each costing $20k, that sort of thing.
When you’re dealing with a city run by black democrats no tale of corruption, incompetence, or outright theft of taxpayer dollars is beyond belief
I am going to try to dig through this site some this weekend but all of this is weighted averages. I wonder if they take into account that Georgia’s tax on gas is not fixed. It goes up as the price of gas goes up thanks to our republican legislators. So we never really know the exact amount.
Sorry, I meant to say the percentage goes up as the price goes up.
I was wondering if maybe part of it might be because of special formulations required by EPA because of Atlanta with the requirements ending at the AL line.
Who knows the market is so screwed up and regulated it is impossible to really know what anythings true cost is and how much the government adds on top of that in taxes, fees, and just red tape costs to businesses.
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