The 1% transportation sales tax would apply to food, just as the County SPLOST taxes do. When you do the math, that amounts to $1 on a $100 grocery bill, for example.

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Please pass this on to everyone you know because it is aimed at everyone in the Atlanta area…

On July 31, 2012, residents across the 10-county Atlanta region including Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties, as well as the City of Atlanta have the opportunity to vote on a referendum that would fund $8.5 billion in transportation improvements through a regional one percent sales tax. http://www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com/

The referendum is being touted by several special interest groups, like MAVEN, and the City of Atlanta as a solution to Atlanta’s traffic problems. Supposedly the new sales tax would only last 10 years and then expire, unless extended by the voters. This is similar to what they told us about the GA 400 toll booths, which are still there collecting fares long after the project was paid for.

It is critical that everyone understand what they are really voting for or against. It is crystal clear from examining MARTA’s 2010 and 2011 “Annual Report” that MARTA is broke and going under. The situation is so bad that they do not even include any financial statements, like a Balance Sheet or Cash Flow Statement in their Annual Reports. It is just page after page of why MARTA is good. MARTA already gets 60% of its revenue from sales taxes, not from ridership which is hardly growing and will decline if fares are increased. Now they need to make up the rest of their $300M per year shortfall on the backs of the neighboring counties.

From MARTA’s 2011 “Annual Report”, page 37:
http://www.itsmarta.com/uploadedFiles/About_MARTA/Reports/PAFR_2011%20final.pdf

This chart shows MARTA’s two primary revenues trended over the past ten fiscal years. MARTA’s two largest revenue sources are Sales Tax and Fare Revenue. The two combined make up 82% or $436 M of total revenue. Sales Tax provides 60% of MARTA’s total revenue and Fare Revenue provides 22% of the total. MARTA’s Sales Tax revenue comes from a 1% sales tax levied in the City of Atlanta and the Counties of Fulton and DeKalb.

Revenue comes in at $436M while expenses top $727M (page 39). Fourth grade math tells you that Marta is going broke and fast. Now they need yet another sales tax for revenue.

The coming TIA Transportation Referendum started as a $27B money grab and was whittled down to an $8.5B pile of pork with half the revenue for failing MARTA. It has pork for votes for the outlying counties, but they will pay the price several times over. Examples are a bridge at Lake Allatoona and sidewalks in Lawrenceville. These projects will supposedly help alleviate Atlanta’s traffic flow. The proponents talk about how the projects will create jobs and provide a 4:1 return on “investment”. This is another obvious bailout and redistribution of personal income.

So, it is up to each of us to decide on July 31 if we will join the City of Atlanta, Fulton, and DeKalb counties in funding MARTA in perpetuity, because MARTA will never be self-sustaining. MARTA will never be solvent because we would need at least five times as many riders just to break even. We would need to increase the number of people per acre inside I-285 by an order of magnitude to get the needed ridership.
In other words, Atlanta must become another New York, which is what Atlanta elected officials desire.

So, I urge you to pass this on and get out the vote on July 31, 2012.

The TIA (TSPLOST) was created to PROVIDE TRAFFIC CONGESTION RELIEF and now it is being spun into some phony stimulus-type deal. The reason this has to be done is the proposed transit has almost no affect on traffic congestion.