Gov. Sonny Perdue unveiled a two-step plan today to increase funding for transportation in Georgia.

The first step would be to saddle taxpayers with a sizable amount of debt — $300 million each year for the next 10 years to pay for projects on the state transportation bureaucracy’s priority list. That approach would allow the Legislature to approve the extra money this year. While the project list isn’t public yet, it could provide seed money for a variety of projects.

But it’s also a bit of a slight of hand by a governor who will be long out of town by the time the payments are due: While the annual payments on the bonds might only be around $30 million, they’ll mount each year with $300 million in more debt. Past Legislatures have lost their appetite for similar schemes as the debt piled up from year to year.

I personally don’t like this scheme because of Georgia’s history with such projects: Despite all the promises of that spending will be less “political” this time around, most of the money is likely to go to more unneeded roads in rural Georgia and because the money comes out of general funds, it amounts to yet another welfare transfer from people who don’t drive much to people who use the hell out of Georgia roads.

The second step would be to seek approval of a constitutional amendment that would require each region within the state to hold a referendum on whether to levy an extra penny sales tax to pay for that region’s choice of projects. That’s essentially the approach that metro leaders have sought for years, because it finally could provide a steady stream for metro Atlanta projects that aren’t necessarily roads. Perdue has suggested that the referenda be held in 2012 rather than this year.

See article at Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Related posts:

1. Perdue proposes water-saving plan lite
2. Perdue’s $300 million for freight, not commuters
3. On the cusp of solving our transit woes?
4. CL’s take on Perdue transport proposal
5. Transportation plan would fund rural roads