The July 31 T-SPLOST referendum would change the way we pay for our roads in Georgia might be a good thing, but does anyone know the facts and how it will impact individual communities around the state?

Who are the advocates of this effort and when are they going to tell us how the program will actually work?

Since my discussion of this issue last week, I have heard that 55 percent of Georgians favor the measure.

Who are these people and who took the poll?

I know of no one polled. Therefore, I take the position that those who oppose the proposal have not yet spoken.

I have a few basic questions I would like answered, and maybe you do, too.

First, I believe the attorney general ought to weigh in on the subject to determine whether or not the business of the state’s dumping a new tax and bureaucracy on the local folks is constitutional.

There is good reason from people in some quarters to believe the measure may not be constitutional.

Next, what happens to the fuel tax we currently pay if the new tax is implemented?

Will that be an additional amount communities would receive under the allotment granted each of the individual communities?

The new tax would most assuredly set up a new bureaucratic layer of command and responsibility.

Would each district have to set up another office with a staff to administer the program or would the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) handle this chore?

The individual communities will first collect the money, but how is it distributed down to the districts and how much will the state charge for its handling fee?

Why can’t individual communities keep their portion and send the rest up the line before they send it back down the line?

The state should have to, in clear and in no uncertain terms, discuss and affirm just how the entire matter of "redirecting funds from the districts will be handled and accounted for.” This section of the Transportation Act is unclear to most people who oppose the measure and unless the issued is resolved to most everyone’s satisfaction the proposal will surely be defeated at the polls.

These are just a few questions I have no answer for, but if the measure does not pass on July 31 the whole exercise to find out the facts will be a moot issue.

This T-SPLOST reminds one of Nancy Pelosi’s famous quote, "Maybe we should go ahead and pass this bill so we can find out what’s in it".

It’s time we have some dialogue on the T-SPLOST referendum and, while we are at it, we might want to assess the whole concept of the sales tax and its future impact of its regressive nature and try to figure out a better way to finance state needs that the state does not want to pay for.