https://redstate.com/dia0420/2009/04/08/arrogance/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 04:59:07 -0400<![CDATA[Voters in Georgia do not trust the political establishment in Georgia right now. What compounds this is that I get the sense much of the political establishment in Georgia holds the citizens in contempt. They just won&#8217;t do as they are told.The T-SPLOST fell victim to this conundrum. The Georgia Legislature, in the past four years, has decided that instead of voting to cut spending or raise taxes, they&#8217;d send tax increases for votes with the people. The first was on trauma care funding. It failed. Now its was infrastructure spending.The legislature came up with something called a Transportation Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax, or T-SPLOST. Voters in twelve regions of the state — artificial constructs created by bureaucrats — were told by the legislature to either raise their taxes by 16% or see their transportation funding cut. It didn&#8217;t go like the legislature and local politicians expected it to. The voters overwhelmingly rejected the T-SPLOST in most of the state.Now, of course, several regions of the state went along with it. Some of those areas are the poorest in the state. Their sales tax will now increase putting them at more of a competitive disadvantage to neighboring regions. It is the consequence of some rather narrow thinking of politicians convinced of their own righteousness.Governor Nathan Deal &mdash; truth be told &mdash; never liked the T-SPLOST idea. He was a team player and wound up on the losing side of a plan he never much cared for to begin with. The ball is now in his court and he has the opportunity to both restore trust and have a more tremendous impact on the state than his last two predecessors, neither of whom have left much of a legacy.In doing so, the Governor&#8217;s first step should not be to come up with a plan.]]>Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:37:05 -0400<![CDATA[Erick Erickson]]>https://redstate.com/erick/2012/08/01/arrogance-n43926