UGA Professor: 'T-SPLOST Prospects Look Dim'

Georgia Republicans' aversion to any kind of tax, and concern about riling the Tea Party, are helping to consolidate opposition to the state's one-percent sales tax referendum for transportation, UGA professor Charles Bullock said in an analysis of a recent Patch survey.

showed overwhelming opposition to the TSPLOST referendum. Bullock, a longtime observer of Georgia politics, says that while the Tea Party didn't put up as many primary challengers to sitting Republican legislators as it had hoped, anti-tax pressure within the party remains high.

"So although tons of money is being spent to encourage voting for the T-SPLOST and the , it looks like it will go down to defeat," Bullock said in an analysis emailed to Patch. "We have the interesting phenomenon of disagreement between many GOP leaders and a group usually closely associated with the GOP (the Chamber)."

Bullock conlcuded: "With GOP leadership unwilling to step forward and reassure conservative, anti-tax voters that the projects to be funded with the T-SPLOST are meritorious, there is scant prospect for approval."