Nashville Tea Party founder Ben Cunningham warned that the half-cent sales tax increase being considered to fund Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit reform plan will be “just a small down payment” from Nashvillians.
Cunningham posted to X, formerly Twitter, in response to a piece by Tennessean reporter Cassandra Stephenson.
“The half cent sales tax hike is just a small down payment for a transit vision that will be many orders of magnitude larger than the plan which will be presented to voters in November,” Cunningham wrote about the public transit referendum that voters will decide on November 5.
In her piece, Stephenson implied the sales tax would be worth it to Nashvillians once the yet-to-be-finished transit plan has been implemented in the city. Stephenson reported that a 0.5% tax increase could result in an extra $4 per month spent on grocery taxes by single adults and an extra $10 per month for a family of two adults and two children.
However, Cunningham noted that Amanda Wall Vandegrift, a consultant for Metro Nashville government working on the plan to improve the city’s transit, told WPLN that the goal of raising revenue through the sales tax is to secure federal funds made available by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by the Biden administration.
Cunningham also wrote the money would go toward funding “a much broader vision.”
“The problem: The Federal grants will allow Nashville to build huge projects but the money will NOT be permanent funding,” Cunningham continued. “At some point the federal funding will stop and the gap can only be filled by local revenue, i.e., huge future property tax increases.”
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes billions in federal dollars available to states and cities for infrastructure projects, as well as public transportation and climate change initiatives. Metro Nashville government is engaged in securing funds from this law for other projects such as the American Sustainable City with Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The law expires in 2026, however.
Cunningham pointed to examples of other transit plans that relied on federal money by linking to a Google search for “transit ‘fiscal cliff.’”
O’Connell intends to submit a concrete public transit plan to be approved by the Metro Council by the end of March, WPLN reported.
A state-comptroller-approved public accounting firm will also need to audit the financing plan and determine whether it is financially feasible, The Tennessee Star reported upon the transit referendum’s announcement. Once the plan is approved, Davidson County residents will vote to approve or reject it on the ballot on November 5.
The mayor’s office has released few concrete details about the transit plan since announcing the referendum in February, only that it would improve “sidewalks, signals, service, and safety,” The Star reported.
Matthew Giffin is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Matthew on X/Twitter.
