On Saturday, the Tenth District/Baldwin County GOP hosted a Republican gubernatorial forum that featured the four major candidates. Two of the candidates addressed transportation in terms that metro Atlanta business interests would appreciate:

First there was Hunter Hill, the former state senator from Buckhead:“Transportation is a foundational, economic development issue for our state. It’s also a constitutional priority that our leaders should fund. In the ‘70s, when Georgia and Atlanta, in particular, were growing at a rapid rate, transportation was 15 percent of the budget. The career politicians have underfunded this core competency of government, and now they always come to you and ask for a tax increase to fund what should have been funded on the front end.

"That’s why, as a constitutional conservative, we ought to prioritize transportation funding, and I am for larger investments in transportation, because that is directly attributable to job growth and economic growth for our people. I’m for funding transportation from the general fund…There are meaningful projects that we have discussed for years, but career politicians have not been willing to bring the resources to bear to get them done, to move our state forward." Hill called for doubling the state’s financial commitment to transportation, “without raising taxes.”