The Angle ·

Your tax refund won't fix Nashville traffic. Here's why.

Your tax refund probably won't fix Nashville traffic

Look, man, everybody's talking about these bigger tax refunds this year, how it's fixing to put a little extra jingle in folks' pockets. And don't get me wrong, that sounds mighty fine on paper. But when I think about that money hitting bank accounts here in Nashville, I just gotta wonder: what's it really gonna change?

You see, a few extra dollars in the pockets of folks from Antioch to Hendersonville, it ain't gonna make the I-24 crawl any faster. It ain't gonna magically build the public transit system we desperately need to connect North Nashville to downtown, or keep Broadway from becoming a total logjam by 11 AM. We got folks down in Williamson County trying to pitch ideas to fix roads statewide without raising taxes, bless their hearts, but a tax refund, even a big one, feels like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound when you're talking about the growth pains we're feeling. That's the real Nashville, y'all — before the neon and after.

A little extra cash is always nice, and I hope it helps folks grab some Prince's Hot Chicken, maybe catch a show at the Ryman. But for the big picture, the stuff that truly moves Nashville forward, we're gonna need more than just a tax refund.

Darius Caldwell, Nashville.

Man, Keith and the whole Morning Wire crew got a lot to say about this. You gotta tune in live at mornings.live.

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