Issues like repairing our roads don’t come around very often. It’s one of those debates that will boost economic growth and make the next generation of drivers safer. It’s one of the big challenges we ask our elected leaders to solve.

Let me repeat: “We ask our elected leaders to solve.” The people of our state, the businesses of our state, and the community leaders of our state have asked our elected leaders to fix our decrepit road system during this legislative session.

So what are we waiting for? We’re 28 weeks into a 40-week legislative session and the people of South Carolina are still waiting for our leaders to take action.

We have 46 senators working to find a compromise that has few easy solutions. Our elected leaders are struggling despite the fact that new funding for roads is supported by a broad local coalition that includes a majority of South Carolinians, a majority of tea party voters, a majority of business leaders, and a majority of small business owners. But the debate is stalling because we have a group of out-of-state billionaires dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into this state in an effort to short-circuit our solutions.

Americans for Prosperity – funded by the Koch brothers and other wealthy, unknown donors – are only concerned about furthering their national political power. They will say anything to do so. Since they don’t have facts on their side, they throw up red herrings, false dilemmas and the good old post hoc ergo procter hoc arguments. They hold themselves up as the last defenders of conservative ideals, despite the fact that conservative icons Ronald Reagan and Carroll Campbell signed gas tax increases that laid the foundation in the 1980s that would jump-start our economy.

Americans for Prosperity makes many claims despite clear facts to the contrary. We’ve seen this story before: Rich out-of-state billionaires with an agenda throw money into our politics in an attempt to raise their national profile. A decade ago, it was over education. Today, it’s about infrastructure.

These campaigns are similar because both groups threw hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread falsehoods in the public debate in a desperate effort to achieve an end that is against the will of South Carolinians.

Those two campaigns are also similar in that the out-of-state special interests won’t win.

We don’t need more politics. We need solutions. Luckily, there are solutions at hand. The governor, the House, the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Republican Caucus, a bi-partisan working group of senators, and even a filibustering conservative senator, have proposed real plans that deserve consideration. All of these plans are being put forward by South Carolinians, for South Carolinians, and with the future of our great state at the heart of the matter.

We have smart, good people on both sides of this debate who all agree that our roads are a disgrace and need an immediate solution. In the latest polling from Winthrop University, 63 percent of South Carolinians support raising the gas tax to repair roads, and even 53 percent of self-identified conservative tea party voters support raising the gas tax.

It’s time for our leaders to buckle down and finish this debate so we can move forward to the critical workforce, education, public safety, public health and ethics issues that still await debate. It’s time for all of us to sideline the out-of-state special interest provocateurs intent on throwing elbows in our family argument.

So, what else can you do?

Go to upstatechamber.org or scstatehouse.gov and get the contact information for your state senator. Then call your senators and tell them we need a solution now that fixes the roads that are costing the lives of nearly 1,000 of our neighbors each year. Tell them we need a solution so our hard-working entrepreneurs can get their goods to market. Tell them enough is enough and compromise is not a dirty word.

Time is running out. There are 12 weeks left.