For decades, conservative leaders in Washington and Atlanta have preached the goal of decentralizing government by returning power from federal to state and state to local, giving average citizens more direct control of their daily lives. But nearly halfway through this year’s session of the General Assembly, efforts to reform two of Georgia’s crucial needs, roads and schools, seem to be headed in the opposite direction. On transportation, state leaders proposed a fuel excise tax to replace sales taxes cities and counties rely on for revenue.