LANSING – Governor Rick Snyder said Tuesday that he will offer a refined proposal on how to fill an estimated annual gap in the state’s road funding needs of $1.6 billion during his State of the State address January 16.
In the fall of 2011, Snyder unveiled a series of proposals designed to boost road funding and called for changing the state’s basic formula for allocating funds for road repairs between it and local governments. Neither went anywhere in the 2011-12 term.
Snyder proposed changing the tax on gasoline from one assessed as 19 cents per gallon (15 cents per gallon on diesel) to a percentage-based tax at the wholesale level that would raise more revenue than the existing levy. He also proposed increasing vehicle registration fees by an average of $60 per vehicle with pricier cars seeing a larger increase and cheaper cars a smaller one. Together, those proposals were to raise $1.4 billion, considered the need at the time.
Both died. A Gongwer News Service poll showed the vehicle registration hike in its original incarnation of $120 on average for each vehicle to be tremendously unpopular. And legislators balked at raising taxes, much to the frustration of a broad coalition saying the state simply cannot afford to continue failing to invest in its roads.
Asked Tuesday if what he would discuss in his State of the State message would differ from his previous proposal, Snyder said what he unveiled in 2011 was a general framework.
“We’ll present a more specific framework,” he said.
Though adequately funding the transportation system has been an issue for more than a decade, finally doing something about it was a major topic of discussion in the last legislative term. Former Rep. Rick Olson (R-York Township) and former Rep. Paul Opsommer (R-DeWitt) spent extensive time with transportation authorities across the state and handed their findings over to a Senate Task Force on Transportation, which then also held hearings with officials and stakeholders to create an action plan.
Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) said transportation funding is among the items to be discussed for the agenda.
But Democratic leaders in the Legislature appear to be girding to turn the issue against Mr. Snyder and the Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) said she is waiting to see what is put on the table.
“We have seen the Republicans push a lot of legislation that increases costs on the individual to pay for things that benefited business’ bottom lines,” she said. “I’ll be very interested to see what they put on the table, but if it means continued sacrifice by individuals who can’t continue to make that sacrifice, then I’ll continue to look at it very skeptically.”
She does agree, however, that infrastructure needs to be a priority. She said had the Republicans put a “bipartisan plan” on the table in the last two years, it would have been welcomed. However, the lack of trust weighing down the Capitol air “makes it a lot more difficult to find that common ground,” she said.
And House Minority Leader Tim Greimel (D-Auburn Hills) said in a recent interview with Gongwer News Service that House Democrats are committed to doing “all that is appropriate” to fix the state’s broken roads, but was skeptical on the way in which the governor has so far planned to go about it.
“The governor’s road proposals have simply included more of the same, which is paying for road repairs by increasing taxes and fees on middle class families in the state of Michigan, which simply is an extension of what his tax policies have done over the past two years,” Greimel said.
Greimel pointed to the tax overhaul of 2011 that saw the individual income tax burden rise as the business tax burden fell.
“I think that given the massive increase in tax burden that the Republicans have already hoisted on middle class families that we should be reluctant to further increase the burden on middle class and working families in the context of road funding,” he said.
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