Tuesday, Jul 7, 2015
We’ve been here before. Last year, our state leaders couldn’t agree on how to fix our roads, so they crafted Proposal 1 and asked the voters to decide. We all know how that turned out. Now, we have a second chance. The House and Senate have again passed different plans for fixing our roads. This time we can’t afford to fail.
But it’s critical as our leaders work toward a common plan that they not fix one problem by creating others. Both plans rely on redirecting at least $700 million of income tax revenue from the General Fund to transportation – that’s about 7% of the current General Fund budget. Permanently shifting that much General Fund revenue to roads will no doubt have a negative impact in other areas that are critical to Michigan’s growth – areas like job training and higher education – areas that are critical to developing the talent Michigan employers need to compete.
BLM’s position: Our polling shows that voters are ready to support a simple, dedicated road funding stream, built to go the distance and backed by common sense. We encourage the Legislature to find a solution that fixes our roads the right way with a long-term solution that generates enough money to fix them every year and doesn’t shortchange other key priorities.