Opinion | Responsible roads plan will repair local infrastructure

As the weather begins to warm and winter snow has melted away in Michigan, a few time-honored, spring traditions are revealed — like green grass and new buds on trees.

And potholes. Lots and lots of potholes.

Our local and county road agencies will soon be out making the repairs that they can, but in many cases, they lack sufficient resources to make needed, lasting improvements. This shouldn’t be the case when our state budgets have ballooned to over $80 billion and general fund spending has grown by more than $4 billion since 2018 — which is a staggering 40% increase.

People have been clear. They want good roads so they can get from Point A to Point B safely and keep their cars away from expensive repairs at the body shop. They have long called for their elected officials to come up with plans that accomplish this, and the money is there to do it.

We have introduced legislation within an advancing roads plan, House Bills 4180-87 and House Bill 4230, that provides $3.145 billion each year to fix roads, including badly neglected ones from driveway to highway that people use every day in our communities. 

The total funding will come from existing tax dollars, including putting all taxes people already pay at Michigan gas pumps toward roads and corporate handouts like the Strategic Outreach Attraction Reserve fund that can be more effectively used by going toward priorities that matter to people in our state.

With around 80% of these re-allocated funds getting distributed directly to local road agencies, this plan will deliver better local roads without tax increases or additional debt. It will also hold school funding harmless by dedicating $755 million in sales tax revenue to account for the decrease in what is normally allocated through gasoline sales tax.

Gov. Whitmer has long used “fixing the damn roads” as a rallying cry, and she recently touted her own road funding plan at her annual State of the State address. While the overall dollar amount the governor wants to put towards her plan is now closer to our House Republican plan, her proposal comes with the potential for additional taxes and fees on things like retail delivery, riding in an Uber, internet advertising, and others in order to raise the revenue necessary to get to the total number. The governor previously chose to borrow $3.5 billion for larger, state-owned highways that saddled future generations of Michiganders with debt and still left local roads neglected.

But we don’t need more tax-and-spend measures or borrowing to do this! We were recently able to find a bipartisan solution with the Democrat-controlled Senate and governor to preserve the tip credit for hardworking people in the service industry and establish commonsense sick leave measures that work better than what had been mandated through a short-sighted Michigan Supreme Court ruling last summer. This agreement prevented numerous workers and small business owners like ones we represent in southeast Michigan from losing their livelihoods through no fault of their own.

In the months ahead, we must be able to once again come to a commonsense agreement that funds local road repairs and doesn’t burden taxpayers.

Local infrastructure is what we use to take our kids to school or practice, run to the grocery store or head out for a meal with our families. It’s a critical component of our everyday lives, and it’s past time that Lansing treated it as such.