Michigan now has highest gas tax in the nation

**Oddz313** · December-30-16, 11:44 AM

Funny how people vote down public transportation because of taxes only to get huge costs and taxes levied on them just to be able to drive. The people of Michigan really are useful idiots

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/loca...26262779-story

**emu steve** · December-30-16, 12:22 PM

Originally Posted by Oddz313

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/loca...26262779-story

Funny how people vote down public transportation because of taxes only to get huge costs and taxes levied on them just to be able to drive. The people of Michigan really are useful idiots

My view is that they got it half right...

**mtburb** · December-30-16, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by Oddz313

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/loca...26262779-story

Funny how people vote down public transportation because of taxes only to get huge costs and taxes levied on them just to be able to drive. The people of Michigan really are useful idiots

Oh, the irony of how even though we declined a major transit project our transit systems may end up seeing at least a small ridership boost thanks to this tax...

**Oddz313** · December-30-16, 12:35 PM

Or they will try to cut corners elsewhere on insurance or something and we can pay for their stay in the grey bar hotel

**Bobl** · December-30-16, 12:37 PM

The roads and infrastructure are an embarrassment and in dire need of repair. The increasing emphasis on subsidies and tax breaks for billionaires, at the expense of preventive maintenance requires that funds come from somewhere else. Redistribution of wealth, away from those who vote for those who redistribute. Useful idiot is a rude term. I think some folks are just too busy trying to keep their heads above the tsunami to engage in rational thought, or read books and news sources from varied points of view.

**Gistok** · December-30-16, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Oddz313

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/loca...26262779-story

Funny how people vote down public transportation because of taxes only to get huge costs and taxes levied on them just to be able to drive. The people of Michigan really are useful idiots

You don't seem to get it..... the folks of Michigan have been screaming for years about the condition of their roads. I'm all for mass transit.... but we're to spread out for it to do much good in much of SE Michigan.

And don't call our entire state.... "useful idiots".... it detracts from your math/reading skills when your thread heading says we have the highest gas tax in the nation.... we are only #6... not #1. You missed the words "one of the" in the article heading".

**Oddz313** · December-30-16, 12:58 PM

The 20% increase in registration fees along with being number 5 or 6 in gas tax now makes us some of the highest taxed drivers in the country. I don't know why mass transit would not do much good though. Also headlines are designed to be short. The people of Michigan voted all these clowns in thinking they wouldn't get gouged because they have R's next to their names thus they are useful idiots

**Atticus** · December-30-16, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by Oddz313

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/loca...26262779-story

Funny how people vote down public transportation because of taxes only to get huge costs and taxes levied on them just to be able to drive. The people of Michigan really are useful idiots

This article just shows how bad the local media has become. The Detroit News had a very similar story. Fear and clickbaiting, with "oh look, you the Michigan Taxpayer are paying more and the roads still are awful." Clearly implies something is amiss.

And yet despite this implication, one very huge detail gets left out of the story: Michigan spends the least on roads. For those who aren't familiar with the details of the gas tax, a significant portion of the tax go towards schools. Not once is that mentioned in this article or the Detroit News article about the school portion. Not once. Classic deceptive journalism to generate clicks. Articles like this are the main reason I take the Detroit News with a grain of salt, and won't buy their paper.

Without the school portion being included, the uninformed reader has to assume they are paying more in taxes, and the government is just wasting it, because clearly the roads aren't getting better. Rather than practice good journalism, their pathetic faux news just prefers to mislead people into thinking their gas tax dollars are being misspent.

And this rant is coming from someone who favors shrinking the highways in our urban areas. I still want [[smaller) good roads, and am really, really tired of deceptive journalism.

Calltoaction · December-30-16, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

You don't seem to get it..... the folks of Michigan have been screaming for years about the condition of their roads. I'm all for mass transit.... but we're to spread out for it to do much good in much of SE Michigan.

I keep hearing this argument from people who know next to nothing about public transit, only echoed from somebody else they heard it from without actually understanding how transit work.

The truth is that there are cities with a lower population density than Detroit that have much better public transit than we do. Being "spread out" is not an excuse or a deterrent for creating a comprehensive public transit plan.

**emu steve** · December-30-16, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by emu steve

My view is that they got it half right...

Half loaf is better than nothing.

**Richard** · December-30-16, 03:31 PM

IMO that is how you do it,tax gas so it becomes $7 per gallon and fix the roads,it is proven that the higher the price of gas becomes the higher the ridership for mass transit.

If they get on board and offer an alternative to the burbs willing to move forward the city could create connective routes.

Say for instance connect Hamatrac to the downtown entertainment,sports and shopping district with a park and ride,when events are going on the public rides and does not have to worry about parking and driving back home if they have a few drinks,other times residents now have a choice of where they choose to live and can take the train or street car to work in either direction,the demand after that will create the sub lines.

You will never get everybody on board with a regional transit plan,it is a failure from the start,pick the communities that want to participate and work from there,nowhere in the country is a transit system based on everybody agreeing.

It is hard to present a case when the name calling starts because one does not agree with ones point of view,it does not matter what ones political views are or income level or whatever,if a viable plan is presented that makes sense it can be sold.

There is always going to be opposition and nobody is going to change that.

**Bham1982** · December-30-16, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by Richard

IMO that is how you do it,tax gas so it becomes $7 per gallon and fix the roads,it is proven that the higher the price of gas becomes the higher the ridership for mass transit.

I would like to see some data for that, especially given that gas prices are way down nationally, and transit usage is up.

Most U.S. transit riders are non-choice so it doesn't matter if gas is free or $10/gallon; if you're flat broke and in an urban area you're likely to need a bus. And if you're anywhere else, there is no bus.

User taxes like gas taxes inherently harm lower income households. It's a regressive tax. Income taxes make more sense, but for some odd reason, working class Americans apparently want to give the wealthy even more tax cuts, while increasing their own taxes.

**Wesley Mouch** · December-30-16, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

...snip... User taxes like gas taxes inherently harm lower income households. It's a regressive tax. Income taxes make more sense, but for some odd reason, working class Americans apparently want to give the wealthy even more tax cuts, while increasing their own taxes.

You have that right. But good luck getting upper-class tax deductions changed.

For example, taxing pensions clearly takes more money from middle to upper-middle class earners. Very few poor people have pensions. And that was super-popular, as I remember with a lot of voters.

Taxing benefits and pensions 100% is the single best thing we can do to relieve the tax burden on the poor -- by making those who have good jobs pay their fair share -- and not a penny more.

**Bobl** · December-30-16, 06:40 PM

"...but for some odd reason, working class Americans apparently want to give the wealthy even more tax cuts, while increasing their own taxes..." Birmingham's observation is pertinent and interesting.

**SyGolden48236** · December-30-16, 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by Oddz313

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/loca...26262779-story

Funny how people vote down public transportation because of taxes only to get huge costs and taxes levied on them just to be able to drive. The people of Michigan really are useful idiots

Funny how some people don't understand that public transit millages fail not because people don't want to pay the extra taxes. They fail because people don't want to pay extra taxes to fund things that they have no need or desire to use.

**Honky Tonk** · December-30-16, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

but for some odd reason, working class Americans apparently want to give the wealthy even more tax cuts, while increasing their own taxes.

I don't think it's a matter of "wanting", I think it's a matter of not having a choice in either. Where a choice was offered, people voted accordingly.

**detroitbob** · December-31-16, 12:23 PM

Look for the Highway Trust Fund to be done away with and the abolish the Interstate Highway System to allow is for states to fund their highhway infrastructure through tolls, or taking the further step of privatizing the highways. Its been tested in on a stretch of highway in Indiana I believe in 2006. In the best of all worlds, the cost of the tolls on the consumer could encourage transit options like the failed effort in Michigan or not...How many tolls could you pay on the I-94 toll road to Chicago or better yet that daily commute between Brighton and Ann Arbor or those trucks and cars on the I75 Rouge River bridge? Might make the high speed rail look real good. Of course that could be the next thing to defund...Amtrak. Turn it private but now that the new 'dear leader' has pissed of the Chinese maybe the Russians want to run a railroad?

**Dan Wesson** · December-31-16, 01:50 PM

Our gas tax may not be the highest today but it will be eventually. Remember the yearly automatic escalating increases?

**Wesley Mouch** · December-31-16, 05:39 PM

Originally Posted by SyGolden48236

Funny how some people don't understand that public transit millages fail not because people don't want to pay the extra taxes. They fail because people don't want to pay extra taxes to fund things that they have no need or desire to use.

I vote against most tax increases not because I don't want to pay 'extra' taxes... but because I believe that we are paying a reasonable amount of taxes now -- and that what is needed is more efficiency, not more taxes. [[I just have to think about Turkia Mullins for 1 second, and another second for that guy who got a full Wayne County pension for less than 10 years work because he was able to count some other work as WC time or something equally abusive to the taxpayers -- and then I vote NO.)

**Honky Tonk** · December-31-16, 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

I vote against most tax increases not because I don't want to pay 'extra' taxes... but because I believe that we are paying a reasonable amount of taxes now -- and that what is needed is more efficiency, not more taxes. [[I just have to think about Turkia Mullins for 1 second, and another second for that guy who got a full Wayne County pension for less than 10 years work because he was able to count some other work as WC time or something equally abusive to the taxpayers -- and then I vote NO.)

Not to mention the fact that the taxes that were being collected all these years, for roads and bridges, were placed into, again without public approval, the general fund, and siphoned off for other projects. Now when the shit has hit the proverbial fan, what's the solution? More taxes. Sorry, I'm tapped out.

**Canadian Visitor** · December-31-16, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Not to mention the fact that the taxes that were being collected all these years, for roads and bridges, were placed into, again without public approval, the general fund, and siphoned off for other projects. Now when the shit has hit the proverbial fan, what's the solution? More taxes. Sorry, I'm tapped out.

Wow, LOL, you all pay no taxes on fuel relative to the rest of the world, and you feel hard done by.

As I read it, you will pay, after this increase, in the range of .26c per gallon....

Across the border you'd pay 1.05 per gallon in total tax [[fuel + sales taxes)

That goes up to $1.095 on Jan 1, 2017 [[Cap and Trade)

Really folks, you pay next to nothing; and the quality of your infrastructure reflects that.

**detroitbob** · January-01-17, 01:18 AM

Originally Posted by Canadian Visitor

Really folks, you pay next to nothing; and the quality of your infrastructure reflects that.

true Canadian Visitor. and things are not going to improve. I should have married Canadian twenty years ago...Sigh.

**Crumbled_pavement** · January-01-17, 01:30 AM

All I want to know is, where is Grover Norquist? I thought he forced every Republican to sign a pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstance. Maybe we need a Michigan state version of Grover to get this situation under control.

**detroitbob** · January-01-17, 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by Crumbled_pavement

All I want to know is, where is Grover Norquist?

Donald "dear leader"Trump hasn't taken the pledge...
http://time.com/4354389/grover-norqu...-conservative/
And if he thinks Ronnie was that conservative...

**Honky Tonk** · January-01-17, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by Canadian Visitor

Wow, LOL, you all pay no taxes on fuel relative to the rest of the world, and you feel hard done by.

LOL! WOW, what does any of that have to do with my situation? Are you suggesting I should succumb to higher taxes to somehow appease everyone else's situation? If you don't like being gouged in your part of the world, and don't feel you're getting your money's worth, then either work to change it or move.