Whitmer’s Road Fix

[O3H]

You have to love a public forum and the quotes you can pull

""By now every kid in MI should be a rocket scientist.""

[sirrealone]

But, I'll say it again, they MUST be strictly allocated to roads only. There must be an iron clad prohibition against other uses.

I'm pretty sure fuel taxes have to go to the transportation budget. It's the 6% sales tax that's collected on fuel which goes into the general fund that can be played with.

[Richard]

The 45 cents is to be phased in over a time. It's not a full force hit all at once which makes it a little more digestible for me. I don't care for it, but I don't care for driving on jacked up roads that damage my vehicle either. However, I would like our federal Congressional reps to try to get more road funding out of Washington as well.

The previous administration already dedicated 50 million a year to the new bridge,not sure if that was considered over and above what is already allotted or deducted from the yearly allotment as a whole.

[Richard]

I'm not necessarily against it. People who buy gas are generally the people that use roads. So raising the gas tax impacts people who drive on our roads the most.

Bus riders will probably not be impacted, which is good, because public transit is something we want to incentivize.

Electric cars get a free pass, but that's fine for now, as that's something I want to incentivize. Once we make our electricity production cleaner these cars will be even better for the environment.

Bottom line is, we've neglected to fund our roads. It's time to fix it.

When you increase the cost of fuel it impacts everybody regardless of weather they drive or not,anybody that uses fuel in the delivery of products will add the extra fuel costs to the end user as an example.

So if you drive you pay the extra tax,everything else that you purchase or have delivered will have the extra tax built into the price,so you are kinda paying twice.

[Burnsie]

Richard, people are also "paying twice" when they have to get alignments and bent wheels replaced.

[Richard]

Burnsie - that’s that cheap Chinese steel,take an old made with US steel 63 caddy and you can hit potholes and run over small cars and not spill your coffee.

One would figure after 100 plus years of building roads they would have figured out a more durable solution.

[Bigdd]

I'm not necessarily against it. People who buy gas are generally the people that use roads. So raising the gas tax impacts people who drive on our roads the most.

Yep,.. and the bigger and heavier the car you drive,.. the more gas you probably burn. So it works out nicely,... EXCEPT for elec cars. And those often weigh much more than other cars. A little Tesla model S is nearly 5,000 lbs. So based on weight,.. we would need to raise the registration fees about $500 a year, and perhaps $250 for a Nissan Leaf. [[People that buy a $120,000 car like a Tesla P100D won't even notice that)

Bus riders will probably not be impacted, which is good, because public transit is something we want to incentivize.

Of course we already do. The rider fees only cover something like 1/3 of the actual costs. The rest is welfare.

[Scottathew]

When you increase the cost of fuel it impacts everybody regardless of weather they drive or not,anybody that uses fuel in the delivery of products will add the extra fuel costs to the end user as an example.

So if you drive you pay the extra tax,everything else that you purchase or have delivered will have the extra tax built into the price,so you are kinda paying twice.

I'm not saying that non-drivers are not effected, I'm just saying that drivers are effected the most. We need to raise a lot of money for the roads to fix them, no matter what way we raise money there will be people and entities who are directly and indirectly impacted.

A gas tax is a good way to tax the people who are using the roads. Some would argue that toll roads would be a better way, but in general we only make high-volume freeways toll roads, so we wouldn't be capturing usage outside of those. A gas tax captures that usage.

We could implement technology that tracks each vehicle and how much it used the public road network, but I could see a lot of people not wanting to be tracked by the government. A gas tax is a good compromise... for now...

I'm open to different way to fund the roads, but most important to me is that we actually do it, not entirely what method we use.

[poobert]

Glad I drive electric! Tax, baby, tax!

[Meddle]

When you increase the cost of fuel it impacts everybody regardless of weather they drive or not,

When you increase the cost of fuel it affects everybody regardless of whether they drive in good weather or bad.



[[Note, I also hate the 'I' word in addition to misused words.)

The repeated impacts of hitting potholes can have an effect on your vehicle's suspension and affect your wallet.

[Meddle]

Glad I drive electric! Suck it, SUV drivers. You virtually all drive like complete assholes in your stupid fake army station wagons, too, by the way.

Wait until they start tacking 'EV Transportation taxes' on to your electric bill. Hopefully they'll only do it to people registering EVs though and not everyone. I can see 'pay EV taxes as you go' on public charging stations too when they start popping up.

[Honky Tonk]

A gas tax is a good way to tax the people who are using the roads.

Slow Children. Motorists have already been taxed for years. The reason the roads are bad is because the monies collected for years have been put into the General Fund, then spent on other things and not on roads and repair. So, the solution is more taxes?

[Honky Tonk]

You have to love a public forum and the quotes you can pull

""By now every kid in MI should be a rocket scientist.""

Why don't you erect your pup tent up on your bed and pull on your LED lights?

[JonWylie]

Slow Children. Motorists have already been taxed for years. The reason the roads are bad is because the monies collected for years have been put into the General Fund, then spent on other things and not on roads and repair. So, the solution is more taxes?

Why are we blaming her for the way the gas tax was handled in the past? This gas tax has been given specific destinations.

[stasu1213]

I had thought that Michigan tax payers had already paid for road repairments from the gasoline tax hike last year under Snyder. What had happened to that money?. An investigation should be done on money collected over the years from increase gasoline tax. Michiganders are already paying for high auto insurance rates. This state is becoming more exensive than New York to live in

[Maof]

I had thought that Michigan tax payers had already paid for road repairments from the gasoline tax hike last year under Snyder. What had happened to that money?. An investigation should be done on money collected over the years from increase gasoline tax. Michiganders are already paying for high auto insurance rates. This state is becoming more exensive than New York to live in

Along with increase in vehicle registration fees as well.

[softailrider]

As pro-business as Snyder was, the truth is the Republicans wanted the roads fixed too. Bad roads are bad for business. And yet, despite wanting the road fix, 8 years of a Republican Legislature and Republican Governor couldn’t get them fixed... because doing so would require a significant raise of taxes.

You can throw out all the tin-foil hat theories you want about how the roads are bad because of bad construction practices, or overweight trucks, or corruption, or insert theories here..., but the honest answer is if the road issue could have been addressed by any of these and not raising taxes, Snyder and the GOP would have done it.

That is where we are folks. And now the tax increase is especially high because, like a bad credit card bill, we as a state kept kicking the can and never fully paid it. I don’t like the 45-cent hike either.... but also know that it is necessary.

As far as throwing out the tin foil hat theories about bad road construction that you asserted in your second paragraph, give me one of those hats with a propeller on top - I’ll wear it proudly. Michigan has one of the highest fuel taxes in the country NOW, and the roads are appalling. I truly believe that is partially a result of being fleeced by the road building industry for decades. Rebuilding the same roads over and over every few years is a complete bad joke. Has there ever been any accountability? Doesn’t seem like it.

[O3H]

""By now every kid in MI should be a rocket scientist.""


Why don't you erect your pup tent up on your bed and pull on your LED lights?

Don't be mad because everyone ELSE is a rocket scientist and you aren't

[Smirnoff]

Slow Children. Motorists have already been taxed for years. The reason the roads are bad is because the monies collected for years have been put into the General Fund, then spent on other things and not on roads and repair. So, the solution is more taxes?

She will spend on other things.....same song, different singer.

[Smirnoff]

Rumor is having enough dough $$$ for significant raises throughout their gov't pension collecting years......

[poobert]

She will spend on other things.....same song, different singer.

These platitudes are cute but when you take a moment to remind yourself that you've got a deranged imbecile in the White House you realize there is a substantive difference between the two parties, flawed as they both are.

Snyder would have been bearable if it weren't for Flint. Really, he should be in jail for that. If it were a wealthy or politically influential community like Ann Arbor, he probably would be.

Never Republicans. Never again.

[Atticus]

As far as throwing out the tin foil hat theories about bad road construction that you asserted in your second paragraph, give me one of those hats with a propeller on top - I’ll wear it proudly. Michigan has one of the highest fuel taxes in the country NOW, and the roads are appalling. I truly believe that is partially a result of being fleeced by the road building industry for decades. Rebuilding the same roads over and over every few years is a complete bad joke. Has there ever been any accountability? Doesn’t seem like it.

Up until the last increase in registration fees a few years ago, Michigan was state 50 out of 50 in what we spent on transportation per capita. That registration fee increase allowed us to climb all the way up to 49 out of 50. Wohoo.

It is painfully obvious that if you spend the least, you will get the least, regardless what the tax rate is. But sure, keep blaming the road builders. Must all be a grand conspiracy...

[archfan]

I had thought that Michigan tax payers had already paid for road repairments from the gasoline tax hike last year under Snyder. What had happened to that money?. An investigation should be done on money collected over the years from increase gasoline tax. Michiganders are already paying for high auto insurance rates. This state is becoming more exensive than New York to live in

Along with increase in vehicle registration fees as well.

The money from the new taxes and fees went into the transportation budget, and then the legislature lowered the general fund allocation to the transportation budget. It netted an increase of $150M. Read the article Honky Tonk posted above.

[archfan]

This article had a pretty good breakdown of the taxes we are paying now. The 6% sales tax on gas, which goes into the general fund, amounts to 1/3 of the total gas tax. If we dedicated the sales tax to roads, we wouldn't need a gas tax increase, but we would then have a big hole in the general fund. From the article:

Each time you purchase gasoline in Michigan, you’re paying a couple of road-user fees as well: the 18.7 cents per gallon state gas tax, and the 18.4 cents per gallon federal fuel tax. Whether gas costs $2 per gallon or $4 per gallon, the amount collected for those two taxes remains the same. But you also pay the Michigan 6 percent sales tax. When gas is $3.89 per gallon, that amounts to another 21 cents per gallon in taxes.


When those three taxes are added up, it puts Michigan in the top tier of states for the amount charged per gallon of fuel. Trouble is, the sales tax charged for gasoline doesn’t go to roads; except for a small percentage that supports transit, the sales tax on gas actually funds schools and local government. Based on the amount of tax charged on gasoline that is invested in roads, Michigan is 40th in the U.S.
...
In investment per lane mile, Michigan is 33rd. Investment per vehicle-mile traveled? We’re 47th. And per capita, we’re dead last in the country.

[softailrider]

Glad I drive electric! Tax, baby, tax!

As an around town grocery getter where you can plug in every night I would imagine electric ONLY vehicles are great. If you want to take any type of a weekend road trip, or something more lengthy, they would seem to be a major pain in the ass, or not usable at all.