Quote Originally Posted by sirrealone View Post
Snyder wanted to get the roads fixed. He didn't ignore the road funding issue. He wanted a full, long-lasting solution but he spent way too much time trying to work with the legislature on an agreeable way to solve the issue. Once he finally realized that wasn't going to happen, he went to the voters with Proposal 1. That would have solved the funding problem by dedicating ALL taxes collected at the pump to road funding, which is in line with how most states do it. Unfortunately, it also required increasing both the gas and sales tax so that school funding wouldn't be impacted. The voters turned that down. So the band aid solution that he ended up putting in place was the best he could do since the legislature and the voters both said no to proposals that would have actually fixed the problem.
Very true. Looking back, it was a good solution. Arguably it still is probably the best solution. But it is too complicated for the voters to understand, and any sales tax increase requires a vote of the people. So it is basically a no-go.

Honestly, at least for expressways, tolls are probably the best long term solution at this point. It is the “fairest” tax in that effectively only those who choose to use the roads are taxed. If someone doesn’t want to pay the toll, they don’t drive the highway. Problem solved. The problem is the Feds have made it very difficult for states to charge tolls on currently “free” freeways.