Whitmer has said she knows that voting to raise the gas tax that much — which would give Michigan the highest fuel taxes in the country by a wide margin — would make for a tough vote for both Democrats and Republicans.
State House Minority Leader Christine Greig (D-Farmington Hills) acknowledged that during an exclusive interview with the Advance this week, but said that until House and Senate Republicans have a tangible plan, everything needs to be on the table.
State House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering), however, appears anything but open to such a large gas tax increase.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are working on their own road funding proposal, that will reportedly include some new revenue, “but not a lot,” according to state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake).
The governor and GOP leaders spent much of their spring breaks sparring with each other over the topic of road funding on various radio programs.
On the House GOP side, the process of drafting recommendations is just beginning. The chamber’s Transportation Committee had its first of more frequent meetings on Tuesday to begin hearing from experts in fields like civil engineering.
Committee chair Jack O’Malley (R-Lake Ann) said the panel will begin with a “road building 101” course in an effort to dig out “nuggets of truth” around the specifics of road repair and road funding.
Shirkey spokeswoman Amber McCann did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday on what kind of process Senate Republicans will undertake to come up with a road funding solution.
Chatfield acknowledged that the House and Senate are working on their own plans separately, but will eventually work with each other and other stakeholders to bring a final plan to the table.
As that process plays out, members of the House Democratic caucus say they’ll wait before offering a full-throated endorsement of Whitmer’s specific road-funding proposal that seeks to raise about $2 billion in new revenue for roads while transferring other monies back to the general fund.
The governor’s road funding plan relies on raising the gas tax, which is considered regressive in that disproportionately affects lower-income people.
That’s a problem for some Democrats.
“There are people that believe in this user-fee system of government and this is a user fee. If you think we’re all consumers of government, well, that’s how you would pay for it,” said state Rep. Brian Elder (D-Bay City).
“I would like something that shares the pain a little bit more,” Elder continued, noting that he’d like to explore eliminating some business tax breaks signed into law by Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder.
“Maybe something that claws back some of the tax breaks that went to businesses in 2011 because we gave away $2 billion worth of tax breaks in the budget,” he said.
Whitmer’s budget proposal, however, does have a few different components that she’s touted as reducing regressive nature of the gas tax hike. Specifically, the proposal repeals the so-called “pension tax” on many seniors and increases the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The proposal has largely been praised by several business groups such as Business Leaders for Michigan due to its “user fee” approach, as well as by Gilda Jacobs, the president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy that advocates for low-income people.
House Democrats told the Advance spoke with over the last week do agree that Whitmer’s plan to raise $2.5 billion in new revenue is a spot-on number.
“What I liked about [the proposal] is that it’s clean and it speaks to the enormity of the problem. It’s going to take 45 cents a gallon to hit these goals,” said Greig, adding that she and other members of the caucus have been hearing from constituents about roads for the last several weeks.
While most estimates peg Michigan’s roads problem around $2.5 billion, there is some discrepancy between the state’s budget experts, however, over just how much Whitmer’s plan would actually raise. The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency arguing that it only raises $1.9 billion, as the Advance previously reported.
State Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D-Ann Arbor) agrees.
While Democrats await a counter-proposal from across the aisle, they’re also aware that there could be consequences if a comprehensive road-funding solution isn’t voted into law this term.
“At the end of the day, I think we just need to come up with the money for it. If we fail to do that, I think [Democrats] will probably flip the House [in 2020],” said Elder, who’s serving in his second term with one more to go before he’s forced to leave under the state’s term limits law.
“If [Republicans] fail to fix the roads — if they want to play games with this — it’ll be why I’m in the majority my last term,” he said.
How about part of the plan being, round off the state income tax to exactly a nickel and make it more progressive (but still not as progressive as it should be) by wiping out the income cap?