There are a lot of cross-currents of thought regarding the upcoming Proposal 1 vote here in Michigan.
If it passes, Michigan will see an adjustment to fuel taxes, a hike in
the sales (or use) tax, an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit (effectively
a tax cut for some), some new rules on the use of money in the School Aid Fund,
and, hopefully, better roads and better schools. As the lead author of The Gas Game blog, I
want to take a look at the roads/gas tax piece of the proposal.
You should know, though, where I am coming from politically.
I am not a conservative who is against all taxes, and the
government-is-too-big-and-too-oppressive ideology is not in my wheelhouse. I consider myself a moderate Democrat, but
I’m not against Proposal 1 because Gov. Snyder is for it. I want my government – of the people, by the people, for the people – to work efficiently and work well. So, the question I want to consider is whether
or not the roads/gas tax piece is responsible direction for our State government
to go in.
I have seen on TV and have received by mail a lot of advertising in support of Proposal 1.
(It isn’t clear if the ads are making a difference, as polls indicate alack of support for the proposal. I’ve
only seen a few “NO ON 1” yard signs.)
There are many messages in the ads, but the one that caught my attention
recently was this: Michigan spends lesson roads per person than any other state.
Is that true, or at least close to true?
I decided to do some investigating.
What is wonderful about the Internet age is that information
is usually available at your fingertips, as opposed to trying to track it down
at a library, or not having the information available at all. Using publicly-available data, some from the
federal government, I’ve put together a spreadsheet that focuses on the “Big
Ten states”. Specifically, I’ve collected
in this spreadsheet items such as number of highway miles, population, current
fuel taxes, fuel tax revenue, federal spending on roads in each state, and overall
spending. (Links to the data sources are
in the spreadsheet.)
My underlying assumption is that states that have Big Ten
universities tend to have similar weather and traffic, and therefore similar
road use and abuse. (We can argue about
this assumption, but I think it is fair to say that southern states have to
deal a lot less with potholes and many of their Interstate highways were
designed and built later in the 20th century, and hence built based
on the northern states’ experience. For
example, the narrow and problematic I-94 through Michigan.)
Looking over the data, I decided that the best way to
compare these states is by looking at the combination of recent annual Federal
and state spending for each mile of road.
As you can see, in nearby Ohio, about $24,000 is spent per year on the
average mile of road. In Pennsylvania,
it is $30,000. In Nebraska, a little
more than $6000, while in Michigan, it is a bit more than $16,000 per mile of
road per year.
Another comparison, for those more tax-focused, is that
federal and state road spending works out to about $199 per person in Michigan,
which, other than New Jersey, is the lowest in the Big Ten states. I suspect New Jersey is lower because it has
a lot more people packed into a smaller area, so the denominator in computing
this number is a lot larger.
Now, I do think that Ohio and Pennsylvania are better states
to compare to Michigan than Nebraska and New Jersey (hey, those states just
joined the Big Ten recently!), and I come away from my study with the
recognition that we do not devote tax dollars to our roads in the way that our
neighboring states do. (And, therefore,
our roads are worse!)
In addition, as you see in columns F-H, Michigan’s fuel tax
is below the average, and the revenue from the fuel tax isn’t exactly beating
out other states. Nor, interestingly, is
the federal funds per person (column J).
So, not only are we paying less in state taxes to fix our roads, we
aren’t getting the money from Washington to fix our roads like other states
are!
So, what can we conclude at this point? In comparing Michigan to other Big Ten
states, we could be spending more to fix our roads, and we would have better
roads. We could become an “average Big
Ten state” by increasing our gas tax and getting more money from
Washington. Despite the goal of The Gas
Game to buy gas as cheaply as possible, I would support increasing the gas tax,
provided that this money is clearly marked for road repairs above and beyond
what we already spend. I also support on-going
adjustments to fuel taxes so that the users of the roads end up paying what is
needed to maintain high-quality roads.
As far as the rest of Proposal 1, I like the idea of
warranties for road projects, and strengthening the Earned Income Tax
Credit. I’m not happy about the idea of
increasing the sales tax, since we just cut taxes to businesses a few years
ago, so this has a shell game feel to it, with the working class and middle
class getting the empty shell. I don’t
know what to believe about the School Aid Fund.
And I’m sick of the game where Republicans cut taxes and
budgets and things fall apart, and the Democrats raise taxes and budgets and
fix things. As a Democrat, I want to see the Republicans, who worked so hard to
get control of the state government, to have to do the responsible thing and
vote for higher spending on roads in the
Legislature, and not go through this Proposal 1 carnival. Or, if they simply can’t do what needs to be
done, for the people to understand this and vote them out for this reason. I agree with this comment from “Martin
Pollard” in the comment section of an article about Proposal 1: “It's also anger directed against a
legislature that refuses to do its … job and instead punts the issue over to the voters,
thereby keeping their precious hands clean.”
I still haven’t decided how I will vote on May 5.
