LANSING, MI – Last year, Gretchen Whitmer was overwhelmingly elected governor on a pledge of “fix the damn roads,” which virtually all experts agree are the nation’s worst.
So why haven’t they been fixed?
The short answer is that would cost money, and the legislature is ideologically opposed. The deeper answer is that this is one more sign the system may be broken beyond repair:
Now for the rest of the story:
The governor made no secret during the campaign that new revenue would be needed. Immediately after taking office, she called for a 45-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax. That would generate around $2.1 billion per year, the minimum amount need to get the state’s roads and bridges into something like decent shape.
Everyone with any kind of savvy knows that fixing the roads is essential if Michigan is to be economically competitive.
Republicans do still control both houses of the Michigan Legislature, which would have to approve any spending plan.
Sandy Baruah, head of the normally pro-Republican Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, has urged legislators to approve new money for the roads, and likes the governor’s plan.
Once upon a time, that would have been enough of a signal to get them to do so. But not today.
While some Republican leaders initially sounded supportive, they soon dug in their heels. They all said the governor’s tax-at-the-pump idea was a nonstarter. Some Republicans said “no new taxes.”
Others hinted that they would support some new revenue, but wouldn’t say how much or how they proposed to get it.
Eventually, they said they would come up with a plan to get new money for the roads and present it publicly this summer.
But that never happened.
Apparently, Republicans couldn’t agree. Sources said some, including State Sen. Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, was open to some tax increase – but those in the lower house were not.
Finally, GOP legislative leaders met with the governor on Aug. 21 to discuss possibilities. Their main idea was having the state sell bonds to borrow $10 billion from the Michigan Public Employees Retirement System, better known as the teacher pension fund.
When teachers heard of this, they angrily rejected the idea of a “pensions for potholes” scheme. The governor herself rejected it, saying through a spokesperson that it was based on “gutting our kids’ education” to pay for the roads.
The Anderson Economic Group, a think tank often allied with the Republicans, looked at the pension bonding scheme and panned it, saying it was unwise, possibly unconstitutional, and would cost far more to pay back than the GOP legislative leaders admitted.
So … now what?
Nobody knows. State Rep. Yousef Rabhi (D-Ann Arbor,) is the Democratic floor leader. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he told me, adding that “not much has happened in the way of negotiations.”
There’s another problem looming too – agreeing on a state budget for the next fiscal year by the Sept. 30 deadline. If that doesn’t happen, most of state government will be forced to shut down.
That happened twice more than a decade ago, the last time Michigan had a governor from one party (Jennifer Granholm) and a legislature controlled by the other – and nobody looked good.
Could it happen again?
“I think that’s a real possibility, though most everyone’s stated intention is to not have that happen,” Rabhi said. But since balancing a budget without agreement on road funding may be impossible, “people are also talking about the potential of having to do short-term continuing resolutions on a month-by-month basis.”
But if it is hard to see how this will all be resolved, it is much easier to see how Michigan got into this mess:
Term-limits, extreme gerrymandering and ideological rigidity have all helped make a once-prosperous state with good bi-partisan government largely dysfunctional.
Today, nobody can serve more than six years in the state house and eight in the senate, after which they are barred for life.
That means there isn’t time for lawmakers to learn their craft and develop the sort of relationships that make government work. Republicans have also gerrymandered district lines to ensure they remain in perpetual control of the legislature.
Last year, Democrats swept Michigan, winning every major statewide office and getting a majority of the popular vote for both houses of the legislature. But thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans kept control of both the Michigan House and the Senate.
Add that to term limits, the vast amounts spent by right-wing groups to try and influence the election, and here’s the result:
Back before term limits, legislators usually spent at least a decade in the ranks, usually more, before rising to leadership positions – especially top leadership.
Today, the Speaker of the House is one Lee Chatfield, a 31-year-old from the town of Levering, just south of the Mackinac Bridge.
Prior to getting elected in 2016, he was a teacher and a coach at a small fundamentalist religious school where his father is the principal. His district is entirely rural, he opposes any new taxes, and said recently “I want to make sure that Northern Michigan taxpayers aren’t paying for roads in Southern Michigan.”
He doesn’t seem to understand that Michigan’s economy and future depends on having a modern and well-maintained statewide infrastructure, particularly the roads.
With that kind of leadership, is it any wonder that Michigan, once a leading manufacturing state, continues to decline?
