Dear One Term: Quit Playing Politics with Potholes!

I'd hoped that my last article about funding road repair in Michigan had exhaustively covered the subject. It was time to move on and discuss other attributes of our current one term governor. Little did I know there was more to the story than I covered and thanks to the additional information from many of you, I offer up more information about our roads, our taxes, and our wallets. Fear not, with one year remaining until One Term's un-coronation, there is sufficient time to examine his record burdening the middle class at length.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, over 99.9% of the damage done to Michigan roads (state motto: Carry Two Spares) is done by trucks, the ratio being calculated as one semi truck and trailer damaging the roads equivalent to 9,600 passenger cars. I took it a step further and took a trip down Grand River and deduced that most of us don't drive trucks, at least not trucks that weigh in the five figure range. I then further deduced that large heavy trucks must be owned primarily by businesses.
So you might guess which lobbying group jumped on One Term Rick's bandwagon immediately after he proposed fixing the roads primarily by taxing and feeing the very people who don't own the trucks that wrecked our damn roads. If you said the business lobby, you win the prize.
Now I certainly understand why the business lobby thinks they can get One Term to make us pay for their problems: they own him. They convinced him that Michigan is a dung heap and any business looking to move or relocate to Michigan would have selected it by the blindfold-dart-throwing-at-the-map method. So One Term, fresh from the business paradise that is South Dakota (state motto: Where Is Everybody?) decided that most businesses shouldn't pay any taxes at all in the state. He wiped out most corporate taxes, wants to dump the personal property taxes, (and totally screw the towns and villages who depend on personal property tax collection) and now he wants us to fix the roads that his buddies' trucks ruined to attract more truck traffic to our Water/Winter Wonderland.
Now, come to find out, all that money we pay in taxes and fees doesn't even end up in the “fix the roads funds”. An example as to how this occurs can be found in this article from 2001 showing how that master of innovation, Little Johnny Engler, decided that grabbing $63 million from the Michigan Transportation Fund to balance the budget made perfect sense. To wit; “Because state government is now facing a budget deficit, Governor Engler recently issued an executive order which takes $63 million from the Transportation Fund and uses it to fund other non-road related activities,”. Pretty cool, eh?
But of course it wasn't a one time grab. There's actually a bill (senate Bill 6) under consideration that would mandate that some of the funds collected by taxing gasoline and licensing vehicles must be used for transportation related matters. What a concept! “But the 40 percent that's not constitutionally mandated elsewhere should go to transportation.” So if you think you're already paying to maintain the roads, think again because the constitution applies 60% of those monies to other things.
Another ruse is that they will tax the people that can't afford lobbyists schmoozing for their behalf (ie:us) and hope forgetfulness reigns every November in even numbered years. For instance, the tax on diesel fuel hasn't been raised since 1984 according to this 2012 study (page 16). Meanwhile, as of last year, our gas taxes were already fifth highest in the nation.. Lobbyists 1, Citizens 0.
And for some reason that I don't understand, the GOP is afraid of alternate energy and they're considering using this road repair issue as a weapon against these relatively new transportation modes. They see hybrids and electrics as taxable targets because they use little to no gasoline. Never known as the party of the future, they should realize today's young people expect and want to be driving hybrids and electrics in their future according

to this 2012 article and this one from 2013. But hey, the Republicans know their target demographic better than me, I suppose, and conventional energy companies are very generous to elected officials. And if they pull out the “fairness” principle on me (“well, they use the roads just like regular cars”) we're right back to the fact that trucks destroy the roads not cars, gasoline, electric or both.
It bothers me that just as One Term's repeal of most business taxes is kicking in to the tune of around $1.7 billion per year, he's in my face because he needs $1.2 billion to fix the roads. Does anyone else see the irony here?
Sorry, I'm not rich enough to be able to afford One Term's vision for Michigan.

Dear One Term Rick: Fuhgitaboutit!

If Missouri is the “Show Me” state, Michigan must be the “We'll Believe Anything” state. I mean, we actually elected a man as governor who laid out absolutely no specifics on his vision of governing our state. Although he loved to proclaim himself a non-politician, he rolled out every vague platitude and aphorism about “strengthening the state” and “increasing employment” that every first time candidate hopes will satisfy disinterested voters, but in his case they actually did.
And while there are a number of articles to follow about how his unrevealed plans were to strap the poor and middle class with the bill for enacting his vision, for now let's discuss how his new “Fix the Roads” refrain is one more stab at a chance to punish the innocent to pay for his inequitable budget balancing strategy.

It's not that the roads don't need the work. Lord knows that if you drive across this great country you'll notice that Michigan has just about the crappiest roads around. I haven't visited all 50 states and I suppose Alaska may be worse, but for the 28 or so states that I have traversed we're the worst. I definitely agree that the roads need fixing.
But...
My car didn't ruin the roads. Neither did yours. This article claims that it would take 10,000 cars to do the damage one 18 wheeler inflicts on the roads. USA Today believes the correct number is 9,600 cars required to do the same damage, but points out that their assumption is based on the legal weight limit posted for most states at 40 tons. But, as of 2008, over 500,000 trucks with permits allowing them to carry more than 40 tons pounded the nations roads and bridges. If you really want to read an analysis, the University of Kansas did an exhaustive study on a stretch of Kansas highway that concluded the damage from large trucks amounted to roughly $.02 per truck per mile. (see page 122).

So wait a minute. One-term Rick wants me to pick-up the tab? He wants me to pay $1.2 billion to fix roads that I didn't ruin? (By the way, isn't $1.2 billion roughly the amount One Term Rick told businesses they didn't need to pay in taxes henceforth? What a guy, eh?) He wants to raise gas taxes by $.14 per gallon but wait! According to MarketWatch (page 2 of 8) Michigan already has the 7^th highest gas taxes in the country.
It seems pretty clear who busted the roads but One Term Rick prefers groveling to businesses since he'll need a lot more cash this next election when the good citizens of Michigan know exactly what a Tough Nerd means...tough on the middle class.
At this point I'd rather One Term Rick let the roads devolve to gravel than kick in one more cent for his plan to reinvent the State of Michigan on the backs of the poor and middle class. If the people that broke the roads refuse to fix them, don't come asking me for the money.