I'm getting kind of tired
of all Governor Snyder's “Nerd” nonsense. I mean, c'mon. I can
proclaim myself a genius but if you believe that there'll just be an
idiot in the room with me.
Five years ago when Rick
first rebranded himself as a Nerd I had hoped it meant
he was creative and had the ability to see problems differently
than anyone else, perhaps leading to unconventional solutions.
Instead, all we got was a typical Republican governor that lowered or
eradicated business taxes to
give the rest of us the chance to sacrifice for our state. Not
true? How about checking the tax records of Rick
Perry (TX), John
Kasich (OH), Chris
Christie (NJ), Rick
Scott (FL), and on and on. Of course those guys don't call
themselves Nerds so I give them some credit.
So Rick's been banging his
tin drum for a year about fixing the lousy roadways of Michigan. For
a mere
$1.2 billion dollars a year we can have roads that don't force
you to weave around potholes like a gymkhana driver drunk on Red
Bull. Snyder claims that the $1.2 billion he wants us to pony up “is
not about costing us money; this is about saving us money.” Right.
Exactly who is “us” because it sure feels like he's looking at
our wallets and as a cost, not a saving.
So the Nerd has a new
plan: he wants to punish us. By just doing nothing, he
hopes that sooner or later the citizens will just give up and
say, “Enough already. Just fix the damn roads and put it on our
tab.” I'd sooner ride a horse.
Did you know that it takes
9,600
cars like mine to damage Michigan roads as badly as just one
semi-truck. Not your F-150 or Tahoe truck. With all due deference
to Hummer owners, I mean BIG vehicles: trucks with GVW painted on the
sides. A safe definition might point out that although not all
vehicles with commercial license plates are “big trucks”, 99% of
the trucks damaging our roads have commercial license plates. Worse,
as Michiganders crab about our horrible roads, Michigan allows
the highest gross weights on our roads than any other state in the
Union. No wonder our roads suck; we ask for it! Even next door to
us the Ohio Department of Transportation understands that increasing
the load on a single axle by 20% doubles the damage that truck does
to our roads.
While Snyder and his
cronies are trying to jiggle the fees that you and I pay to operate
our vehicle here in the Pothole Wonderland, I must agree that the way
we fund
our roads and road repair is a byzantine collection of taxes and
fees. Part of this nonsense goes back to Gov. Engler's days when
futzing with the tax code and Proposal A it was decided to help pay
for our schools with a
fraction of a gasoline sales tax. Apparently the Nerd has no
stomach for “real structural reform” (wasn't that part of his
2010 campaign?) that would take vehicle user taxes and fees and use
them for the roads the vehicles drive on. Instead, they're trying to
grab an
additional $120 annual fee for each vehicle you own, then
convince you it's not a tax. Nice try, dudes.
So here's where we could
use a Nerd. We need $1.2 billion a year to fix roads damaged, by and
large, by commercial trucks owned by the very same companies that got
a $1.7 billion per year tax cut from the Gov. And since my fellow
citizens and I are currently paying $1.4 billion more in taxes to
make up for that cut, I'd say some creative thinking is in order (for
a change).
Since I was really good at
connect the dots when I was a kid this may appear more obvious to me
than it would to a Nerd. I don't know.
The way I see it, a
business tax of $1.2 billion per year would still leave corporations
with a $500 million tax break and road repair fully funded by the
people that ruined them. Seems fair to me.
Have you got a better
idea?
