The road repair “plan” passed by the Michigan legislature this week has been touted as raising $452 million in the first year with the full $1.2 billion not kicking in until 2021. However, that “first year” is actually not until 2017. And, according to some great reporting by Chad Livengood at The Detroit News, we now know that, as soon […]

House Speaker Kevin Cotter took to the House floor last night to tell us all that they have kicked the can down the road too far on road funding and, by golly, it’s time to get this done. Then he said something that is the most blatant exhibition Orwellian Newspeak that I’ve seen in some time: This is a plan […]

The picture above is a screenshot of a Detroit Free Press article published yesterday. In the article, Gov. Snyder paints on an optimistic smile and says he’s confident that there is “strong momentum” for something getting done on road funding, despite a half decade of failed efforts on his part and on the part of his Republican colleagues in the […]

“Only the Michigan GOP could look at crumbling roads, underfunded schools and struggling communities and think, ‘You know what? We need LESS revenue’.” That quote from Progress Michigan executive director Lonnie Scott sums up what happened last night in the state legislature perfectly. After more than two and a half years of wrangling to find $1.2 billion annually that experts […]

Not just predictable. Predicted. The dust hadn’t even settled on the epic crash and burn of Michigan’s Proposal 1 yesterday when Republican House Speaker Kevin Cotter began discussing his plans for slashing the budgets of other areas to come up with over a billion dollars needed to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges. He gave a glimpse into his thinking […]

“Proposal one goes down in flames!,” gloated Todd Courser last night on his Facebook page. “Time to get to work and come up with a solution that will fix our roads without raising taxes! The money is there… all we lack is enough legislators with the political will to make the hard choices necessary to prioritize spending.” “The taxpayers sent […]

Part 3 of series. Part 1 is HERE and Part 2 is HERE. I have been writing about my strong support of Proposal 1 over the past couple of weeks. I have found few issues that have so divided the progressive community as much as Prop 1 has. Those of us, like me and Tony Trupiano, who have advocated for […]

Part 2 of a series. Part 1 is HERE and Part 3 is HERE. Before I get into this piece, I want to clarify a couple of things. First of all, in the conversation on Proposal 1 in Michigan, at least on the progressive side, we are starting from the position that Republicans are hideous leaders that created gigantic hole […]

Part 1 in a series. Part 2 is HERE and Part 3 is HERE. There are few topics that unite tea partiers with progressive liberals but Michigan’s Prop 1 has not only united these two disparate groups, it has, for all intents and purposes, turned many progressives into tea partiers in their own right. What I mean by this is […]

As Michigan voters decide whether to approve Proposal 1 in May which will raise the sales tax to fund road repairs, a new study out by the University of Michigan Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) details just how bad things have gotten. The study, done last fall, shows that only 19% of local leaders say their roads […]

Last fall, Michigan Republicans, aided by some Democrats who effectively negotiated for some very good things for Michigan schools and working people, passed a package of bills to fix our crumbling transportation infrastructure and soon-to-be-rubble roadways. The entire thing is predicated on the passage of an increase to our sales tax which voters must approve in May. Given that they […]