LANSING, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – The long-expected battle in the state Capitol on road funding could commence on Thursday.
Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer told Lansing-based MIRS News on Wednesday that she’s expecting to meet with Republican legislative leaders, saying that “I anticipate they’ll be putting some solutions on the table, finally. I’m expecting the Republicans to finally come with an alternative, and we’ll see what it is.” She made the remarks before a closed-door meeting with state government employees.
Although Whitmer is still adamant on her gradual 45-cent-per-gallon tax hike that she put forward in her proposed Fiscal 2020 state budget this spring, apparently no lawmaker has formally introduced that in legislation thus far.
According to MIRS, “Up to this point, the Republican leadership has kicked around a few ideas — a 20-cent-a-gallon gas tax hike, an increased fee on ride-sharing companies, bonding against the public school employee pension system and/or stretching out pension payments to free up additional revenue.”
Bonding is something that first-term state Senator Aric Nesbitt, a Lawton Republican, has some reservations about. “I’m somebody who believes more in the Dave Ramsey model – debt is dumb, cash is king,” he said in a recent appearance on “WHTC Talk of the Town.” “It’s something where I’m apprehensive of doing the bonding, but I’m always open to listen to see how do we make sure we pay off our long-term liabilities, making sure that our children and grandchildren don’t inherit the kind of debt that we inherited.”
In response to the Governor’s office stating that, if the GOP doesn’t put forward a road funding proposal by the end of the week, the budget process couldn’t be completed in time for the start of the Fiscal 2020 year on October 1st, the spokesman for state House Speaker Lee Chatfield told MIRS on Wednesday that it was the first the Northern Michigan lawmaker had heard of any deadline and expressed disappointment that such a notice “came through the media.”
