LANSING, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – Could there be a compromise solution to Michigan’s road funding impasse that is perhaps the biggest stumbling block to passing a new state budget?
According to state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, there could be after he and fellow Republican legislative leaders met earlier this month with first-term Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her staffers. “We went over some high-level things in the budget that were generally acceptable to all parties,” Shirkey said on WTVB’s “Delaney in the Morning” with Ken Delaney earlier this week. “We went through a couple of scenarios on how we would fund additional road money. I’m not going to get into too many details, only because we gave each other our word that we would go back to our caucuses and test them before we make any commitments publicly.”
Although no lawmaker has formally introduced it before the summer recess in June, the Governor’s 45-cent gas tax hike in her budget proposal that would be phased in completely by Christmas of 2020 hangs over Lansing as a proverbial sword of Damocles as the September 30th end of the state’s fiscal year looms with no approved spending plan for the following 12 months in place. While Shirkey maintains that Whitmer’s proposal remains a non-starter, and that she won’t get 2.5 billion dollars annually for roads, he did tell Delaney that, by the end of the month, “We’ll prove to people that we first, prioritize spending; second, we evaluate our cash flows and directed as much of that as we could to roads; and only in the third case, if those two don’t create enough money, we are contemplating increases in fees, but they’re very, very modest compared to what has been promoted.”
State lawmakers return to business sessions in Lansing after Labor Day.
