Despite promises otherwise, Michigan Republicans’ road plan risks funding for health and human services, universities, and law enforcement

LANSING — In case you missed it, Crain’s Business Detroit dove into MAGA Matt Hall and House Republicans’ roads plan — and the lies they’ve been telling about it. Time and again, the MAGA MIGOP House Caucus has tried to claim that their plan won’t take money from schools or health and human services, despite every estimate requiring cutting the general budget and programs that one representative said Michiganders “can live without.”

Right now, Donald Trump is gutting federal programs like Medicaid and Social Security, and now the MIGOP is trying to do the same thing at the state level. Those programs that could lose funding are programs that support public universities and community colleges, adoption and foster care, and countless medical clinics across the state — but hey, Rep. Outman says Michiganders would be fine without these. 

Democrats are working towards a comprehensive solution to fund our roads, deliver for our communities, and grow our economy – Michigan Republicans should get on board.

Read more about their underfunded plan below:

Crain’s Business Detroit: Road-funding debate starts in Senate, where House plan draws skepticism

• Democrats who control the Michigan Senate were skeptical of a $3.1 billion House road-funding plan Wednesday, grilling its Republican proponents on what spending would be cut to shift money from elsewhere in the budget to transportation.
  
  
• They also said the House-passed bills, which are targeted at improving local roads, would keep intact funding inequities that favor rural communities at the expense of urban areas like metro Detroit.
  
  
• “If we were to assume that we took this plan wholesale, I think it’s safe to assume … that we would have to make some significant reductions in places such as health and human services, corrections, universities and community colleges,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, said during a hearing on the House proposal…
  
  
• Eliminating and not extending the business incentives, however, would not save enough without other cuts, which were not specified by House Republicans as work continues on the next budget. They oppose tax hikes to help pay for road repairs and maintenance, something Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has floated…
  
  
• The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency projected a $1.2 billion general fund shortfall next year under one scenario.
  
  
• Schneider said about 12% or 13% of suggested general fund spending would have to be trimmed. Almost half goes to health and human services, with other big-ticket items including universities, prisons and potentially local revenue sharing, he said…
  
  
• He added, though, that there are programs “we can live without until we fix the more fundamental issue that’s holding our state back — our crumbling infrastructure…”
  
  
• Sen. Kevin Hertel, D-St. Clair Shores, and other Detroit-area Democrats said road-funding talks should include an effort to fix the “fundamentally broken” Public Act 51 formula that determines how funding is allocated across the state.
  
  
• “The places that need to see the benefit the most” — economically powerful and populous Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties — “will not see it,” he said, saying they have been on the short end of the stick for decades. “I think we need to take the opportunity we have in front of us, find more revenue more roads, but put it into a reformed formula that actually makes sense and gets the money where it needs to go.”