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Sorry so OT. We have a few Michigan residents here.
"LANSING — Proposal 1, likely one of the most complicated and confusing questions ever placed on a Michigan ballot, was soundly rejected Tuesday as many voters expressed anger at lawmakers and state government for failing to come up with a better solution to the sorry state of the roads."
Hi @hank Yes, OT for this board........kinda. But, this does help define the problems that exist in many other states, too. The broader problem being the politics, eh? And politics do affect investments, too; from intervention of and into policies, processes and spending.....dah, dah, dah. Some won't get it and some don't care and some don't know that they don't know at the state capitol offices of the elected. A common problem in this line of employment, eh?
I recall now Gov. Kasich of Ohio, when he was a U.S. Rep. trying to push an A-Z bill through U.S. Congress. The "bill" would require simple language bills.........no adding of other stuff for a favor to someone or something in another state. If a real bridge needs to be built, that is all.........someone couldn't add $25 million to study the mating habits of humans. Oh, well; this went nowhere............surprise, surprise.
For those not familiar, this Michigan road repair proposal ended with too many attachments and bullsh#t and side doors. A 80% NO vote is a pretty serious message in the world of voting.
Hey, just move along, there is nothing to see here............we'll talk later, perhaps with a new plan.
From the article: "It's time for corporations and those at the top to contribute."
Some politicians sound like a broken record with this phrase.
Seriously, if they would put forth a proposal that concentrated on roads rather than having these other entities dipping their hands in, it might pass.
@MFO Members: Attention ! Attention ! Please !, Michigan is now offically closed leaving us with just forty-nine states. What's Jim Harbaugh going to do now ? Regards, Ted Go Blue !
On some of the roads found in North & South Carolina with many pot holes ... Wife and I parked our cars and now drive Jeeps instead of the autos. Heck, the roads are even at times tough to transverse in the Jeeps. But, it beats tearing up our cars by driving them on poorly maintained roads. No wonder light duty truck sales are up.
And, I feel for my Northern neighbors as the roads up your way are in perhaps in a worse condition there than they are here.
aaaarrrgghh. You have this block of the republican party that has sworn to never raise taxes. You have a LOT of people that are saying they don't want higher taxes period. And until they dial 911 and no one answers, they will continue to feel this way. Stuff costs money and if you want services you have to pay. Alas and alack, Michigan used to have this sort of 'user fee' system where all the gas taxes went into the Highway Trust Fund. Some years back, the legislature wanted to cut taxes on business but had to make up the revenue lost to schools and local gov'ts. They did so by adding Sales Tax to gas purchases. This confused the situation and Prop 1 was designed to correct his problem by applying gas taxes alone at the wholesale level and eliminating the Sale tax on gas purchases. Problem was they had to replace that sales tax revenue and attempted to do so by raising the sales tax from 6% to 7%.
I worked at MDOT for 30 gd years and the voters were always OK with gas taxes that went to the roads. Once they started dinking around with the books, they lost the trust of the people on any issue like this.
The swine. Oh, and before anyone accuses me of being political (which I am), I'm an elected Republican township trustee. This gives me the right to say that many of the republicans in the legislature are religinazi swine.
I don't believe anyone in their right mind is opposed to taxes. However, we're talking about a Government that is unable to pass a bill that isn't bloated with pork, State and Federal. They just can't do it. Those of us who are opposed to any new taxes are opposed to the blatant misuse of tax dollars. I am aware that blanket statements are just as wrong, but I believe this is the perception. We don't have a voice to make them produce clean bills, but we do have a voice to refuse some new taxes. The demagogues are in charge, but every now and then, the voters say no.
This is why, consumption taxes, in my opinion, are so much better. There's no need for a bloated IRS and the politicians have no reason, or ability, to create policy for political purposes. Incentives are aligned.
Clean up the waste in Government and the voters will gladly give more if needed.
Perhaps I missed something. I thought the proposition voted down had three components: increase the sales tax (a consumption tax) from 6% to 7%, make gasoline exempt from sales tax, and increase the gas tax to support roads (about as pure a consumption tax as one will find).
>> Clean up the waste in Government and the voters will gladly give more if needed.
BW, that actually has been studied pretty extensively and the data show, DoD programs aside, that gov waste, the popular idea that big gov is inefficient and bureaucracies inherently wasteful, is largely a myth.
the popular idea that big gov is inefficient and bureaucracies inherently wasteful, is largely a myth
Really??? So why, when I worked for a regional contracting office of the DoD in Germany back in the 70's, we would pull an all-nighter to spend whatever money was left in our budget so it wouldn't get cut the following year??
His original statement was copied and pasted by me in my first post. Apparently, he knows something I don't....how to edit your own posts to make someone else look foolish when they take issue with one of your statements.
Not following. I have not corrected myself in this thread, not trying to fool anyone. I was quoting an assertion from BrianW. The evidence of actual gov efficiency and low waste is too vast to cite easily; it has been studied to death, and you can google it. I do know how to go back and edit myself (upper-right tool icon).
The many DoD projects I have worked on were all tightly and efficiently run as well, micro-inspected, checked, and scrutinized to a faretheewell, but I did not want to go there, since counterfactuals are available too, especially large undesired porky weapons projects.
It is common everywhere (private sector too) to try and spend down and zero out your yearly budget so as not to get cut, yeah. Not sure that's the best example of waste, but it does happen, yes. Some mil policies and procedures in that regard may well have changed in the last 30y since the practice was so widely known, not sure.
It is common everywhere (private sector too) to try and spend down and zero out your yearly budget so as not to get cut, yeah.
As a former small business owner, this would have been a very silly thing for me to do. But, with big government agencies, there is no need or incentive to be profitable and very little oversight.
All I was saying was that in your original statement (cut and pasted in my first post), that you did not mention the DoD...that was added later. Thanks for the instructions on this...next time I will not need so many posts and corrections...I can just go back and make changes later.
The many DoD projects I have worked on were all tightly and efficiently run as well, micro-inspected, checked, and scrutinized to a faretheewell, but I did not want to go there, since counterfactuals are available too, especially large undesired porky weapons projects.
At the RCO where I worked, the projects were all small....mainly dealt with maintenance, repairs, and morale and support activities at the different posts....not "porky weapons projects" .
l5b --- the big things were just the ones all in the news, fighters and similar that nobody now wants etc., that should have been canceled some time ago. Depressing.
BW, can you go on a little bit about public policy, how different, why farsightedness is pitched successfully, etc.? If you know.
lack of investment since then has created congestion and freight bottlenecks throughout the state. ...The Georgia Section of ASCE has assigned Roads a 2014 grade of C-. This is a slight increase from the 2009 grade of D+. Although road surface conditions are better than the national average, they are declining, suggesting a lack of funding for maintenance and resurfacing. Georgia’s motor fuel excise tax is one of the lowest in the nation, making funding of roadway maintenance and improvements much lower compared to the national average ...
Road surface condition scores in Georgia have remained fairly consistent since 2006 with 95 percent of the roads considered to be in Fair Condition or better, compared to 83 percent as a national average. However, the percent of roads in Very Good Condition has decreased from 49 percent in 2006 to 46 percent in 2009 and Good Condition has decreased from 31 percent to 27 percent in the same time period. This suggests a downward trend as funding for maintenance and resurfacing of existing roadways is lacking...
Georgia increased its roadway expenditures from $1.9 billion in 2005 to $3.3 billion in 2010. This improved the expenditures per mile of public roads ranking from 41st to 34th and its ranking of expenditures per capita from 50th to 49th.
"Every 4 years, the American Society of Civil Engineers releases a Report Card for America’s Infrastructure that depicts the condition and performance of the nation’s infrastructure in the familiar form of a school report card by assigning letter grades to each type of infrastructure."
You can look up your own state here. (Most are not yet as complete as Georgia's.)
@davidmoran: I have a home in North Carolina and Georgia and travel often between the two. North Carolina and Georgia appear to pay for most of their road work via an increased gas tax (I pay more in NC). Not sure of how South Carolina pays for their roadwork but their gas prices are always lower. I have seen many cases where Politicians have proposed toll roads, in both states, and the voters have always refused. The next thing that happened in Ga was the introduction of 'Peachpass' (can't be Georgia without having a peach in there somewhere). Peachpass took many HOV lanes and converted them to pay for access lanes. Didn't like losing access to HOV but hey, if it keeps the taxes lower, so be it.
I commented before the election in Michigan on another thread. Georgia was cited in discussion of our road condition as being the state with the lowest per capita expenditure on roads, with Michigan (the f'n capital of the car industry) 49th. Previous post here points to Geogia's admirable bootstrapping. One of the nastiest part of Proposition One was to tax hybrid car owners $25 annually, and electric cars $75 per year, because "those people" don't buy enough gas! This proposition had something for everyone to hate. In my view it was the work of a spineless legislature failing to govern and serve the residents. BTW, I voted no even though I cuss and swear every time I drive here.
@BenWP: I saw that provision in the bill as well. However, my take was it was an alternative means of extracting payment from Hybrid owners. Obviously, they won't pay the same amount as non-Hybrid owners, but they still use the roads. I don't see a way around that type of treatment.
I think msf's interpretation of the proposal is correct. Rono is spot-on re Michigan politics.
I voted yes. But it was a tough decision because the sales tax is a very regressive tax that hits the poorest the hardest. I think the legislators who put the proposal on the ballot fully expected it to fail. I doubted it had "a snowball's chance in hell" of passing. That said, the 20% support I never imagined. I'll bet a lot of out-of-state money was spent here trashing the thing.
We're used to rough roads now. Can't get much worse. Visited Arizona a year ago and couldn't believe how nice roads are out there. A pleasure to drive them. Trucking lobby's strong here. Heaviest weight limits in the nation.
Michigan's gone in my lifetime from a very progressive state to a laggard. We once had the best schools and best roads in the nation. And common folk here could afford to attend our state supported colleges and universities. One reason for the change is the demise of labor unions. Folks earning good pay on union jobs tended to vote liberal. The other change has been in the imposition of strict term-limits for our legislators. Campaigning on a promise to cut taxes is an "easy sell" - as long as you don't have to be around to pick up the pieces later on. The saddest part of this is that the roads will probably get fixed at the expense of public education.
I could rant on. But have said too much already. Thanks to everyone who commented on this thread.
I drive in Mass. and the roads are not good, at least the state and town roads, not at all. Awful and worsening. I am spending a week-plus in a month in my native state of Ohio, so I now can dread those roads too. Infrastructure, man. What a lost opp.
Comments
Yes, OT for this board........kinda. But, this does help define the problems that exist in many other states, too.
The broader problem being the politics, eh? And politics do affect investments, too; from intervention of and into policies, processes and spending.....dah, dah, dah.
Some won't get it and some don't care and some don't know that they don't know at the state capitol offices of the elected. A common problem in this line of employment, eh?
I recall now Gov. Kasich of Ohio, when he was a U.S. Rep. trying to push an A-Z bill through U.S. Congress. The "bill" would require simple language bills.........no adding of other stuff for a favor to someone or something in another state. If a real bridge needs to be built, that is all.........someone couldn't add $25 million to study the mating habits of humans.
Oh, well; this went nowhere............surprise, surprise.
For those not familiar, this Michigan road repair proposal ended with too many attachments and bullsh#t and side doors. A 80% NO vote is a pretty serious message in the world of voting.
Hey, just move along, there is nothing to see here............we'll talk later, perhaps with a new plan.
Take care,
Catch
"It's time for corporations and those at the top to contribute."
Some politicians sound like a broken record with this phrase.
Seriously, if they would put forth a proposal that concentrated on roads rather than having these other entities dipping their hands in, it might pass.
Regards,
Ted
Go Blue !
And, I feel for my Northern neighbors as the roads up your way are in perhaps in a worse condition there than they are here.
aaaarrrgghh. You have this block of the republican party that has sworn to never raise taxes. You have a LOT of people that are saying they don't want higher taxes period. And until they dial 911 and no one answers, they will continue to feel this way. Stuff costs money and if you want services you have to pay. Alas and alack, Michigan used to have this sort of 'user fee' system where all the gas taxes went into the Highway Trust Fund. Some years back, the legislature wanted to cut taxes on business but had to make up the revenue lost to schools and local gov'ts. They did so by adding Sales Tax to gas purchases. This confused the situation and Prop 1 was designed to correct his problem by applying gas taxes alone at the wholesale level and eliminating the Sale tax on gas purchases. Problem was they had to replace that sales tax revenue and attempted to do so by raising the sales tax from 6% to 7%.
I worked at MDOT for 30 gd years and the voters were always OK with gas taxes that went to the roads. Once they started dinking around with the books, they lost the trust of the people on any issue like this.
The swine. Oh, and before anyone accuses me of being political (which I am), I'm an elected Republican township trustee. This gives me the right to say that many of the republicans in the legislature are religinazi swine.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono
This is why, consumption taxes, in my opinion, are so much better. There's no need for a bloated IRS and the politicians have no reason, or ability, to create policy for political purposes. Incentives are aligned.
Clean up the waste in Government and the voters will gladly give more if needed.
BW, that actually has been studied pretty extensively and the data show, DoD programs aside, that gov waste, the popular idea that big gov is inefficient and bureaucracies inherently wasteful, is largely a myth.
Really??? So why, when I worked for a regional contracting office of the DoD in Germany back in the 70's, we would pull an all-nighter to spend whatever money was left in our budget so it wouldn't get cut the following year??
BTW...loved the shout-out to my alma mater...it's been rough the last few years living with a Sparty!
I was quoting an assertion from BrianW. The evidence of actual gov efficiency and low waste is too vast to cite easily; it has been studied to death, and you can google it.
I do know how to go back and edit myself (upper-right tool icon).
The many DoD projects I have worked on were all tightly and efficiently run as well, micro-inspected, checked, and scrutinized to a faretheewell, but I did not want to go there, since counterfactuals are available too, especially large undesired porky weapons projects.
It is common everywhere (private sector too) to try and spend down and zero out your yearly budget so as not to get cut, yeah. Not sure that's the best example of waste, but it does happen, yes. Some mil policies and procedures in that regard may well have changed in the last 30y since the practice was so widely known, not sure.
The roads here are like silk. You could easily fall asleep at the wheel they are so smooth.
As a former small business owner, this would have been a very silly thing for me to do. But, with big government agencies, there is no need or incentive to be profitable and very little oversight.
All I was saying was that in your original statement (cut and pasted in my first post), that you did not mention the DoD...that was added later. Thanks for the instructions on this...next time I will not need so many posts and corrections...I can just go back and make changes later.
Why are Georgia roads in such good shape? It leads in some other areas for the region too, I know that.
At the RCO where I worked, the projects were all small....mainly dealt with maintenance, repairs, and morale and support activities at the different posts....not "porky weapons projects" .
BW, can you go on a little bit about public policy, how different, why farsightedness is pitched successfully, etc.? If you know.
You can look up your own state here. (Most are not yet as complete as Georgia's.)
I voted yes. But it was a tough decision because the sales tax is a very regressive tax that hits the poorest the hardest. I think the legislators who put the proposal on the ballot fully expected it to fail. I doubted it had "a snowball's chance in hell" of passing. That said, the 20% support I never imagined. I'll bet a lot of out-of-state money was spent here trashing the thing.
We're used to rough roads now. Can't get much worse. Visited Arizona a year ago and couldn't believe how nice roads are out there. A pleasure to drive them. Trucking lobby's strong here. Heaviest weight limits in the nation.
Michigan's gone in my lifetime from a very progressive state to a laggard. We once had the best schools and best roads in the nation. And common folk here could afford to attend our state supported colleges and universities. One reason for the change is the demise of labor unions. Folks earning good pay on union jobs tended to vote liberal. The other change has been in the imposition of strict term-limits for our legislators. Campaigning on a promise to cut taxes is an "easy sell" - as long as you don't have to be around to pick up the pieces later on. The saddest part of this is that the roads will probably get fixed at the expense of public education.
I could rant on. But have said too much already. Thanks to everyone who commented on this thread.
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