The legislature came very close to approving a plan this session to pay for crumbling roads, but the haul in the Republican-controlled House proved too difficult—they adjourned without voting on the Senate plan that passed 20-19 on July 1.
The House had passed two bills in June that would have, among other things—some very controversial—raised the diesel tax by four cents to match the 19-cent gas tax. The Senate amended the bills on July 1 to include a 15-cent gas and diesel tax increase over three years and sent it back to the House.
"After three weeks off, the House was back in session for two days last week and met behind closed doors to talk about roads, but couldn't come up with enough votes (to pass the) Senate plan to help pay for repairs," write Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press. The legislature adjourns July 21 for one month.
Republicans hold a 63-47 majority in the House. Reporting for WDIV-TV, Mara MacDonald asked why Republicans were unable to get the votes to pass their own bills.
"You have a lot of new members, about 28 in the Republican Party and 12 in the Democrat party," Republican State Representative Peter Lucido said.
"Some of the members took a pledge for no new taxes and they signed those pledges so why would they want to lie to those people who put them in office and trusted them with their vote and now go back to them and say ‘I lied’?"
Lucido had his own bill to pay to fix roads without hiking gas taxes that stalled.
Democrats had their own plan, based on hiking corporate, not gas taxes, "a plan Republicans have called a non-starter and political pandering," writes Gray.
As posted in June, they opposed eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit to pay for roads in the House bill that passed, or shifting income tax revenue to roads, or $700 million from income tax revenues for roads as posted in July on the Senate plan. Would Democrats have supported a straight increase in the gas tax? We may never know.
In this WDIV-TV Video, MacDonald explains that the failure of the legislature to agree on a plan to fix the roads is nothing new. "Do you realize that we have been doing these stories since 2012?" she asks, "and it inevitably ends just like this one is. Take a look."
FULL STORY: House set to adjourn for month without vote on roads
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