Whitmer's new road fix plan includes $470M pot tax, but few other details
The Brief
A $470 million tax on wholesale marijuana was one of the revenue increases in Gov. Whitmer's new road plan.
Whitmer did not mention a $1.6 billion corporate income tax hike which has previously been discussed.
An undisclosed $500 million in state budget cuts was mentioned by Whitmer, without details.
LANSING (FOX 2) - The governor is calling for a $3 billion road fix plan but hasn't said how the money could be raised to do it, with the exception of a $470 million tax on wholesale marijuana.
A tax on pot is the only revenue increase that the governor identified in her news release on how to pay for the road fixes.
By the numbers
Here are the highlights:
$1.6 billion from businesses - with no specifics on how to raise that.
$500 million in undisclosed state budget cuts.
$470 million pot tax.
$1 billion for local roads.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer said nothing about boosting the corporate income tax by $1.6 billion despite reports she wanted that.
But she did talk about raising money from "massive corporations" including Amazon and other entities that haul goods statewide saying it is time for business to "pay it's fair share."
What they're saying
State chamber of commerce lobbyist Wendy Block warns that business tax hikes like the corporate income tax will trickle down and be paid by you.
"There is no magic bags of money in the back room of these companies that pay the Corporate Income Tax. They have to figure out how to pass that tax on to their customers," Block said. "So, that would be through higher prices."
The governor also proposes to remove the 6% sales tax at the pump. None of that goes to the roads, and all of it goes to schools.
But she does not explain how she would replace the $600 million that schools need to operate.
House Republicans have talked about boosting the gas tax by over .20 cents a gallon to replace the lost revenue. The governor made no reference to any gas tax hike in her release.
Representative Sarah Lightner, a Republican from Springport, reacted to Whitmer's statement.
"We can sustain a road plan without increasing taxes," she said. "There's a lot of holes in the budget in her road plan as to where that money is actually coming from. Like, where are the cuts going to come from, where is this additional money going to be."
Meanwhile Lance Binoniemi, the lobbyist for 600 highway construction firms in the state, does not care where the revenue comes from because minus new dollars there may not be enough workers to actually fix the roads.
"We are looking at some severe job losses if nothing is done for the next couple of years, so we're open to any and all revenue the state can come up with," he said.
The Source
Information for this story was taken from Governor Gretchen Whitmer's new road fix plan.
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