State Rep. Ken Borton on Tuesday released the following statement after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced her $2.75 billion plan to fix Michigan roads, which includes a significant tax increase. The governor’s proposal comes months after House Republicans announced their own $3.145 billion road funding strategy that does not raise taxes.

“The governor proposed a bunch of new taxes today but still couldn’t come up with a plan that came anywhere close to the quality of ours,” said Borton, R-Gaylord. “These taxes could include businesses, retail delivery services like Lyft and Uber, towing, heavy truck parking, and internet advertising. It seems like she decided to put a tax on whatever came across her stream of consciousness during whatever planning process she made time for on her book tour. Our proposal would put more money toward our roads and do it without raising taxes.”

Borton noted a major focus of the House Republican proposal is redirecting funding away from corporate welfare programs and into critical infrastructure projects. The plan also ensures that all taxes paid at the pump are put directly into road funding, a change that would result in $945 million more each year for local roads.

The governor claims her plan would allocate $3 billion to roads, however $250 million would be going to new bussing programs that have nothing to do with road repairs.

Just last week, the governor released her executive recommendation for the state budget. Within her proposal, she included funding for 800 new state employees and more than $1 billion in new government spending. However, she didn’t recommend allocating any new money toward local roads.

“The governor likes to say she wants to fix the roads but then refuses to cut funding away from any of her failing programs in order to do it,” said Borton, who serves on the House transportation budget committee. “She would rather scrape the bottom of the barrel and come up with weird taxes on tow truck drivers and college kids working delivery than use her corporate welfare money to fix our roads. We can do this without raising or creating taxes, but only when the governor realizes our tax dollars are better spent fixing local roads and bridges than going to Chinese battery plants or foreign car manufacturers.”

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