(WWJ) There's a new plan to fix Michigan's notoriously crumbling roads.
Michigan House Speaker-elect Matt Hall has (R-Richland Township) introduced a proposal to put at least $2.7 billion into roadwork, by using corporate income tax and an additional $1 billion in state gas tax funds to fix the roads.
According to Hall, the money spent in recent years to fund projects on local highways came from COVID-19 federal funding.
Speaking live on WWJ Newsradio 950 on said a new, more long-term plan is needed.
"The borrowing is ending," Hall said. "(Governor Gretchen) Whitmer borrowed it, and the funding runs out on the borrowing. And then the second source is from federal money after the COVID pandemic."
"So, the money that was spent when to those major state roads and federal roads," he said. "What we're talking about is putting this money into the local roads, and the the city roads, and the county roads. Those are the roads that have been neglected."
Hall said the state has been spending money wastefully, that could be better dedicated to fix the roads.
"We have billions of dollars in our corporate income tax that we collect that goes into the general fund, and then politicians spend it on splash pads and a boxing ring and a hip hop academy in Lansing, and, you know, bailing out corporations with hundreds of millions of dollars," Hall said. "So, I propose that we just dedicate the money first to roads."
Some of the money, Hall said, would come out of $600 million currently dedicated to economic development projects, the Revitalization and Placemaking Fund, and Housing and Community Development Fund.