Reader: Pro-Proposal 1 ads are lying.

Letter to the editor by Colleen Tucker, Manistee.

Don’t you hate it when people lie to you?  I sure do.  A recent pro-Proposal 1 TV ad ends with a school bus driver saying something like, “If it will keep our kids safe, I’ll pay the penny.”  Did you know that not one penny of the sales tax increase will go to fix our roads?  The sales tax increase was devised to get yes votes from special interests, such as schools, users of the Earned Income Tax Credit, mass transit advocates, and it also increases annual legislative discretionary spending by over $150 million – leaving normal taxpayers to pay the tab, as usual.

In the other 49 states, fixing the roads is part of the budget.  Our Michigan lawmakers need to do the same.  Proposal 1 is a bad solution.  There are other options – for instance, the House passed a bill (the Bolger Plan) last fall that would have fixed the roads without costing taxpayers a penny, but the Senate never acted on it.  Did the Governor already have Proposal 1 in the works?  We’ll probably never know.  With both houses in GOP control, it’s strange that they couldn’t collaborate on a bill to send to the governor’s desk.

If Proposal 1 passes, California will be the only state with a higher state sales tax.

In the end, not even half of the $2 billion in Proposal 1 will go to fix the roads, and less than 25% of it in the first year. It’s time to send a strong message to our elected officials to go back to the drawing board and do their jobs – reconsider the Bolger Plan or other plans.  Proposal 1 is not the way to go.  Please vote no on May 5.