Poor Ol' Peter and Poor Ol' Paul Are Expected to Get $1.6 Billion in Additional Tax Revenue

MLive columnist Tim Skubick criticized a Senate GOP road funding plan by claiming that an additional yearly earmark to roads of $400 million from state tax collections (on top of $400 million earmarked this year) would come from reductions in other state services.

Skubick wrote: “That $400 million comes out of the hides of other state services in a classic example of stealing from poor ol' Peter to pay poor ol' Paul.”

ForTheRecord says: Skubick ignores Treasury Department and Fiscal Agency projections that Michigan's state government will collect an additional $1.6 billion in tax revenue over the next two years. What the Lansing tax-and-spend crowd can't abide is allocating half that increase to roads rather than their own pet programs and interests.

Plus, he skips over that big tax hikes also take from poor ol’ Peter to pay poor ol’ Paul. Except poor Peter is the taxpayer and not-so-poor Paul is a state that's already planning to spend $54 billion in the coming fiscal year.