News Story

Draconian Traffic Fee Law Moving Toward The Chopping Block

Bill would phase out 'driver responsibility fees'

A government money grab that's been operating under the guise of public safety might soon be ended. Legislation to scrap Michigan's "driver responsibility fees" has overwhelming support in the Legislature.

In 2003, state lawmakers passed a bill that assessed "driver responsibility fees" in an effort to bring in additional revenue. The move was thinly veiled as a measure to ensure drivers were operating vehicles safely. However, the fees often go beyond simply assigning stiffer penalties for unsafe driving practices. In many instances they pile on costs that individuals don't have the ability to pay. What's more, under certain circumstances they also can include hefty fines for violations such as not being able to produce proof of insurance.

The fees bring in $123.2 million to the state annually, according to a Senate Fiscal Agency analysis.

Another criticism of the law is that it took away the ability of local judges to use their discretion when handling individual cases. Lawmakers in Lansing say they regularly hear horror stories from their constituents about the unintended consequences of the law.

Although the fees have been widely recognized as bad public policy for a number of years, they have survived for more than a decade. House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Joe Haveman, R-Holland, said this may be a classic example of governmental reluctance to shut off any established revenue stream.

"Everybody agrees this has been a bad way to do it but we've become hooked on the revenue it brings in," he said. "If I had my choice I'd lop off about $80 million from the budget to begin ending it right away. However, if we really want to get rid of this a phase-out is more realistic."

Rep. Haveman is the sponsor of House Bill 5414, which would do just that over a period of roughly three years. Phasing out the driver responsibility fees would allow the state budget planners to more easily adjust to the diminishing revenue, he said. Under the bill, as of Oct. 1, 2017, the state would stop assessing the fees going forward. The bill was introduced on March 18 and promptly garnered 107 co-sponsors in the House.

The Senate Fiscal Agency analysis also observed that in 2012, only 56 percent of the fees assessed were collected. That statistic could be taken as evidence of the degree to which the fees have caused financial hardship.

"Politicians show what they really care about not in what they say, but in how they vote," said Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "In 2003, 67 of them in the House, and 32 in the Senate, showed they cared more about keeping the government whole than keeping lower income drivers whole. It's nice that 107 of them now say they want to revisit those priorities, but, watch what they do, not what they say."

The only three House members who are not co-sponsors of the legislation are House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall; House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel, D-Auburn Hills; and House Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, R-Midland. All three are in leadership positions and have self-imposed rules against co-sponsoring bills.

Rep. Haveman now is working with his colleagues in the Senate to try to move the bill forward.

"I am working with Sen. Bruce Caswell, R-Hillsdale, who has his own legislation on this issue," Rep. Haveman said. "I plan to sit down with Sen. Caswell and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw, and work this out. I want to get this done. I'm hoping to move this before autumn."

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

Commentary

Corporate Welfare for New Red Wings Arena Won't Spur Economic Development

(Editor’s note: The following commentary originally appeared on MLive.com on March 27.)

The idea that the proposed new Red Wings arena will revitalize midtown Detroit is the reason given for the $260 million in corporate welfare that will help finance the project. The idea that a new sports arena will spur economic development, however, lacks credibility.

An NHL season only has 41 home games, meaning the arena is closed for the most of the other 324 days of the year with the exception of some concerts or other special events. Not much development can take place around a facility that is closed nearly 90 percent of the year.

Take the Palace of Auburn Hills, where the Detroit Pistons play, as an example. An NBA season also consists of 41 home games. If sports arenas really spurred additional economic development, there would be bars and restaurants surrounding the Palace. Yet, there are not.

Backers claim the new arena will create 440 new jobs in addition to those that already exist at Joe Louis Arena. This means that taxpayers are providing a subsidy of approximately $600,000 per new job created. Given how sports arenas are only open a handful of days of the year, jobs created at them tend to be temporary, low-paying food service jobs.

Sports teams are simply too small a component of the local economy to serve as an engine of economic development.

According to Forbes, the Red Wings earned $96 million in total revenue in 2013. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, total income in the metro Detroit area was $208 billion in the same time period. This means that the Red Wings comprise 0.05 percent of the metro Detroit economy.

The Red Wings could move to a new state tomorrow and it would not cause a blip on Michigan's economic radar, especially since studies find that consumers would shift their entertainment spending to other local options. Surveying the literature on sports stadia and economic development, economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys find that "the overwhelming preponderance of evidence [is] that no tangible economic benefits are generated by these heavily subsidized professional sports facilities."

Under the guise of economic development, state taxpayers simply trade one set of empty lots for another.

The building of Comerica Park resulted in a vacant lot on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull where Tiger Stadium once stood. The Silverdome sits empty with a destroyed roof in Pontiac now that the Lions play at Ford Field. A combined $335 million in taxpayer dollars was used to finance the two new facilities.

If a new Red Wings arena is built, Joe Louis will be demolished. It is unclear how taxpayers benefit from having vacant lots in one part of Detroit (and Pontiac) over others at a cost of over a half a billion dollars.

Instead of subsidizing the construction of the Red Wings arena, $260 million could finance the repair of all of Detroit's streetlights with money to spare. It would be enough to resurface I-75 from Saginaw to Mackinaw City. It could be used to hire 100 police offers in the city of Detroit for more than 25 years.

Though less flashy, those projects would result in more bang for the taxpayer buck than extending yet more corporate welfare to another billionaire.

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Christopher Douglas is an associate professor of economics at the University of Michigan-Flint and a member of the Board of Scholars at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.