State Rep. Beau LaFave, of Iron Mountain, today announced his support for a common-sense, bipartisan reform to help fix crumbling local roads and bridges without a tax increase.

The proposal would eliminate the sales tax on fuel and replace it with an equivalent, revenue-neutral tax on fuel dedicated solely to roads. This would dedicate roughly $800 million more per year to road repairs without raising taxes, an effort LaFave said respects Upper Peninsula families.

“Turns out we don’t have many state-owned roadways in the Upper Peninsula,” LaFave said. “However, the ones we do have are getting consistently repaired ever since I came to Lansing and the Republican-led Legislature providing record funding for road repairs statewide.”

The legislation would ensure all revenue collected by the replacement tax at the pump is dedicated specifically to local road funding – filling a gap left behind in the governor’s road bonding plan.

“Our local road agencies are struggling with the war against viscous freeze/thaw cycles more than any other region across Michigan,” LaFave said. “That’s why every penny paid at the pump must go toward our local roads.”

The governor’s proposal took on $3.5 billion in new one-time debt to be spent only on state-owned roadways, which make up about 8 percent of Michigan roads. LaFave said the revenue-neutral plan will instead result in approximately $800 million annually in additional funding for the other 92 percent of roads that connect driveways to highways in every corner of the state.

“Rather than fixing the root of the problem, the governor decided to max out the state credit card to bail out freeways in metro Detroit – doing nothing for rural Michigan families except asking them to pay down massive amounts of debt,” LaFave said. “Fortunately, with legislative proposals like this that put rural Michigan first, our highways will survive the disastrous Whitmer Administration.”

LaFave said the proposal requires the state treasury to backfill any loss of revenue to the school aid fund with income tax revenue.

The measures now move to the House Appropriations Committee for consideration.

###