East Lansing — Can Michigan fix failing infrastructure like flood-ravaged dams and cut or eliminate the 4.25% state income tax at the same time?
That question was posed to candidates for governor who participated in a Michigan Press Association forum at the organization’s annual conference on April 19 in East Lansing.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, a Democrat, and four Republicans — pastor Ralph Rebandt, businessman Perry Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt and former Attorney General Mike Cox — participated in the gubernatorial candidate forum.
Three of the top contenders for governor — Republican U.S. Rep. John James, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and independent Mike Duggan, the former mayor of Detroit — skipped the candidate forum in front a roomful of newspaper reporters and editors.
Detroit News political reporter Craig Mauger moderated the forum and posed the infrastructure-versus-tax-cuts question to the candidates. The following is a partial transcript that’s been edited for clarity:
Question: Michigan has an inventory of aging dams. The problem was on display again in recent days, as flooding threatened people’s property and lives in areas throughout the northern region of the state. How would you handle a long-term and expensive problem like that, given that some candidates are calling for doing away with the income tax? How do those two things fit together? How would you juggle them?
Swanson: It’s not reasonable, it’s not realistic. Sounds good. You’ve got to get the money from someplace, and you can’t tax the cannabis community at 24% (wholesale tax) on top of the 16% [existing tax] to do it. You line item budget, inside the budget, in order to pay for roads, bridges and tunnels. Work with Operating Engineers 324, making sure that those who are actually doing the projects are doing them in a range that is feasible and not price-gouging. You saw what happened in Sanford, a failure. I saw what happened in Flint 2016, when infrastructure failed through the water crisis. And so you’re paying hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been saved by just being in front. And I look at roads, bridges and dams, and the things you’re talking about — people’s lives are not only impacted by that, but it defines our state. And so you make that part of the state budget. The governor has a budget, the House, the Senate. The priority of our infrastructure is going to draw economy. It’s going to increase the GDP, and it’s got to be a long-term, not just for an election or a reelection. So you line item, you don’t put it on one industry. You make it feasible. You work with those that are in the industry and the OT, those that provide the service, the operators that build it, and you work with the local communities.
So we do an assessment of all the bridges and dams that are in the state of Michigan. What’s fixed, what needs fixed and what is critical right now. Part of governing is assessing where you’re at. For eight years, you’ve had an administration, no disrespect, but I don’t know what they’ve been looking at. But I do know this — the people in Sanford saw the aftermath of a problem not defined, and so we’re going to do that. It’s a long-term fix. You can’t put it in one industry. It’s in the budget. … It can’t be highs and lows based on who’s in the office. If we’re going to be in this state to attract people, to keep people safe, it’s got to be part of that long-term solution — and that’s how you do it. Make it a part of what we do every single day. You pay your taxes, you buy food. Same thing with roads, bridges and tunnels.
Rebandt: I’ve never seen a Republican road or a Democratic drain. Infrastructure affects everybody. It’s a top priority of mine, the Midland dam, what’s happening in Cheboygan…all of these things are top priority. I’ve mentioned on the campaign trail that I’m going to have a roundtable in my office where I bring in township supervisors and mayors who have dams and other issues in their area that need immediate attention. We are going to immediately address that, because those are dangers to people who live in the area. We need to make sure that those you know, rocks falling off the bridges, hitting cars, are not happening anymore, and that dams aren’t breaking. So how do we fund this thing? Well, first of all, I’m convinced there are three areas. One is the state needs to support (municipalities through) revenue-sharing. Two, local government needs to kick in in their areas. And three, some of these dams are privately owned, and we can’t allow people who are privately owning dams to let them disintegrate. We have to make sure that we are looking out for the safety and welfare of the people of Michigan.
It’s a big question. It’s a long fix. When I was leading (a church) congregation, we not only had our money that we were running each year, but we had rainy day funds. We know we have to replace a roof in 20 years. We start putting money aside for that. The problem is right now, there’s so many that need to be fixed. We need to care for that now. So my whole point is, we’re gonna that’s a top priority. That’s that’s in the first 10 days, we’re having people in to address those issues, because Michigan has become a known nationwide for that.
Cox: I’m gonna attack the premise of the question, which is, if you’re going to eliminate the income tax, then you can’t have government, right? Because here’s the problem in Cheboygan, it was a private dam. It was inspected. The state inspectors didn’t follow up and hammer it. That’s just departmental ineptness or negligence and you discipline people. I’ve run a part of state government. And I’ll tell you, the day I entered there, I didn’t know that we’re gonna have to reduce the size of our staff. We had to reduce the size of our staff by 21% during the Great Recession, and demand for our services actually went up. But a leader figures it out.
Here’s the reality: we have to eliminate the state income tax. Why? Because if we’re ever going to be that state that keeps our kids or attracts businesses, we have to make changes. All these things — $27 billion new dollars, 45% increase in state spending. And who here has gotten a better service or a new service out of state government? No one has. Has going to college become more affordable? No. Have we become safer? No. Are we attracting new jobs? No. So the reality is, when you’re at the bottom, you have to make some changes, and that involves eliminating the state income tax because we’ve seen elsewhere, Texas, Tennessee, Florida … growing. Go across the border, Indiana, Ohio, which are kicking our ass. They have they have lower burden of regulation. They have a lower income tax. And people there actually think they can move and grow. Indiana has grown a million people since 2000 we’ve much smaller, much smaller state than us.
Indiana has grown a million people since 2000, a much smaller state than us. We’ve grown by 180,000 residents. We have to make some changes. I delivered when I was attorney general, reducing the size of my office and doing more. That’s what I did each and every day in private business, building my own law practice. Perry [Johnson] and I are the only ones who’ve done that and we’ll do that in state government.
Johnson: Well, I wish I could tell you that it’s something that is magical, but it’s not. It’s good management. In fact, that’s basically what I do. I operate a buisness in 67 countries, and that’s what we do. We come in, there’s a problem, we have to correct the problem. And you correct the problem with good, solid management techniques. I’ve written seven books now, a variety of books, given seminars on them, all of that. The bottom line is, we need good management in our government. We don’t have it. And you have to recognize how much money is wasted. It’s almost comical. If we had gone up at the rate of inflation, our overall (state) budget would be $10 billion less than it is now. And right now in our government, I want you to realize they go out of their way to spend every single penny every year. … They make sure every penny is gone. … And one of the fellows at one of the conferences that I gave was that he said, ‘Yeah, I know I had to buy some chairs, and there were only $2,000 apiece, and that wasn’t enough, because I wasn’t gonna get rid of my money. I bought a desk 15,000 and chairs for $5,000 apiece.’ This is nuts.
You have a household. Can you imagine if you said to your spouse afterwards, ‘It’s December, I want to make sure we’re broke at the end of the year.’ Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that we need to change. I have spent my entire life bringing quality and efficiency to companies. I intend to bring it to state government. I am going to not only repair our dams efficiently, we’re going to make sure that we have better quality of life, that everybody has $4,747 in their pocket every year. 4747, that’s been my theme, and we’re going to reform that property tax.
Nesbitt: Well, it’s been evident over the last eight years that Governor Whitmer hasn’t fixed the damn roads and hasn’t fixed the damn dams. And this is the challenge of Michigan and where we’re at. We were a wealthy state once; we’re a welfare state now. We need to become a wealthy state again. And the premise of the question over the last eight years, Governor Whitmer and the Democrats in Lansing have increased the size and scope of government — 50% twice the rate of inflation. I don’t see that return on services here in the people of Michigan. What I do hear as I travel all 83 counties is stories of families of people having trouble making it here in Michigan, from the high cost of living, high cost of property taxes, high cost of energy, high cost of insurance.
I was up north recently, and there was a guy who moved from Tennessee to Michigan. You don’t meet too many of these folks. … And you’ve got to remember Tennessee is a right-to-work state. No statewide property tax, no statewide income tax. He says, ‘I started adding up my expenses — the cost of insurance, the cost of energy, the cost of property taxes. I figure I’m paying about $5,000 more per year for the privilege of living in Michigan.’ I don’t know about you, but as a farm boy, $5,000 is a lot of money. As the next governor in the state of Michigan, I’m going to repeal the green new scam to lower the cost of energy, repeal the state property tax, and put $1,000 more in every homeowner’s pocket in the state of Michigan, and force the utilities to roll back their rates by a billion dollars. This is how you make sure our families can make it in Michigan, while taking a blow towards the regulations and the bureaucracy and Lansing. They’re making it nearly impossible for folks to invest and grow jobs here in the state of Michigan. We’re 40th in median income. The average family in Michigan makes $9,000 less. That needs to change. As your next governor, I’ll make sure that it does.
clivengood@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Q&A: Michigan governor candidates on juggling failing dams with tax cuts
Reporting by Chad Livengood, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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