Study: Michigan Falls $4 Billion Short on Annual Infrastructure Spending
A new report says that Michigan misses the mark on infrastructure spending by about $4 billion... every year. That's a lot of zeroes.
Anyone that's ever driven on any road in Michigan can tell you that our infrastructure could use some work, but our problems run so much deeper... metaphorically and literally. Once you factor in all the other things like water systems -- a big one here in Flint -- and the power grid, Michigan falls very, very short of what's needed.
According to the results of a new study ordered by Lansing to see how much more we need to spend on rebuilding our infrastructure -- Michigan needs to find an additional $4 billion That falls just south of 10% of our total state budget in 2015, which was estimated to be $53.9 billion. Oddly enough, the budget increased by $4.5 billion from 2014 to 2015.
So while an increase of $4 billion may seem like an insurmountable figure, it's not unprecedented for our budget to increase by that much.
Governor Snyder appointed the 21st Century Infrastructure Commission, and ordered the report after the Flint water crisis woke him up to the fact that infrastructure issues could do so much more harm than just a flat tire. The commission believe that Michigan could set the example for the rest of the nation on infrastructure rebuilding. Let's hope they're right.