Bob's Holland Sentinel Letter

'Feds No Friend to Michigan'

When times are tough, it is always instinctive to look to a friend for help. With state budget deficits and unemployment soaring, more and more people are looking to Washington for help. I have to express caution about any effort to land help from the federal government.

by Rep Bob Genetski

The feds are no friend to Michigan, and examples of their “help” leave Michigan taxpayers poorer and more frustrated than when they first needed aid. Michigan’s infrastructure, roads and bridges are in dreadful shape. In looking to the feds for help with fixing these, our state receives back 92 cents for every Michigan taxpayer dollar we send to Washington in the form of the federal gas tax. The U.S Department of Transportation does send more money to MDOT, but the feds tie strings to it, forcing Michigan to spend the money on highway rest stops. Even if Michigan’s dire need is for roads, Washington forces us to rebuild highway rest stops and our state loses the money if we do not spend it in that manner.

When our “friends” in the federal government passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus bill, to “create jobs,” only 12 percent of the $7 billion translated into infrastructure projects. Some might argue that state government is so intertwined with the feds that the two are not friends but in fact dating. If this is the case, Michigan is in an abusive relationship or dating a control freak. Either way, we have to question any friendship that makes us buy highway rest stops when we need roads.