The State of Michigan faced a crisis: Critical road and bridge infrastructure was crumbling, and there weren’t enough tax dollars to fix it. Polls showed widespread support for higher spending to address the issue. A ballot measure — led by a popular Republican governor and backed by both Democrats and Republicans — proposed raising the sales tax, the gas tax, and the automobile-registration tax. Both labor groups and a number of business associations supported the plan. Every major daily newspaper in the state endorsed it. The campaign in favor of the proposal outspent the ragtag group of opponents by a margin of over 25 to 1.
Last week, the voters had their say. They rejected it by a crushing 4-to-1 margin, the largest rejection of any ballot proposal since the adoption of the state’s current constitution over 50 years ago.
Michigan is a swing state, and the infrastructure crisis here is similar to many other fiscal problems in the country. Thus, every aspirant for the White House in 2016, as well as other policymakers around the country, should study the lessons from this outright mauling of the political establishment.
Here are three lessons from Michigan voters:
1. First, look for savings in your own budget.
Michigan voters rejected a complicated multi-tax increase that, in addition to spending money on roads, found a way to increase spending on public schools, local governments, mass transit, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. There was not a re-prioritization of spending, or even a reduction in growth in future spending in one category in order to fund better roads. It was more money, plus more money. The voters wanted none of it.
2. Tell it to me straight.
Voters endured millions of dollars of radio, TV, and mail ads telling them the roads desperately needed more money. Television spots even featured threatening photos of concrete about to fall from bridges. But while the public messaging focused on fixing a crisis with the roads, the fine print of the proposal told a somewhat different story.
Voters learned quickly that much of the new money went to the K–12 school system, local governments, and other places where it was unlikely to be spent on infrastructure.
Voters learned quickly that much of the new money went to the K–12 school system, local governments, and other places where it was unlikely to be spent on infrastructure. Polls picked up growing cynicism about the government’s explanation, and the confusing structure of the proposal (one provision eliminated the sales tax on gasoline, while others raised the general sales tax and erected a higher excise tax on gasoline) compounded the difficulty of selling the proposal as a fix to the road crisis. Social media were awash in recriminations from citizens who attacked pro-tax-increase editorials from the left and right. Even newspapers that supported the proposal, meanwhile, called foul over the ads exaggerating the dangers that road conditions posed to motorists.
3. Elected officials: Do your job.
The third lesson may be the most important: Voters expect elected officials to do their jobs. Supporters of the proposal repeatedly told voters that this was the best legislative compromise they could achieve, and blamed conservative Republicans for blocking other, presumably more palatable, options. Voters were clearly unmoved by this offloading of responsibility, and decisively rejected the rhetoric of failure.
#related#This suggests that, at least in the nation’s heartland, voters are getting tired of claims from their government’s leaders that sinister forces are preventing them from doing their jobs. The current occupant of the Oval Office has made this something of an art form, and the effectiveness appears to be wearing off.
It will be tempting to official Washington to ignore what happened in Michigan in 2015. However, just as Massachusetts’s election of a Republican senator in 2010 signaled nationwide concern over Obamacare, Michigan’s rejection of a bipartisan, infrastructure-focused tax increase in 2015 is a strong warning to those who would foist on the citizens ill-conceived, complicated tax proposals that stray from their intended purpose.