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Stateside: The economics behind State of the State

Gov. Rick Snyder
Rick Snyder for Michigan
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Facebook.com

The following is a summary of a previously recorded interview. To hear the complete segment, click the audio above.

Rick Pluta of Michigan Public Radio Lansing Bureau Chief and Michigan State Economics Professor, Charley Ballard weighed in with their responses to Snyder’s State of the State speech.

“It was a pretty standard State of the State speech…The one wrinkle in that was just for one brief moment, the governor did allude to the controversies of last year and said he was hoping that going forward they could find ways to work together,” said Pluta.

Ballard said Snyder’s transportation proposal could be good for Michigan’s economy.

“Letting our roads turn to gravel is a lousy strategy for economic development…We do need to improve our transportation infrastructure and I think the governor is exactly right that this is the kind of thing that if we continue to put off, they will cost us more down the road,” said Ballard.

Ballard was surprised Snyder didn’t mention that the money we do spend is not spent wisely.

He called mostly for additional spending and there are a lot of places the money can come from, said Ballard.

“If it were up to me, this would be a golden opportunity to reform the sales tax to come up with additional funds,” he continued.

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