any examination of Michigan's
infrastructure would tell us that
enormous investment is needed most
famously of course in our deplorable and
sad roads but this seems beyond finding
extra nickels and dimes how do you fix
our roads our bridges our water lines
our electrical grid perhaps our digital
infrastructure without asking
Michiganders to pay for it
senator Colbert well thank you very much
for that question and Dylan it's pretty
straightforward first of all we have
plenty of money for the roads right now
as it is the key is to focus on higher
quality road construction it wasn't
three weeks ago that we had a section of
696 that was actually paved that two
weeks later was actually torn up I think
that sets a record for the shortest life
span of any road in the state of
Michigan
the key is to focus on the quality of
the roads if you actually want to talk
about tax cuts I'm the only one that's
gone off and proposed completely
eliminating the personal income tax and
I don't impact the roads budget for that
I don't impact the transportation budget
in order to go up and do that what you
do is go off and have a series of
expense based milestones that once you
achieve those expense reductions then
you ratchet down the income tax it's
very straightforward we don't impact
roads we don't impact our schools and we
don't impact our public safety with the
approach that I take but what we do do
is fix the roads and actually lower the
cost of living in our state so that we
can compete with the fastest growing
states in the nation for the people to
come back into our state and grow
Michigan again dr. Hines I believe that
we can fix our roads without increasing
taxes and I've proposed a plan of taking
our income tax from four point two to
five down to three point nine that's pre
grand home tax time that's eight hundred
and seventy five million dollars and do
that for two years in a row
875 for two years in a row plus the 1.2
billion dollars from the road tax of
2015 do that for two years get our roads
in reasonably good shape and then start
to ratchet down our income tax so I
think it can done I it can be done I
know it can be done of course we have to
fix the roads with good quality material
that lasts a long time that requires
minimal maintenance we have to fix our
potholes like a dentist fixes a cavity
in the tooth you you grind it out you
clean it out you coat it you put the
right material in you pound it down
smooth it off and it's even with the
tooth that's how we need to fix
our potholes that's how we need to fix
our roads so they last a long time
lieutenant governor Kelly generations of
politicians have failed our state on
fixing the roads first Jennifer Granholm
left our state literally billions our
transportation fund billions of dollars
in debt through through disciplined
budgeting we have paid off about half of
that we need to continue and pay off the
rest of that debt and not borrow any
more as Gretchen Whitmer has proposed
that will put an extra 200 million every
single year into our roads once it's
paid off we need to fully phase in the
1.2 billion dollars new money into roads
and at the same time raise the standard
so when those roads are finally replaced
with this new 1.4 billion total then
they will last longer we also need to
put higher technology into the roads
like we did on 23 between Brighton and
Ann Arbor to lower the over cut overall
cost that was lowered by 75% and finally
we need to require the coordination of
repair maintenance and replacement so
you're not tearing up the road this year
for sewer and tearing up the road next
year for fiber and in repaving it and
replacing a culvert at the year after
all of these things together will create
a better measure at this time senator
Kohl Beck is asking for a rebuttal
you've got 30 seconds senator there's a
lot of things associated with they're
tough to squeeze it in so I just want to
highlight I'm the only candidate up here
that identifies how we can actually
improve the quality of the roads
we've got advanced construction
techniques that feature things like a
cement hydration catalyst and a sealant
over the roads costs about 15% more
upfront but the roads last three to four
times as long if you want to fix the
roads you got to go with the engineer
and Attorney General shoe to your
original time now you've got a minute on
this we can't be a first world economy
if we have third world roads and I
travel all across the state are two
peninsulas in 83 counties and I've
experienced pothole heaven here's what
we need to do very specifically number
one we need to have a complete review of
the Michigan Department of
Transportation and how they allocate
dollars second we need to have
warranties and guarantees for our roads
thirdly we need to make sure that the
250 million dollars will come back into
the budget because of the elimination of
the prevailing wage statute we dedicate
that to roads and finally it's a 58
billion dollar budget life's about
priorities we need to make Michigan a
priority and our
now the Democrats and Whitmer they just
want to raise taxes billions of dollars
of taxes which will cause people that
leave this state we need to make sure we
dedicate money to roads that's how you
do it lieutenant governor Calley is
asking for a rebuttal on this one I just
want to point out that Bill Schuette did
not give an answer to that question
we're gonna review a department we're
gonna make priorities why don't you
explain what those priorities are we owe
the people of us the state of Michigan
real answers that's what tonight is
about it's about the future it's not
about sound bites is not about
platitudes
we need real plans of action being in
the future that's largely the focus of
my next question there's been a lot of
focus on the performance of schools in
our most troubled districts like Detroit
but the truth is over the last 20 years
the performance of schools all over the
state of Michigan has fallen
dramatically against our national and
international competition statistics
show it actually has little to do with
race little to do with poverty as
reported by bridge magazine Michigan's
white higher income fourth-grade
students fell from 17th in the country
in 2003 to 50th just 12 years later what
are we doing wrong in educating the
children of Michigan dr. Hines money
will not solve this problem you know
money can buy us out of a lot of issues
but it can't buy us out of the
educational problem we need to go back
to the basics of reading writing and
arithmetic I believe that we need school
choice and local control we need to get
rid of Common Core but in addition to
that we need to have a plan and I
believe that we need reading coaches in
the classroom one on one one on two that
may take some alternative certification
but kids need to learn and we need
continuity between three and
four-year-olds all the way up to third
and fourth grade we need to teach
teachers how to teach reading believe it
or not most teachers don't know and we
need a teaching program that's
consistent that works
phonics my two oldest boys I taught them
how to read when we were in Africa
through homeschooling I taught my dad
who only went to third grade how to read
using phonics and we need to reinstitute
a program that will work and I
understand one program won't fit
everybody
but we need to make this time dr. Heinz
lieutenant governor Calley just earlier
today I met janae guenzel