Regional Transit Authority CEO Michael Ford has told the Detroit Free Press that the RTA plan will cost $4.6 billion dollars. As we have ‘broke-down’ in one of our previous pieces, proponents of the plan claim that the transit authority plan will only cost taxpayers $95 per year; a figure that is still astronomical when you add on the other taxes that you already pay for county millages, school millages, bonds, etc.
Unfortunately, the plan will not cost $4.6 Billion dollars, it will cost even more. The Mackinac Center has found out the real cost of public spending initiatives and the results are devastating.
On average, public spending programs cost a lot (we mean, a lot!) more than the government and bureaucrats claim they will. As you can see the Rapid Transit program in Cleveland cost 114x more than expected and over spending is not solely limited to Ohio. Michigan spending projects have enormous spending multipliers as well, so let’s apply this to the Regional Transit Authority.
The RTA is costing $4.6 billion dollars and $95 per taxpayer per year. If we estimate the cost of the project to cost 114x more than expected, as what happened in Cleveland, the project will now cost five hundred twenty-four billion four hundred million dollars(!!), or easier read as $524,400,000,000. The new cost is now a whopping $10,830 per taxpayer per year. If the plan does pass in November and the project does cost more than expected we would not expect the government to force a new $10,000 tax on people but your taxes will be raised significantly and the rest will be public debt and other costs that the government cannot afford.
RTA is not affordable for Michigan, and Michigan cannot afford another massive tax increase.
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