Pay now, or pay more later.

That was the bottom line among panelists at a "Solutions Summit" about Michigan's road-funding crisis last week sponsored by Crain's and The Center for Michigan.

Panelists made the point that we're already paying for Michigan's bad roads, from the obvious bent rims and broken springs, to the cost of farmers' bruised produce that can't be sold, to the intangible cost to our state's reputation.

There is broad agreement that the price tag right now for improving Michigan's bone-rattling road problem is somewhere north of $2 billion a year. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's proposal to get that money with a 45-cent gas tax increase has caused some leaders in Lansing to balk at the cost, saying raising gas taxes to the highest in the country is too much for taxpayers to swallow in the space of a year.

Taxpayers already saw the gas tax and vehicle registration fees rise as part of the Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder's 2015 Band-Aid plan for road funding. Making the sales pitch for more is a tough task.

It's important to remember two things:

The cost of doing nothing is far from zero. One estimate puts the annual cost for vehicle wear and tear due to Michigan's roads at $650. The extra 45 cents would add up to about $250 a year per person.

As roads deteriorate, they become exponentially more expensive to fix. Often that means governments steer dollars toward roads that are already in pretty good shape — because it's cheaper to keep them that way than to fix those that are too far gone. That triage causes some local roads to become scarred messes once they become too expensive for local governments to fix.

We like the gas-tax idea because it amounts to a user fee — the more you use the roads, the more you pay. It makes sense as a component of any deal, but a slower step-up in that tax, or another way of spreading out the pain, might be more politically palatable. Or pair new revenue for road fixes with reform of the state's no-fault insurance system that could save drivers money on their auto insurance — even more politically complicated but a real "grand bargain" if it could be done.

The ball is in the Legislature's court now, and the Republican leadership is debating how to approach a road fix. It's been reported that it will likely be summer before a long-term counterproposal is forthcoming.

It's important to have a thoughtful plan that fully addresses the problem, and not another half-measure.

But it's also important to get something done — because it's not getting any cheaper while we debate.