I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
With state revenues crashing as a result of the economic downturn and the state’s high unemployment rate pushing up required spending, there is now renewed talk in Lansing about the possibility of changing the state’s flat tax on income into a graduated income tax that takes a higher percentage from those with higher incomes.
That discussion was fueled recently when Gov. Jennifer Granholm said she would support a graduated income tax as a trade-off for ratcheting down a surcharge on the unpopular Michigan Business Tax.
No firm proposal is floating around the halls of the state Capitol, but Granholm’s comments are drawing heightened attention to the issue — though many Republicans and business leaders immediately slammed the graduated tax part of the plan.
Voters in Michigan have three times voted down amendments to change to a graduated income tax, but the most recent attempt was in 1976. Since then, polling data has shown that the majority now support a graduated tax.
Republicans generally oppose a graduated tax, but they hate the Michigan Business Tax — and especially the 22% surcharge on that tax — even more. The way to make this change politically feasible is to trade one for the other. Granholm has proposed eliminating the surcharge and moving to a graduated income tax that would be just high enough to make up for the $700 million in revenue that surcharge brings in.
Another possibility is to eliminate the MBT altogether and replace it with a graduated income tax with higher rates to replace the entire $2 billion brought in by the tax on businesses. Republicans would likely see this as a net plus despite their opposition to the graduated income tax.
Either way, the revenue has to be replaced. Michigan has a constitutional requirement to balance the budget, and unlike the federal budget the state budget doesn’t contain much in the way of programs that could be cut that would save a significant amount of money without causing considerable problems. At a time when we are already facing a crumbling infrastructure due to lack of state resources, steep budget cuts simply aren’t feasible.
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