I’ve already detailed my reasons for voting NO on Michigan’s Proposal 1 which would eliminate the Personal Property Tax HERE. But there is another reason, in my opinion: Republican threats to screw over municipalities if voters turn it down: The GOP-led Legislature could eliminate the personal property tax with no revenue-replacement plan for local governments, [Truscott Rossman’s Kelly Rossman-McKinney] said. […]

Michigan voters are being asked to vote on one statewide ballot proposal tomorrow, one that will eliminate the Personal Property Tax (PPT) imposed on equipment a business owns. Businesses hate this tax because it is essentially double taxation. They pay taxes when they buy equipment and then pay the PPT every year on the same equipment. This tends to disincentivize […]

Attempting to deceive senior citizens is, simply put, sick and disgusting. Governor Snyder is summoning his inner Obi Wan Kenobi, using the Jedi Mind Trick to try to convince seniors that he’s not taxing their pensions. “I want to be proactive, ” he said, “and let people know it’s NOT a pension tax. What we did was clean up our […]

Nobody in Michigan would argue that we don’t need to take drastic measures to fix our crumbling roads. In some places, gravel roads would be an improvement over what the roads look like right now. One proposal being floated is to change the gas tax from a flat 19 cents per gallon to a percentage of the wholesale cost. This […]

MORE THAN HALF OF US NOW PAY HIGHER TAXES THANKS TO THE GOP AND YES I’M SHOUTING! A little over two years ago, I wrote a cautionary post titled “The tax timebomb that explodes in Michigan in 2012 is MUCH worse than you thought”. In it, I explained how the Republican budget passed in the first year after the 2010 […]

It’s going to take actual leadership to fill all of these Snyderholes Anyone driving in Michigan these days knows that this is an epic year for potholes. The frightening part about it is that the daytime thawing followed by nighttime freezing that is the most significant contributor to potholes is only just now underway. If you think things are bad […]

It’s getting very deep in here… Earlier this month, I wrote about how Michigan Republicans were going to soon begin a campaign of deceit in which they attempt to convince Michigan voters that they are tax-cutting warriors determined to return budget surplus funds to the taxpayers to whom they belong. This week, House Speaker Jase Bolger began a propaganda campaign […]

They think you’re stupid and gullible. Don’t prove them right. In February of 2012, I penned a piece titled “The tax timebomb that explodes in Michigan in 2012 is MUCH worse than you thought”. In it, I showed how Michigan Republicans raised taxes on over half of the people in our state. Worse than that, the brunt of the tax […]

I see what you’re doing here. We all do. I think all of us are, like Amy described in her righteous rant yesterday, sick and tired of being held hostage by extremist right wing ideologues who behave like petulant children when they don’t get absolutely everything they want. What’s most infuriating about it is that these very same ideologues have […]

Wait. What??? As I wrote about a month ago, Republican House Representative Bob Genetski has a solution to Michigan’s budget problems: blow an $8.3 billion hole in it by repealing the state income tax. Well, the bill has been introduced: House Bill 4898. Here is the part that eliminates the tax: HOUSE BILL No. 4898 July 18, 2013, Introduced by […]

Republicans hate picking winners and losers except when they don’t Amid all the drama surrounding Detroit’s bankruptcy this past week, there was a supremely ironic announcement made that came the same day a federal bankruptcy court judge cleared the way for Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to proceed with the Chapter 9 filing. Plans for new sports complex, centered around a […]