“My God, it’s a perfect storm!” HELP (enact the MI FairTax) !

On April 2nd, the Detroit News headline exclaimed,   “Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state” Reporters French and Wilkinson ferreted out some shocking facts,   “Since 2001, migration has cost Michigan 465,000 people, the equivalent of the combined populations of Grand Rapids, Warren and Sterling Heights– the state’s second-, third-, and fourth-largest cities.” A local demographer understood, “These numbers — my God, it’s like a perfect storm – the education, the income, the young people, everything is going in the wrong direction.”

The “sea change” - ignored by Michigan’s lawmakers!  Michigan’s perfect storm has been in the making for years.  Yet, those in control of Michigan’s government chose to shift the existing tax burden, rather than cutting spending. They’ve passed the Michigan Business Tax, selling it to the gullible public as a “tax on business.” Because taxing business income provides politicians with a tax code to play with, Lansing routinely cuts deals that favor some businesses (like that media darling, the movie industry) while damaging others.   When they can, businesses cope with the MBT by passing their costs on to you and me in higher prices. When they can’t, they move out of the state, or go out of business. The rate at which business is not coping is alarming. That same news article goes on to tell us,   “The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving — young, well-educated, high-income earners — are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.”

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