That having been said, with regard to a couple of bills that were reported out of the House Tax Policy Committee back on Wednesday (2013 House Bill 4202 and 2013 House Bill 4203), the critic has at least one valid point that, as a matter of professional integrity, I really ought to address.

The burdens and additional paperwork small business will face if the internet sales tax is enacted might mean nothing to the Walmarts or other big box houses which have a nexus in each and every state.  However, a small operation that does business on the internet and ALREADY faces a shipping obstacle the box houses can overcome with trucking logistics, will be forced into near impossible operating conditions.  There might be other solutions, but no-one has come close to the right ones yet.

There are some legislators that serve their (well funded) masters well.

Tax Tyrants?

Click on their images and call them to ask "why would they want to hurt Small Business in Michigan and elsewhere?"

SAY NO to HB4202 and HB4203

You may remember me mentioning a couple of weeks ago that the grassroots are just a tad ticked at 29 "republican" squishies who caved on House Roll Call 11 and brought this state one step closer to what is perhaps the single biggest government intrusion into private lives that I can recall in my lifetime.  While I'm not going to go into too many technical details here, I will say that one particular organization isn't screwing around.

As a percentage of the involvement, the results were rather impressive.

Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.  No person shall be compelled to attend, or, against his consent, to contribute to the erection or support of any place of religious worship, or to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support of any minister of the gospel or teacher of religion.  No money shall be appropriated or drawn from the treasury for the benefit of any religious sect or society, theological or religious seminary; nor shall property belonging to the state be appropriated for any such purpose.  The civil and political rights, privileges, and capacities of no person shall be diminished or enlarged on account of his religious belief.

This, of course, is a direct offshoot of Amendment 1 of the Constitution of the United States, and is fairly straightforward on its face.

I'm a pretty big believer in the constitutional concept of keeping church and state separate.  The faith I practice holds that both the church and state are both instituted and sanctioned by God, and that the proper relation between them is preserved only when each remains within its divinely assigned sphere of influence and uses its divinely entrusted means of operation.  Thus, with regard to church and state, those who practice the same faith as me reject - among other things - any attempt by the state to restrict the free exercise of religion.

So I was understandably distressed to hear from a friend of mine on the Kent County Committee on Religious Freedom of an attempt by one municipality in this county to dupe every religious organization within its borders into complying with federal, state, and local laws . . . including laws with which those religions may be compelled by conscience to disagree.