Tag: fair tax

• David M. Olander, majority chief tax council, U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means
  
• The Honorable Maurice P. McTigue, former cabinet minister of the New Zealand Parliament and vice president, the Mercatus Center, George Mason University
  
• Jonathan Williams, director, Tax and Fiscal Policy, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
  
• Leo E. Linbeck, Jr., co-founder and chairman, Americans for Fair Taxation
  

Governor Granholm has been continuing her path of raising taxes on Michigan as if no one is paying attention any longer.  Her most recent budget includes additional spending, (more than this current fiscal year) and she has attempted to manipulate the revenue stream so that the actual tax increase on the citizens is hidden.  

Her proposed small shift downward in the sales tax looks good on its face, but she hopes to expand the things taxed to services in hopes of generating the needed $2 Billion plus in revenue to cover that spending.  Though she claims it is revenue neutral by 2013, how well can we trust the judgment of the most fiscally imprudent executives the state has ever seen?

OK - that's not exactly what they said. It's more subtle but basically they let through a quote that said as much. The article is titled: State's economic recovery expected to start next year.

Comerica Bank's chief economist predicted Friday that Michigan's battered economy will finally start to recover next year, aided by a rebound in the national economy.

"This long nightmare now in its sixth year ... the end is going to be in 2010," Dana Johnson told a large crowd of the bank's business clients gathered at the Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills.

Johnson's forecast came despite a grim prognosis for the ailing state. He expects Michigan's real gross domestic product -- the inflation-adjusted value of all goods and services produced in the state -- to drop by 4% to 5% this year, compared with a 1.5% decline in 2008.

And Michigan could shed 50,000 to 60,000 more auto and auto parts manufacturing jobs, up from the 33,000 that were lost last year.

So many factories have closed that auto manufacturing jobs now only account for 2.9% of the state's total nonfarm jobs, compared with 6.9% at the start of the decade.

Johnson said it's important that the state create a business environment that nurtures growth, reminding the audience that innovative, job-creating companies like Google Inc. can spring up unexpectedly.