Michigan Government shuts down!

I love how people blame China and Mexico for stealing manufacturing jobs when unions and government haven't done a lot to keep them here. In Idaho, we have Micron, a computer memory manufacturer. They compete with chips made in Taiwan, mainland China, and now even in Thailand. The state basically does what it can to allow Micron to run their business without intervention, and with a low tax rate, Micron has survived being in business. There's a lot of large companies that work in Idaho because we have low wages, cheap health care, and low taxes. And yet the state government has a surplus... I think that politicians need to take a lesson from successful history, not just history.

Politicians :shk:

Part of the new taxes would be a business-to-business sales tax.

Not a good way to attract new business to Michigan.
Not a good way to keep small business in business.
Businesses will either have to cut their margins, employees, something. Or pass the tax on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

But wait, after all the fear and terror that was attempted last weekend with a state shutdown, after all the services were listed that would be taxed....except golf, or course, after we hear that the income tax would go higher. After the business to business sales tax was reported, NOW we are being told that we can SAVE ourselves from all these taxes.
NOW we the citizens are being told we can circumvent some of these new taxes IF ONLY we vote to raise the sales tax from 6% to 7%. A tax we probably would NEVER have voted for, but now........probably a shoe-in.

Think this was their plan all along
news.yahoo.com...

Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon said Friday some of the planned taxes on services could be eliminated -- if the state's sales tax is increased.

Dillon said lawmakers are debating the idea of putting the sales tax increase on the ballot next year so that voters can decide their own financial fate.

The proposal, according to lawmakers, is to raise the state's sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent and to reduce the number of services that would be taxed.

How Michigan ranks with other states tax-wise.
www.boston.com...

edit: spelling :shk:

[edit on 5-10-2007 by DontTreadOnMe]

Here are some interesting links:

The first link lists all state cigarette taxes from higest to lowest. (Michigan is 4th)

www.taxadmin.org...


This next link goes to a page comparing all states on taxes.

www.retirementliving.com...

As you can see, Michigan is taxed pretty good, and the state government gets a lot of money ,so a two billion dollar deficit is deffinitley uncalled for.
Also It comes to my attention The income tax in Michigan is rasing up from 3.9% to 4.6%. Thats not good. Michigan is loosing jobs faster than they can be replaced. God help us all!

I knew when I read the title of this thread that Mexicans would be to blame. When someone tried to bring up the subject of insane spending on "illegal" wars, he was told to keep to the topic by moderators. Corruption is to blame for this, not Mexicans. We are such an easy target these days. It's easy to blame everything on us. I got an idea, I'll admit to planning 9/11 so we can take the heat off Bush for not finding Bin Laden. Is that "on topic" enough for you guys?

Like many eastern states you have a problem with high taxes and high wages that just don’t bring in new businesses and those states have been slowly dying as old business either leave or die out. Toyoda built a new factory in San Antonio and one needs to ask why not in Michigan? During one of my business classes a few years ago Illinois was looked at as having nothing new coming into the state in 20 plus years and Michigan I’m sure is in the same boat. Make it economical and the businesses will come. I’m also sure big unions have a big hand in killing many deals too since they will dictate what wages and benefits the new companies will be forced to go with even if it means death to an older company or deal breaker to a new one.

Get out of there and come to San Antonio and not only get a good job with lower cost of living, but our winters are a whole lot kinder.

I completly agree @Godruigez

i've been hearing for a long time that michigan is in trouble. california might also need to start paying attention - i heard on npr the other day that all state employees will be getting paid minimum wage (i don't recall when this was supposed to start) until they get things straightened out.

Since this happened a year ago, how's Michigan doing now?

Hopefully better than last September..