Late-night tax drama reveals GOP's leadership challenge
It's nice to know there's one cliff Lansing's GOP clown car won't drive this state off of, yackety-sax blaring through the windows all the way down. The Legislature debated, late into Wednesday night and early into Thursday morning, the merits of sharply reducing the Michigan income tax from 4.25% to 3.9% over four years, blowing a $1.1-billion hole in the state budget with no means of replacement — and, quelle surprise, it failed.
Actually, that clown-car bit isn't fair to the 12 Republican lawmakers who broke with Republican House Speaker Tom Leonard's ill-conceived plan. Ladies, gentlemen: We see you. We applaud your decision not to destabilize the state's still-recovering economy and still-lacking provision of services. Keep up the good work — well, keep it up for as long as you can, because, without question, you'll soon be the target of political ads calling you pro-tax.
Inevitable retaliation from your own party — tragically, that's the price of good government these days.
The plan to obliterate the state's income tax without replacing the revenue was billed as tax relief for working stiffs, but the numbers show that to have been a hollow conceit.
Read more: http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2017/02/23/late-night-tax-drama-reveals-gops-leadership-challenge/98298166/