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Rep. Lee Chatfield
It's one thing for a state lawmaker to have an idea about eliminating a tax that will ease financial burdens. It's another thing to imperil Michigan's budget without an alternative revenue plan.
Some GOP lawmakers in Lansing support a bill to remove the income tax that generates about $9.4 billion a year -- roughly one-third of Michigan tax proceeds, Detroit Free Press chief editorial writer Stephen Henderson writes. However, they offer no alternative to replacing that money.
The Pulitzer-winning journalist writes:
The consequences of that bill, should it become a law, would be pretty absurd. You’d either see a gun-to-the-head kind of scramble to find ways to deal with the yearly reduction in the income tax rate. Or you’d see manic cutting of government services. . . .
Lee Chatfield, the northern Michigan representative who introduced the bill in the House, hasn’t said anything about how to fill that void. The new House Speaker, Tom Leonard, simply said it was the right thing to do because the revenue from taxes is “the people’s money, not ours.”
Sen. Jack Brandenburg of Harrison Townshiphas long talked about the idea of getting rid of the income tax and has hinted that maybe he’d like to see it offset by a bump in the sales tax. Maybe.
If this were a debate happening in the GOP caucus room, all of that would be fine. But this is a bill. A proposed legal change to the state’s tax structure that would not lower the income tax, but eliminate it. And it has been offered without a proposed alternative to generate that money.
