Posted on 03/28/2012 8:35:56 AM PDT by MichCapCon
State Representative George Darany would like to give every Michigan resident making $100,000 or less a state subsidy to help cover the cost of gas.
Darany, a Democrat from Dearborn, introduced House Bill 5476 in March. According to Michigan Votes, the bill would “give individuals with annual incomes below $50,000 a per-vehicle fuel subsidy of $100, payable in the form of a ‘refundable’ state income tax credit. A $75 per vehicle subsidy could be claimed by those with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, and a $50 per vehicle subsidy for incomes between $75,000 and $100,000.”
Gas paid by their fellow taxpayers is sure to be popular among residents angry as prices rise to more than $4 a gallon. However, Darany left out one important fact: How much it will cost?
Darany’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on how much the bill would cost.
James Hohman, fiscal policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, used U.S. Census Bureau data and the state’s latest individual income tax report for income distribution to come up with a cost estimate of $304 million.
“That is a major cost to the state,” Hohman said. “That is about as much money as we turn over to the community colleges every year.”
Jack McHugh, legislative analyst for the Mackinac Center, said until such bills give a cost and how they will be paid, they shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
McHugh said such bills pop up all the time and are bipartisan.
“The fact that the bill makes no attempt to identify a funding source exposes it as an unserious act of pure political pandering,” McHugh said in an email.
Liberalism is a bottomless well of Crazy.
This level of ignorance is painful to watch.
.
Anything for a vote
Say buh bye to anyone making over a hun k in Michigan! They can afford the gas to flee govt muggers!!!!
Well, isn't that SPE-Shul!!!
Leftists are some of the best people around when it comes to spending OPM (Other People's Money)!!
I knew this was coming. But they’ll end up lowering the income threshold a bit, so that only those making maybe $50,000 or less get free gas. The rest of us have to pay for theirs and our own. (Pretty much like everything else...)
FREE SH*T FOR EVERYBODY!!!!
This yet again proves the rule, that a Democrat without other people’s money to buy votes with, IS COMPLETELY POWERLESS.
$100 “free” gas won’t take most people very far and would only cost us money.
If you want to be added to the Michigan Cap Con ping list let me know.
Meanwhile, Jackson Michigan made national news this morning for having the biggest overnight spike in gas prices. 19 cents overnight.
TANSTAAFL... Somewhere R.A. Heinlein "smiles knowingly" at this story!
Of late I missed who made a salient point to this effect:
The goal is to disrupt pricing (of anything/everything) to wreck the normal flow of supply-and-demand. Once cost structures are screwed up enough, people flock to gov’t for source of all. Prime example: healthcare - the “high costs” are the result of pricing gone awry, where the initial billed price is so high because it _will_ be discounted 50-90% in normal practice...confusing un/under-insured payers and making them scream for gov’t support.
I thought Obama was gonna fill their tanks? (and pay their mortgages?)
Right. $50 gas free if you make 100k. Of course your tax will be 33% of 100k and we “give” you back $50. Only for your vote, of course.
Get a rope.....
...til there are no rich no more.
Why don’t they just reduce state gas taxes. That savings would apply to all equally and would be much simpler. These kooks could complicate a bath.
You know, I might like to visit Michigan, I hear some parts of it are amazingly unspoiled. Can I get a gas subsidy to visit?
They are sane, just STUPID. It takes brains to be a conservative but only emotion to be a liberal and it is awfully easy to make yourself feel better by giving away someone else money.
How foolish.
Higher gas prices, on their own, change behaviors.
They are an incentive to drive less. They are an incentive to garage the gas guzzler more often and use the more economical vehicle more often. They are an incentive to trade in an older less fuel efficient vehicle and buy a newer more efficient one. They are an incentive for vehicle makers to more heavily promote their most efficient vehicles.
Reactions to those incentives have the ability to lower demand. Lower demand leads to either (a) price decreases or, (b) where supply cannot keep pace with demand or cost of the supply continues to rise, then at least weaker price increases.
In the final sense, higher gas prices are the exact market incentives for market opportunities for vehicles using “alternate” energy sources.
Ignorant Democrats are always trying to step in and make the taxpayers pay to try to slow or prevent the natural course of market forces. Often they are simultaneously trying to dictate that the markets produce exactly what the markets might produce if THEY weren’t interfering.
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