Posted on 03/09/2017 10:10:05 AM PST by MichCapCon
Gilda Jacobs, a former Democratic lawmaker and current president of the Michigan League for Public Policy, implied in testimony last week that a minor reduction in the state income tax rate would threaten basic community services like police and fire departments.
“People are worried whether or not a police car or a fire department is going to show up if they have an emergency at their home,” Jacobs told the House Tax Policy Committee. “Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen when we have tax cuts like this because as we point out, this money has to come from someplace.” (Video of the testimony, which Jacobs gave on Feb. 15, is below).
State income tax revenue is not where the money for municipal police and fire departments comes from, though. It comes primarily from local property tax collections, not state income taxes.
Jacobs was testifying on House Bill 4001, which as introduced would have lowered the income tax rate from 4.25 percent to 3.0 percent over four years, and then phase it out altogether over several decades.
Michael LaFaive, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, called Jacobs’ statement misleading and a red herring.
“That’s a misleading statement. Presumably, the fire department is at the top of a local government’s priority list, not the bottom. And local property taxes are at the top of municipalities’ revenue sources, not the bottom,” he said. “Whether or not the state permits residents a tiny income tax cut has little to do with either of those two things.”
“It is troubling to see how just a tiny little personal income tax cut opportunity could generate such scare tactics,” LaFaive added. “Police and fire cuts wouldn’t be at the top of anyone’s list. This is a red herring.”
LaFaive called the claim a version of what some call the “Washington Monument” gambit, in which critics of federal spending cuts claim the budget is so tight that cutting it will require closing national monuments.
House Bill 4001 failed to pass early Thursday morning, with 55 votes against it and 52 votes in favor. As first written, the bill cut the income tax rate from 4.25 percent to 3.9 percent in 2018, but it was later amended to a cut from 4.25 percent to 4.05 percent in 2019.
Twelve Republicans voted against the tax cut.
In 2007, the state hiked the income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent — a move that was supposed to be temporary — but lawmakers voted in 2012 to halt a scheduled rollback. The state has collected an extra $6.3 billion since imposing the tax increase in 2007. In 2016, the rate hike was responsible for $770 million of the state income taxes paid by residents.
The original version of bill defeated in the House this week would have saved each resident who earns the median annual income of $49,576 roughly $174 each year.
They say that because that’s the first thing they cut whey they can’t have their taxes!
As soon as taxes are lowered, the left always cuts thing that hurt the vulnerable. Always. Senior services. Fire. Police. Emt. But they NEVER cut services to “immigrants.”
They always say that.
As though that’s the only thing your taxes pay for.
For 40 years any potential tax cut has been met with threats of cuts to Police and Firefighters.
We need to tell these losers that they are FIRED due to their inability or unwillingness to better prioritize the budgets entrusted to them.
... the bill....would have saved each resident who earns the median annual income of $49,576 roughly $174 each year...
The state knows how to spend your money better than you do. And how to waste it too.
Example: Obamacare.
Clearly people survived without it before.
This threat is so old it is getting fossilized. We have heard it for the past 30 years. Cant the commie Left find an original threat now and them?
And go ahead, fire your first responders and then watch as the mayors get kicked out of office for doing so. OK by me. We can use more GOP mayors in liberal cities.
Children and minorities hardest hit.
Idiots. Their predictions have such an outstanding record of coming true.
Supply and demand. Liberals haven’t a clue what it means.
It’s like “women and minorities hardest hit” for Democratic truthiness.
Where do they come up with this sh&&?!
From their red diaper doper baby parents.
Speaking of where money to run the states comes from, please consider the following.
Patriots need to support Trump in putting a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that the corrupt feds cannot justify under Congress’s constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
In fact, a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue that Congress cannot justify under its Section 8-limited powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
After Trump works with the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, the states will probably find a tsunami of new revenues that they won’t know what to do with, establishing their own healthcare programs and spending more on police and firefighting services for starters.
Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!
Remember in November ’18 !
Since Trump entered the ’16 presidential race too late for patriots to make sure that there were state sovereignty-respecting candidates on the primary ballots, patriots need make sure that such candidates are on the ’18 primary ballots so that they can be elected to support Trump in draining the unconstitutionally big federal government swamp.
Such a Congress will also be able to finish draining the swamp with respect to getting the remaining state sovereignty-ignoring, activist justices off of the bench.
Noting that the primaries start in Iowa and New Hampshire in February ‘18, patriots need to challenge candidates for federal office in the following way.
Patriots need to qualify candidates by asking them why the Founding States made the Constitution’s Section 8 of Article I; to limit (cripple) the federal government’s powers.
Patriots also need to find candidates that are knowledgeable of the Supreme Court's clarifications of the federal government’s limited powers listed below.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphasis added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
OOOOHHHH there goes Grandma off the CLIFF...
We have heard this crap for so long it’s sickening!!!
How about we push them off the cliff for a change!!!
Public confrontation when armed with facts.
“I’ve got your damn budget right here and there are pages of political payback that don’t impact Police or Firefighters.”
So, if we want fire and police service, we have to pay for women’s studies departments at every state university?
And this is why we need a militia, which functions on volunteer call basis much like firemen
Liberals don’t get it. Tax cuts mean more employment and more money coming in, albiet at a lowed rate.
So, police and fire fighters will be better off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.