This actually sounds like a much more business friendly idea to me, but it still doesn’t sit well. Why the fuck didn’t they do this back in April when the budget issues were first raised? Now businesses have been carrying on presuming they wouldn’t have to pay any such surcharge. A little lead time would have been helpful.
What also gets me is that the budget shortfall was $1.75 billion. Where the hell is the other $1 billion coming from? I don’t see any reports that they cut spending any further so it looks like we’re still facing a deficit which isn’t permitted under the Michigan State Constitution any longer.
Are we headed for another government shutdown or am I missing something?
At this point I’d be content with the State of Michigan pulling up the voter registration logs, figuring out what each individual person needs to pony up to cover the deficit, send out bills to those people, and call it the “You Elected Morons Tax.”
Fellow Michiganders, I say we make our mantra for the 2008 state elections “Not One Single Incumbent.” Let’s vote every one of these incompetent shit heels out and send a message. Sure, some of them are doing a good job, I don’t doubt that, but that message will make it clear that this nonsense must stop for any future legislator to have any hope of holding onto their position.
Didn’t they pass an income tax increase too? from 3.9 to 4.3 percent? I think the pre-surcharge MBT counts toward the 1.75 billion.
Of course, why do we have a 1.75 billion dollar deficit? Becuse our politicians saw fit to borrow from next year to cover this year’s deficit (which was around 700 million if memory serves). So, take 700 million out of next year’s budget (which was already set to have somewhere around a 900 million dollar deficit) …
Assuming that 2009′s deficit would have been around 1.2 billion (deficits tend to grow) the REAL question is … what happens to the “extra” 550 million dollars that the state will make in 2009?
Or is my math wrong?