Last week the Times Herald published a guest opinion piece by Craig Ellis. His argument, a monotonously familiar one, is that Michigan citizens pay too much in taxes and get little in return. BlueNovember member Jackie Jablonski knew that his claims are contradicted by the evidence and contacted Call Back. The paper--what a surprise!--declined to print what she said:
For a CPA, Craig Ellis has a funny way with numbers. My sources say that New Jersey has the third highest tax burden in the country, with Michigan way behind at 20th. It’s also relevant that a recent study shows that children are far better off in states that pay the highest taxes than are children in states that pay the lowest. Check it out at everychildmatters.org. And remember that Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.”
BlueNovember.Org is a grassroots, progressive group of citizens who work to achieve social justice. We call on our neighbors to join us as we stand up and speak out to protect the earth, peace, justice, the truth, and each other.
3 comments:
Here are two sources to back up my numbers:
http://www.everychildmatters.org/homelandinsecurity/table-01a.html and
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/070125/25health.child.htm.
Jackie, the problem with your sources is that they approach from tax collection rather than from state spending. Gross spending is the best measure of tax burden per capita because it comprehends all sources of funds and cannot be obfuscated with discussions about "federal contributions" and "lottery" and it is immune to fund manipulation. Spending is spending and 100% of all spending must come from the people. For example, Michigan will spend $44B in 2008. With a population of 9.4M that amounts to $4700 each. California will spend $132B with a population of 36M (42M with illegals) for a spend of $3600 each.
Politics does not change the fact that all governmental spending is funded by citizens. Even corporate taxes are paid by citizens - the owners of the companies. The issue my column intended to raise was that "disposable income", that is, money each person has to spend on bread, cars, flower pots and socks is that money which is left over after tax. There are those that would argue this but they are wrong. Disposable income is that money which is left over after legal extractions - meaning tax. How it is spent by each individual is a matter of preference. Unfortunately for Michigan - for all 9.4 million of us in Michigan - we have far less disposable income to spend and, as a result, our state economy has ground down to dead slow. You may favor government spending for children and other worthy causes but the pain for children in general in the form of diminished capital formation by their parents (for inheritances), college education funding (Michigan has the lowest resident college graduation rate in the country) and asset growth (as in home values, etc.) is far greater due to poor economic performance in our state than any governmental program could every overcome. I know the impact because not only am I a CPA, I own an employment agency in Michigan. I speak to jobless people every day of my working life. I guarantee you that none of our elected representatives are speaking to them. In any event, the profound damage of unemployment will never be overcome in our lifetime. I am afraid that our state spending has drawn us down into a recession that will last well into the next generation...and the impact on children - including my children - will never be overcome. Believe otherwise if you wish but all our children will suffer for our extravagance today in exactly the same way that families that overspend using credit card debt suffer. Politics aside, spending is spending. Do not be misled by assertions to the contrary.
Has he joined Obama in Wonderland where up is down and left is right? What’s “fiscally conservative” about voting for every spending measure in sight?
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