Add one more to the parade of newspaper editorial pages steamed about the Republican-controlled Legislature's unfunded $1.9 billion business tax cut - The Muskegon Chronicle:
That body (The Michigan Legislature), which had the option of rejecting the petition and putting this grave and important question to the public, opted not to let voters have the final say. Republicans in the recent past also cut out the voters when they speeded up a cut in the state income tax, and when they pushed through a measure to allow dove hunting. Voting along largely party lines to kill the SBT, Republicans engineered passage, meaning that the SBT's demise will take effect at the end of 2007.
Standard & Poors, the Wall Street municipal bonds ratings service that is pro-business, took a dim view of the Legislature's action by downgrading its outlook for the state's finances within hours of the vote, and Granholm called it an act of "utter irresponsibility." She said an analysis of the huge cut in state revenue shows it "creates a structural imbalance" that poses a serious budgetary threat for which a timely solution might not be forthcoming to rescue future general fund shortfalls.
So where does this road lead? No one will say. Legislative leaders who have made killing the SBT a priority, and who curiously yanked the carpet out from under a key Dick DeVos campaign issue in the process, nonetheless delayed its death by a year-and-a-half, a crisis to await the next governor. Neither DeVos, the GOP's gubernatorial candidate, nor legislative leaders have said how they will make the loss good.
Then again, maybe they won't. Gutting the state budget by a significant amount probably sounds good to a certain segment of the political leadership. Perhaps, too, a big hike in the regressive, hurt-the-poor sales tax is in the works. If so, voters should know beforehand in order to make informed choices in the upcoming election about the future of state government. (emphasis added)
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