Michigan Citizens United---Thoughts on the campaign to recall Rick Snyder

[Fnemecek]

Yeah! except of course that's not what just happened.

Wait, are you really going to argue that Gov. Snyder did not propose shifting Michigan's tax burden from businesses to residents? Are you really going to make that argument?

I guess there aren't any newspapers where you live.

[Wesley Mouch]

...How they will pay for this will be an attack on some middle class entitlements, such as the mortgage interest deduction, the deduction for charitable contributions and the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance.

Substitute 'well thought through change to' for 'attack', and then I agree with these changes -- and I have been the beneficiary of all three 'entitlements'.

I hate the idea of the change to charitable contributions, but other countries support charities without it.

Mortgage interest deduction supports mainly the well-to-do middle class. The lower end, the people who need help are disproportionately unable to participate in this middle-class benefit. The biggest beneficiaries here are banks and high-income people. This will not change home ownership rates one little bit. And middle class families already got a huge reduction in home ownership costs --- it was called the real-estate crash. So objecting to this is silly.

And if we're going to address health reform -- which is needed -- why is moving some of the costs around unfair. Somehow we need to pay for the neediest amonst us.

I object to this type of 'status quo' argument. It doesn't make us very 'progressive', does it.

[bailey]

Wait, are you really going to argue that Gov. Snyder did not propose shifting Michigan's tax burden from businesses to residents? Are you really going to make that argument?

I guess there aren't any newspapers where you live.

are you ever going to stop with the one note bleating about "shifting of burdens"? you present it as if there is now NO tax on business entities and ALL of the costs associated with running the state are now on pensioners and low income wage earners. instead of the hyperbole, how about we call it balancing? which it is. the personal tax burden is still among the lowest in the midwest and is the 12th lowest burden in the country,and instead of having the 48th worst tax system we could be among the easiest.

I'm truly sorry that your tax free pension is going away. perhaps you can move to one of the three remaining states to have that benefit.

[Fnemecek]

are you ever going to stop with the one note bleating about "shifting of burdens"?

No, I deal in the truth and in reality.

you present it as if there is now NO tax on business entities and ALL of the costs associated with running the state are now on pensioners and low income wage earners.

I never said there was no tax on businesses. I never said anything like that.

Gov. Snyder proposed, and the GOP dominated legislature enacted, a plan to move more than $1 billion in tax liabilities away from businesses and taxes were raised on residents. This moving of tax burdens is what honest people call a "tax shift."

I have not argued, as you said I did, that no business will pay taxes in Michigan. My complaint is that Gov. Snyder shifted the tax burden away from businesses to residents, that he clearly intended to do so prior during the campaign, but he chose to keep his intentions a secret until the day after the election.

If you want to argue that Gov. Snyder was somehow justified in lying to Michigan voters, fine. We can have that debate, but kindly stop lying about what I have and have not posted on this thread.

I'm truly sorry that your tax free pension is going away. perhaps you can move to one of the three remaining states to have that benefit.

I don't have a pension, tax free or otherwise. My reason for supporting the recall of Gov. Snyder is because of his lies to Michigan voters, which is what I've explained on more than a dozen occasions.

Now, what would you like to lie about next?

[bailey]

I never said there was no tax on businesses. I never said anything like that.

well, as you pointed out.. there is saying something...and then there is saying something.

Gov. Snyder proposed, and the GOP dominated legislature enacted, a plan to move more than $1 billion in tax liabilities away from businesses and taxes were raised on residents. This moving of tax burdens is what honest people call a "tax shift."

Exactly. it was proposed and adopted...after he was elected.... kinda like it always works. Politicians run on messages of "doing things" and are always a little fuzzy about the details. But again, the "shift" has resulted in a more equitable division of the burden between individuals and businesses and removed an onerous tax system that was one of the worst in the country while preserving michigan's low personal tax burden.

I have not argued, as you said I did, that no business will pay taxes in Michigan. My complaint is that Gov. Snyder shifted the tax burden away from businesses to residents, that he clearly intended to do so prior during the campaign, but he chose to keep his intentions a secret until the day after the election.

I didnt say you said it, I said you "present it as if"...as in "larded with spin". you seem to ignore that businesses and business owners are still paying taxes. however, this way they are not paying twice.

Further, I don't remember it being a huge secret that the stated desire was to get rid of the onerous MBT and replace it with a flat 6% tax. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was one of the 10 points. I also dont remember where it is written that every bit of minutea about a budget must be discussed prior to an election. If you're upset that the press didn't do it's job that is one thing. if you're upset the legislature is a rubber stamp. that is another thing. but this absurdly high standard for disclosure is fantasy and one which no politiican before now has ever been held. [[I don't recall a demand Granholm describe in detail her plan to "blow away" the state)

If you want to argue that Gov. Snyder was somehow justified in lying to Michigan voters, fine. We can have that debate, but kindly stop lying about what I have and have not posted on this thread.

yes...yes... I've noticed your "lies by omission" line of reasoning. You're going to be busy with recall campaigns if a politician's "lies by omission" are your standard. You can start with Obama. how's that gitmo closure going...hell that was a lie by commission, is the MEA...er um Michigan's Citizens United... going to start that impeachment ball rolling or are they comfortable with lies of commission from Democrats so long as they're just about massive human rights violations and don't touch collective bargaining?

But, back to Rick Michigan... I would love to know where it was thought the balancing would be done? anyone capable of independent thought should have thought...hmmm, if we do that MBT thing, then I'm betting we're going to see in the budget proposal some spending cuts and/ or tax increases and/or removal of tax credits elsewhere to compensate. Those of us that did actually think about it, understood it and were comfortable with taking the risk that this guy was better than the preceding 8 years of dithering about the structural changes needed.

Look, you don't get a do-over because the Dems ran a terrible candidate, ran a terrible campaign, and had no message other than "fat cats" and "wall st vs. main street".

Now, what would you like to lie about next?

That the recall is a grass roots measure?

[Fnemecek]

Exactly. it was proposed and adopted...after he was elected.... kinda like it always works. Politicians run on messages of "doing things" and are always a little fuzzy about the details.

Shifting more than $1 billion in tax liabilities from businesses to residents is one heck of "fuzzy detail."

But again, the "shift" has resulted in a more equitable division of the burden between individuals and businesses and removed an onerous tax system that was one of the worst in the country while preserving michigan's low personal tax burden.

If Gov. Snyder feels that Michigan is better served by shifting our tax burden from businesses to residents then he should have been upfront about it. Instead, like the liar and coward that he is, he kept his intention hidden until after the election.

Hence the recall.

yes...yes... I've noticed your "lies by omission" line of reasoning. You're going to be busy with recall campaigns if a politician's "lies by omission" are your standard. You can start with Obama. how's that gitmo closure going...hell that was a lie by commission, is the MEA...er um Michigan's Citizens United... going to start that impeachment ball rolling or are they comfortable with lies of commission from Democrats so long as they're just about massive human rights violations and don't touch collective bargaining?

You want to bring President Obama and the Democrats into this?

Fine, unlike Gov. Snyder, President Obama told us exactly what he intended to do when he ran for office. Once he was elected, he went about trying to do exactly that. Unfortunately, Congress [[primarily the GOP members but there were a few Dems as well) blocked him from closing Gitmo as he promised.

That's life. He promised to do something and made a good faith effort at keeping his word.

Gov. Snyder didn't bother doing that. If he had brought forth a proposal to deal with Michigan budget deficit and simplify our tax code without shifting more than $1 billion in tax liabilities from businesses to residents and the legislature blocked him from doing so unless there was such a shift, then it would be a completely different story.

President Obama told us what he was going to do without any secret agendas. Gov. Snyder did not. It's that simple.

But, back to Rick Michigan... I would love to know where it was thought the balancing would be done? anyone capable of independent thought should have thought...hmmm, if we do that MBT thing, then I'm betting we're going to see in the budget proposal some spending cuts and/ or tax increases and/or removal of tax credits elsewhere to compensate.

Again, there wasn't a need to shift more than $1 billion in tax liabilities from businesses to residents in order to balance Michigan's budget nor was such a shift necessary in order to simplify the tax code. If he had done those two things without such a shift, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Look, you don't get a do-over because the Dems ran a terrible candidate, ran a terrible campaign, and had no message other than "fat cats" and "wall st vs. main street".

And you don't get to lie to voters because Michigan had a huge budget deficit and a crappy economy.

[erikd]

Please cite one instance where Rick Snyder, as a candidate for governor, proposed shifting Michigan's tax burden from businesses to residents.

Snyder was explicit in his plan for lowering business taxes and eliminating many tax subsidies. He was quite vague in his statements about the rest of his plan, but there was a lot of talk about belt tightening and shared sacrifice. The cuts to state revenue sharing, education funding, film credits, historic/brownfield credits, earned income credits, etc were really no surprise. These are all consistent with prevailing Republican ideology and should not come as a shock to anybody.

The only surprising element of Snyder's tax reform was the creation of a state pension tax, which is ironically one of the only aspects of his tax reform that I fully support.

It is well known and universally understood that when Republicans say they want to cut taxes on businesses and cut government spending, they mean cutting business taxes while cutting funding for public services and eliminating tax credits for the low income classes.

Rick Snyder promised to bring Republican-style tax reform to Lansing. He based his whole campaign on Reaganomics and trickle-down economic policy, and that is exactly what he is doing.

Personally, I think his trickle-down tax policy will prove to be a failure, but that is what he promised in his campaign, and the majority of Michigan voters decided to give his plan a shot.

A recall is not warranted just because you and I don't agree with the tax policy that he promised to implement.

[Fnemecek]

Snyder was explicit in his plan for lowering business taxes and eliminating many tax subsidies. He was quite vague in his statements about the rest of his plan, but there was a lot of talk about belt tightening and shared sacrifice.

Shifting more than $1 billion in tax liabilities from businesses to consumers is distinctly different from belt tightening and shared sacrifice. In fact, it's the exact opposite of it.

[bailey]

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/a...er-falls-short

A statewide push to recall Republican Gov. Rick Snyder will fall short of the number of signatures needed to put the issue on the February ballot, supporters of the effort said Tuesday.

The Recall Rick Snyder campaign collected more than 500,000 signatures statewide — including about 9,000 in Livingston County — toward the roughly 1.1 million signatures needed to put the issue before voters next year, a mass mailing from the county effort read.

The grass-roots campaign needed to collect the signatures before the end of the month to appear on the February ballot.

....

The effort was the second to recall Snyder.

The original recall campaign attempted to get enough signatures of state residents to appear on the Nov. 8 ballot, but failed to do so by an Aug. 5 deadline

insert sad trombone here.

Less than half the required signatures after failing the first time. Now that the temper tantrum is done can we all move on now?