The incentives wars is one of the worst uses of public money that has been perpetuated by the corporate hierarchy that I can think of.

Amen. Business interests are expert at playing cities and states off against each other, and using workers as pawns. I have seen businesses get tax breaks for only a promise to "save" existing jobs.

Proposal 1 is the latest tactic. It will give business a free ride on the personal property tax everywhere in the state, and, supposedly, replace the revenue cities lose by distributing 2 percentage points of the 6 percent state use tax.

First issue: that portion of the use tax is already being used by Lansing to fund something, probably something that we residents benefit from. When that money gets redirected to the cities, it will be coming out of something else, but Prop 1 advocates do not say what.

Second issue: from the numbers I have seen, in inflation adjusted dollars, Michigan use tax revenue has been declining since 2000. So what happens to city services when their cost of providing services goes up, but they are stuck with a fixed percentage of a declining revenue stream to pay those costs? Same thing we have seen with road maintenance, where maintenance costs rise, but the fuel tax revenue to pay for it has been declining.

As usual, Prop 1 advocates claim "jobs will be created", a whole 15,000, out of a Michigan labor force of 4.7 Million.

We'll never notice the "jobs created" if any. What we will notice is more cities in financial trouble, more city services cut, and, probably, higher taxes on our homes, to pay for business' free ride.