Detroit must jettison its losing tax scheme

[Novine]

"this was the first shot at this: lay out the problem. Gotta start there, sorry.."

We all know the problem - Detroit residents and businesses pay way more in taxes for sub-standard services as compared to what they could get for their tax dollars in many of the suburbs. I'm not sure who among your audience is unfamiliar with this. If this was the first time this had been discussed on the pages of the Freep, you might get a pass. But how many editorials do we have to read about the decline of Detroit and Michigan that tell us "we need to fix things" and never propose real solutions? Daniel Howes has made it a specialty of his over on the Detroit News churning out column after column about the sad state of Michigan and the need for "change" but never offering up anything more than "cut taxes" and "reduce regulations". High school debaters can crank out more specifics than a typical Detroit newspaper editorialist.

"Likely next topic for me is how to pay for outright tax reductions - something I've spent some time thinking about and researching."

Good! About time someone put some specifics on paper. This was a beef I had with your coverage of the campaign for governor. You allowed Rick Snyder to get away with going on about the need for change without ever backing it up with specifics. Even when Synder gave some specifics, like replacing the MBT with a corporate income tax, he was never forced to provide details of how he was going to accomplish that or how he would make up the loss of revenue to the state budget. Contrary to how politicians like to portray it, neither the state budget or the city budget are excessively complex. Anyone serious about budgeting, including a self-described nerd, should be able to figure it out and provide specific details on how they are going to raise X amount of dollars to fund a budget of Y dollars in size. Snyder has taken office and we still don't have any specifics and so far, the editorial pages of the major papers are giving Snyder a pass instead of asking him to start putting to paper what he's going to do that will affect all of us in the state.

"Can we stop the accusatory missives from you? Seriously, not helpful.. and quite annoying...."

Accusatory? What accusations am I making? I'm only telling you that this reader is tired of reading the same-old, same-old, "Houston, we have a problem" editorials from the Detroit media types. Anyone who's paying attention gets that we have a serious problem. Let's start talking about solutions on how to fix them.

[Lowell]

I'm only telling you that this reader is tired of reading the same-old, same-old, "Houston, we have a problem" editorials from the Detroit media types. Anyone who's paying attention gets that we have a serious problem. Let's start talking about solutions on how to fix them.

So fire away. What are the solutions as you see them?

My sense is that we are at the limit of what how much we can cut back on revenues for schools and vital services without risking serious and permanent damage. In other words what ever revenue is cut in one place has to be made up elsewhere. That is why I am pumping insurance reform and other non-tax based solutions.

[sehender1]

We all know the problem - Detroit residents and businesses pay way more in taxes for sub-standard services as compared to what they could get for their tax dollars in many of the suburbs. I'm not sure who among your audience is unfamiliar with this. If this was the first time this had been discussed on the pages of the Freep, you might get a pass. But how many editorials do we have to read about the decline of Detroit and Michigan that tell us "we need to fix things" and never propose real solutions?"

We may all "know the problem," but one of the reasons things don't get fixed is that there isn't a focus on specific problems, placed in context, and discussed through to solutions.
we have never looked as specifically at the city's tax burden as we began doing today... And we won't have proposed the solutions I intend for us to endorse...
That's what we're trying to do with this work this year. Sorry if you feel like it's treading old ground; it won't be once we're talking about concrete ways the tax burden might be lightened, or how the city's unproductive land might be repurposed, or the whole list..

I love that you are looking to the ed pages for solutions - but I'd caution a little patience.. all of this stuff is complicated, and it will require a pretty methodical approach. Even then, I can't guarantee that I'll come up with some magic bullet solution to any of it.. Just trying to come up with ways to get people discussing these things specifically, and thinking about what to do!