Taxing Times

Politicians raiding various pots of tax money to fix their self-created overspending crises and balance the state budget have left certain line items short, according to this Detroit News editorial.

The News cites this report by Jack McHugh, the Center's senior legislative analyst, as one example.

State officials are also discussing new taxes as a way to increase government revenue to plug budget holes they've created, including a possible levy on iTune downloads, according to the South Bend Tribune.

"Just because something exists doesn't necessarily mean that a tax should be slapped on it," Mike LaFaive, director of the Center's Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told the paper. "The state takes enough from us and does enough to us already."

Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman takes a look at another tax increase proposal in this Op-Ed in the Antrim Review.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.