Fallout

Now that a week has passed since we raised income taxes and created a hatful of new service taxes, the fallout is just beginning to evidence itself.

While the majority of taxpayers can see the damage that these actions by the legislature have inflicted on our state, there are many who don't see it is a big problem or who actually support the tax increase because they have been convinced the state needs the extra revenue.

But it is a different story in the business community. The folks who create two out of every three new jobs, the small employer, sees this for what it really is. The new taxes we have enacted will be a crippling blow to this state's already critically ill economy.

A local Chamber of Commerce President described it this way, the rewrite of the Single Business Tax into the new Michigan Business Tax was essentially rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The new taxes we imposed on the last day of September are like blowing two more holes in the hull of the ship, just below the water line. He told me that he has already heard from three small businesses who have run the numbers and made the irreversible decision to close up shop.

It is hard to find anyone who knows how business operates who does not think the future for this state, dim as it might have been, has only become darker.