It's official.
Governor Snyder has just signed "the most sweeping tax change in the state since 1994," according to the Associated Press:
It cuts overall business taxes by about $1 billion in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and $1.7 billion the following year and replaces the Michigan Business Tax with a 6 percent income tax on corporations with shareholders. Some of those companies will pay more, but most companies won't pay the tax.
In the Detroit Free Press, AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney said the tax overhaul won't create jobs.
Gaffney questioned whether a small coffee shop owner who receives a tax cut would hire someone. He said that depends on more business, and more business depends on customers having more disposable income. "I hate to think Michigan is going to be the next experiment in supply-side economics," he said. "There's a reason they call it trickle-down, it's a trickle."
The Governor's mantra has been that cutting taxes will lead to more jobs in Michigan.
When MPRN's Rick Pluta asked the Governor for empirical evidence how he knows lower taxes will lead to jobs, Snyder said, "It's basic economics in terms of cost structures. There was some polling done by the Small Business Association that actually went out and asked their members about what would you be doing with these resources and they got good feedback to say that a lot people would be looking at creating jobs."
The unemployment rate in Michigan stands at 10.2% right now - that number doesn't count the chronically unemployed - people who have fallen off the unemployment rolls.
