Michigan's Budget Windfall: The Facts

October 27, 2011 at 9:15 AM

By MIKE BROWN

 
     Politifact, the independant nonpartisan fact-checking service, would have rated the 10/19 editorial "Michigan's model is growth instead of taxes" as "Mostly False," as they did with similar claims earlier this year.
     The editorial misrepresents Michigan's experience to fit the right-wing Republican economic mythology that tax increases not only don't produce increased revenues but actually hurt the economy and job creation; and that business-friendly policies such as more and more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations and cuts in regulations and government are needed to spur private sector growth.
     The writer omitted two key inconvenient facts: that our federal government saved the Michigan/U.S. auto industry with taxpayer-funded loans, which then rebounded with 1 - 2 million jobs during the "budget windfall," and that the worst recession since the Great Depression began immediately after Governor Jennifer Granholm's tax increases, resulting in massive job and revenue losses in Michigan and nationwide.
     Experts Politifact talked with said any effects of Granholm's tax policies were insignificant compared with these other factors.  And who's to say the "Michigan miracle" budget windfall wasn't due in part to delayed reaction to Granholm's tax increases after Michigan's economy had settled down.
     Our auto industry is just the latest in a long history of direct federal investment launching private sector success stories with thousands of companies and millions of private sector jobs created by building railroads, the interstate highway system, bridges, and dams, and programs funded by NASA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and NIH.
 

Please add a comment

Leave a Reply

Name:

Email:
(Your email will not be publicly displayed.)

Please type the letters and numbers shown in the image.