Michigan Ends Fiscal Year with Surplus
This is a good news bad news story.
It is good news that the state of Michigan on September 30 2017 ended with a surplus of tax dollars. It is always good news when you spend less than you take in.
The bad news is that Michigan on September 30 2017 ended with a surplus of tax dollars. Why, because that surplus could have ended up in all of us who pay Michigan taxes in our pockets.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reported:
The estimated $260 million in unspent revenue is more than the $195 million taxpayers would have been allowed to keep starting next year under a 0.2 percent cut to the income tax taken up by the state House in February. The tax cut failed when 12 House Republicans joined all but one Democrat in voting against it.
The issue comes down to who should end up with the extra cash in their pockets or bank accounts, the state or the states’ taxpayers.
Fiscal policy analyst James Hohman at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy believes Michigan state revenues, remember state revenues means taxes, will continue to rise over the next couple of years. If so that would mean Michigan can afford a tax cut. IN the article James Hohman stated:
Republicans who voted against tax cuts earlier this year said that the state budget could not afford to let people keep more of their own money
The more taxes the state or federal government has the more it will spend and that is where the problem lies. Governments always find a way to spend our money, it is inherent in what they do. There is always some group who believes more of other people’s money should be spent on something for what they believe is the greater good of some people.
Remember when we were told that at the end of the 90’s we ended up with a federal budget surplus for a few years? What did our federal government do with those funds, well I can tell you we did not pay down our federal debt. According to the treasury our debt never decreased, in fact it never even remained flat, it in fact increased.
How does our federal debt increase in years that we had a federal budget surplus, because they spent it in other areas.
Who would you rather see with a year-end budget surplus, the government or the individual who pays those taxes that created that surplus?
More From WBCKFM
