3 May 2015
Statement by the Socialist Party of Michigan
"The Socialist Party of Michigan encourages all working class voters
of our state to reject the proposed new road-maintenance funding scheme
in the May 5, 2015 statewide Special Election (Proposal 15-1). In
response to rising corporate investment concerns over the crumbling
state of Michigan’s road conditions, the state legislature’s Proposal
asks voters to approve a constitutional amendment to authorize raising
the state sales tax from six to seven percent, as well as an additional
net increase in motor fuel taxes.
Without even considering any rollback to the state’s 86% corporate
income tax cut, let alone any reduction to the 20% of general fund
dollars allocated to the state’s prison system; the legislature has
crafted Proposal 1 with the intent of further saddling the state’s
working class and poor with an even greater disparate share of the
state’s tax burden. According to current figures from the Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy, the average cost of sales and excise taxes
already amounts to 5.1% of household income for Michigan families in
the lowest three-fifths of the income range — and 6.2% of household
income for families with incomes in the bottom one-fifth. By contrast,
the average percentage of household income paid in sales and excise
taxes by Michigan families in the top one-percent of the income range
amounts to a mere 0.8%...."
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