A new lawsuit says Michiganders should get a permanent income tax break instead of one for just one year.
Lawmakers, including two plaintiffs, passed legislation in 2015 enacting an income tax reduction trigger that lowers the current rate when the state’s revenue outpaces inflation by a set amount. Last year’s state revenue triggered a rollback of the rate from 4.25% to 4.05%.
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The Mackinac Center for Public Policy sued Michigan State University, alleging it violated the Freedom of Information Act by redacting and blacking out key documents and information related to a potential Eagle Township mega site.
The free-market policy research group filed a public records request after reports on a potential government-funded mega site in Eagle Township indicated that some of the land involved might have been sold by Michigan State University. The parcel in question was donated to the university and a tip suggested that the donation agreement possibly prohibits MSU from selling the land for non-agricultural use.
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This week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) announced plans to expand her $300-million Michigan Mainstreet Initiative, outlining further business subsidization with taxpayer money from federal COVID-relief legislation.
Originally unveiled in June, Whitmer’s initiative targeted $100 million toward restaurants and other place-based establishments, $125 million for other businesses that could not get federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds and $75 million in grants to startups.
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A woman claiming to be a union member from Nashville left a foul-mouthed voice mail last week at the offices of the Mackinac Center, the Michigan-based think tank that filed an amicus brief in the Janus v. AFSCME lawsuit in which the Supreme Court ruled employees could not be required to make donations to a union if they chose not to. In an email and phone exchange with The Tennessee Star, Mackinac Center’s Vice President for Strategic Outreach & Communications Lindsay Killen shared details about the foul-mouthed message. Killen wrote: We received this voicemail from Ann Barnett, a union member from Nashville who called Mackinac Center’s My Pay My Say campaign call center. My Pay My Say is a national education and awareness campaign to inform public employees that their First Amendment rights to free speech and association have been restored by the Supreme Court in the Janus v. AFSCME case – no longer must they pay fees to a government union just to keep their jobs. Ann Barnett’s voicemail was a vulgar and outraged response to the fact that we would dare to inform public employees about their right to choose whether to continue pay for union activities that…
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