Bentivolio: Opponent Voted For Michigan Business Tax

[angelatc]

Local reports say that while attending the local TEA Party event, the write-in candidate challenging Bentivolio for McCotter's seat disavowed her vote for the now-repealed Michigan Business Tax.

Apparently Fed-Up USA has been digging through her voting record and found an even worse piece of legislation - one that would have taxed property owners without even a vote.

http://www.fedupusa.org/2012/06/crony-republicans-in-michigan-we-want-to-steal-all-the-money/

Sec. 519. Municipal securities issued under section 517 or 518 shall also be secured by the general fund of the county, city, village, or township and shall include the phrase “general obligation limited tax” in the resolution authorizing the issuance. The county, city, village, or township issuing the municipal securities is not authorized to levy any tax not authorized by law at the time the municipal securities are issued to pay for the municipal securities.

Read that carefully. If you’re confused it’s probably because you were supposed to be confused.

What it says is that the municipality cannot impose a tax they could not otherwise impose (e.g. a new tax)but that if the borrowing was to fail — say, for instance, the return on the invested capital was insufficient to cover the bond principal and interest and/or the exponential growth of these medical expenses simply overwhelmed the money available, then you would be assessed on your other taxes, such as property taxes, without the right to vote it down, to cover the deficiency.

And what was the original purpose of this bill?

To cover the outrageously generous lifetime medical benefits of state and local municipal employees — you know, all those wonderful unionized folks who have gold-plated pensions and can retire at 50 while the rest of you — the working man and woman — starve! This, for an expense profile that at the time was known to be growing at roughly 9% compounded a year, and still is — that is, an expense profile that doubles every eight years.