Letter writer wrong

From Jordan Adams, Highland Township:

McPhee wrote a largely coherent, albeit provocative, letter last week (“Skin in the game,” July 20, 2011) arguing against the repeal of the Michigan Business Tax (MBT), advocating progressive taxation, suggesting a corrupt relationship between state legislators and Michigan businesses, and finally, demanding the recall of Gov. (Rick) Snyder. Working forward, you and I can clarify and dismiss his arguments one by one.

First, we encounter McPhee’s disdain for the elimination of the 2007 Michigan Business Tax. We can argue, based on responses from readers like you, that the MBT stifled economic growth. The MBT was passed four years ago. Is your financial situation in Michigan better or worse than in 2007? Are local businesses better or worse off now than they were then? Additionally, McPhee and I can both acknowledge that the MBT stifled businesses, small and large, in downtown Milford and in downtown Detroit alike. McPhee sees this as a good thing. Sound economics, however, does not. The MBT would take from a business earned revenue that would have otherwise been used by the company to expand and grow, to hire additional employees, and to invest back in the community. The MBT prohibited these possibilities and discouraged other companies from relocating to Michigan and providing job openings to Michigan’s lower- and middle-class workers.

Second, McPhee’s figures in the article come from the leftist Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy. His support for progressive taxation is in reality support for the primary tool in President Obama’s famous line on “redistributing the wealth,” which caused such uproar and nearly derailed his campaign in 2008.

Third, McPhee’s corruption charges would be alarming if they were true and anything like the ties between the state teacher’s union (the MEA) and Democratic lawmakers such as (state Rep.) Lisa Brown from West Bloomfield. Alas, they are not on both accounts.

And finally, the excitement over recalling the governor is inappropriate: recalls of citizen-elected officials are for cases of blatant and deliberate law-breaking or corruption, both of which have no present standing. Additionally, recall efforts ought to be led by the citizens themselves, not by the powerful special interests of the state. I, for one, would be the first to activate a recall based on corruption charges. However, and unfortunately for McPhee, I will not be joining him in his plea, for what the governor and the state legislators are currently engaged in is simply sound economics, something that the state has been immune to for some time and something that McPhee apparently has no taste for.