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1) Re: 2005 Senate Bill 318 (Prohibit employment for less than specified wage ) [by yuvajackie on April 12, 2009]

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2) Re: 2005 Senate Bill 318 (Prohibit employment for less than specified wage ) [by yuvajackie on April 12, 2009]

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3) Ray Wilson in the Kalamazoo Gazette: [by Anonymous Citizen on November 2, 2007]
Job loss: up close and personal

As everyone is well aware, our Lansing politicians last month passed two
large tax hikes to help fix a so-called budget "deficit." I say "so-called,"
because most of the deficit was created because of increased spending, and
not lack of tax dollars.

The decision to raise taxes has come under a lot of criticism, particularly
from the business community, because the larger tax burden here in Michigan
will make it even harder to attract job creators and entrepreneurs, and very
likely will drive them away to other states. Michigan's state and local tax
burden was 14th out of the 50 states even before the two tax hikes; we have
undoubtedly moved even higher on that dubious list since then.

But debates about the "business climate" and overall tax burden can be
somewhat theoretical. Many people hear facts like "14th highest tax burden,"
and simply shrug. "What does that have to do with me," they may say. Unless
it affects them personally, they really don't pay much attention.

So let's focus on an individual case of how Michigan's business climate has
affected a local entrepreneur.

This summer, the Godfather's Pizza restaurant on West Main Street in
Kalamazoo closed its doors after 16 years in business. Three full-time
workers and 22 part-time workers lost their jobs, adding to Michigan's
worst-in-the-U.S. unemployment rate.

Owner Richard Johnson said there were two main reasons his business could no
longer compete. "Our governor just keeps raising taxes," he said. "It's hard
for a business to hang on."

Johnson also blamed Michigan's increase in the minimum wage for putting him
out of business. On July 1, the state minimum wage increased from $6.95 to
$7:15 an hour; next year it will go up again to $7.40 per hour.

Now it may sound compassionate for the government to raise the minimum wage
to "put more money in workers' pockets," but the result is almost always the
same: businesses that are simply making ends meet often have to lay off some
of their minimum wage workers. We should ask the Godfather Pizza workers who
lost their jobs this question: Would you rather have a job at $6.95 per
hour, or no job that pays $7.15 an hour? I think I know what their answer
would be.

Ironically, two weeks after Godfathers Pizza closed its doors for good,
Governor Granholm came to Kalamazoo to tout her brand-new "No Worker Left
Behind" program. This is a job retraining program that supposedly helps
laid-off workers get new skills to find new jobs. The program will cost
millions of dollars and contributed to the budget "deficit" that resulted in
the two tax hikes in October.

This is what it's come to: state government's high taxes and burdenson
regulations put people out of work, so state government creates a new
government program that will help them--and will cause taxes to go even
higher, putting more people out of work. Does the image of a dog chasing its
tail come to mind?

That's the trouble with government programs like the minimum wage and job
retraining that are enacted supposedly to "help" the people. Politicians get
to pose for pictures with graduates of the retraining program, while no one
tallies up the the number of lost jobs and failed businesses caused by the
ever increasing cost of government. But the politicians get to claim that
they are "doing something" about unemployment.

Our free-enterprise economy, if unfettered from needless regulations and
high taxes, is the greatest engine of economic opportunity ever created.
What government needs to do is get back to the basics--provide good roads
and infrastructure, safe streets, and a fair system of justice. Michigan's
one-state depression will not be solved with more government programs.

Raymond H. Wilson is president of the Kalamazoo County Taxpayers
Association. He can be reached at stoptaxes@kaltax.org. Membership in the
Taxpayers Association is ten dollars; details are at www.kaltax.org. Some of
the information in this column appeared in the August 14, 2007, Kalamazoo
Gazette.
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