Michigan Votes Forum

Great idea.

Michigan taxpayers are rolling in extra money.

As long as the millage decision is left up to the voters of the school district, I see no reason to oppose this bill.

 recreation is important, education is more important. education has been severely lacking in our schools as evidenced by our poor performance scores. let's fix the problem of education and leave the question of recreation for a later time.

 Recreational millage tax, is a tax increase that you are proposing for your constitutency - and pours salt on the wounds of the many who have been shattered by the economic melt-down that Michigan has devastated us with.  Candy coating a tax hike still make it a tax increase - and we have enough of them in this state.  While I agree that education is important, you can separate education from recreation and wait for the recession/depression to improve before proposing such unbalanced bills.  What are the schools doing with  tax money we currently pay?  Michigan is one of the very few states where the value of the home can decrease, while the property tax can remain the same or can increase - and school taxes are included in those taxes.  This is not the year for recreational purchases, when many people are concerned about the basics, such as food, clothing, and shelter.

 That's what we need-another tax. Then we will have to have another tax to even the distribution so poorer districts can have megastadiums and olympic pools too. Open to the public? Has anyone figured the maintenance costs. This is just a way tp pay for recreational facilities under the guise of education. They going to keep them open all night for midnite basketball etc. While individual districts may vote on the millage, it will eventually become everyone elses responsibility. Ever see a millage like this go away?

This provides some further flexibility in financing projects and activities that allow communities to shape themselves and their cultures as they see fit.  

As long as it is the final decision to tax or not to tax is in the hands of community voters this is reasonable legislation that should pass.    

Well, you can see how well our Michigan legislator is looking out for the taxing interests and concerns of their constituents. Both sides of the aisle supported this horrific legislation by 100%.  Forget about how many homeowners have already lost their homes or are currently in foreclosure.  Forget about the high percentage of their constituents have lost their jobs.  No -- these Michigan reps believe that we need more millages added to our already burdensome property taxes.

I grew up without organized, expensive sports activities.  We voluntarily on our own played baseball, badmindton, football with the equipment that we and our parents supplied and without taxing our neighbors.

Learning the three R's is far more important and in terrible need of reform. Especially when you hear our young people lacking in the ablility to put a complete and proper sentence together -- let alone hearing them slaughter the English language.  "he goes, she goes", instead of "he said, she said."  

What is also lacking in our public educational system is the teaching of the ground-work and reasons for the founding of our sovereign country.  That is was founded as a limited republic based on individual rights, responsibility and choice.  Not, collective mob rule or Statist-Federal-Central control and mandates.

 More invitation for taxation.  As businesses wilt under the pressure of market conditions, excessive taxation and regulation, the Senate fiddles and says "let them eat cake".

Local communities should be able to shape their own cultures (of course, within Constitutional limits).  This bill would enable that.  

All complaints about "too much taxation" in respect to this bill should be saved for when it becomes law and a community chooses to use the law in an effort to shape its own environment.   

 Baloney-the poorer communities will complain that they can't afford 5 star rec.facilities then the "redistribution of wealth" will begin. What do recreational facilities  this have to do with "shaping their culture"? Save comments for when it becomes law? Isn't that a little late? Why is this called a school recreation millage when the facilities will be open to the public?

Efforts by local communities to shape their own, unique environments and cultures often require the raising and commitment of public funds.  This bill would enable them to do exactly that, with control in the hands of local voters.  That is the all-American way, or at least one time it was.

Furthermore, local taxation is far more efficient in returning value to the community than is state or federal taxation.

If any baloney is being dispensed here, it is by the fans of big centralized government, at both the state and federal levels.  They are the people who oppose every effort that would enable local communities to work within themselves in efforts to shape their own, unique environments and cultures.  Our local communities in their view are to be an archipelago of characterless cookie-cutter villages, towns, hamlets, and cities – every one pretty much drearily the same as every other one in the chain. 

 I would agree, except that Federal and State monies will soon find their way into the facilities and they will be subject to Federal and State regulation, just like schools etc.

 Yep, this ought to go over big in communities with large numbers of people who pay no property taxes, such as public housing tenants, renters etc.

From the MichiganVotes (Mackinac Center) synopsis of this legislation:

Passed in the House (65 to 42) on May 26, 2009, to give school districts the power to increase property taxes by up to 1 mill for 20 years to operate swimming pools, recreation centers, auditoriums, conference centers, and more as part of a "recreation authority." A school millage election would be required. The tax increase could be used to operate existing school facilities and programs.

This bill was passed by a 37-0 vote in the Michigan Senate on March 19, and now goes to the governor for signature.

This is a step in the right direction of restoring control over their communities to community taxpayers and their own elected officials.