Uh, someone didn’t get the memo that the answer to everything is to cut corporate taxes

NOTE: this piece was edited to correct incorrect tax rate information in the MLive article linked below.

Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz is leading a push to increase city income taxes by 0.5% for residents and 0.25% for non-residents. That’s a 50% increase for city residents and a whopping 500% increase for everyone else . Why? Turns out Flint is out of money and needs revenue. It’s almost as if Flint’s problems weren’t caused by waste, fraud, and mismanagement after all.

Emergency manager Ed Kurtz told MLive-Flint Journal on Monday, May 20, that a 0.5 percent income tax increase to Flint residents and a 0.25 percent increase to workers living outside the city would generate $7 million in revenue annually. The current rate is 1 percent for Flint residents and .05 percent [sic] [Ed. note: the actual rate is 0.5%] for those living outside the city. Property values in Flint dropped 18 percent this year and are projected to drop an additional 7.5 percent next year. “How long can we go and still provide even that low level of service?” Kurtz said. “The reality is the city of Flint has to have more revenue.”

Since the tax increase will have to be approved by the Michigan legislature, I wish Mr. Kurtz luck. He’d have a much better chance if he was proposing cuts on corporate taxes. That seems to be the only solution Michigan Republicans can come up with to solve budget problems. Then again, this would be a tax that mostly hits residents of a majority African American, severely impoverished city. Given that, he might have a fighting chance.

[Tea party taxophobe photo by Chris Savage | Eclectablog]