There won’t be an income tax cut anytime soon in Michigan.
After hours of trying to wrangle votes and a couple amendments to the original bill, Republicans in the House came up short, with several of their own members voting against the bill.
It would have would dropped the state income tax to 3.9% over 4 years. And the rollback would pause if the rainy day fund dipped below $1 billion. But that was not enough to convince a majority of the House.
Republican State House Speaker Tom Leonard was a major advocate for the tax cut. He says he put the bill up for a vote, even though he knew it would fail.
"I had an overwhelming majority in my caucus that wanted to let the world know where they stood in terms of defending tax payers in the state.”
House Democratic leader Sam Singh says his party looks forward to having more conversations about potential tax cuts, but there wasn’t enough discussion before this bill.
“Unfortunately, this partisan-only approach was going to break our budget. Obviously, the governor had said that and others. So we look forward to really looking for a real tax cut for real working families.”
So, what happens next? Speaker Leonard says it’s back to work.
“We go on, we work on the budget for the next three or four months, and we pick up the next big agenda item and go for it. This is not gonna stop us, we’re going to continue to tackle big issues.”
Critics of the legislation, including some in thestate Senate and Governor Snyder, said the tax cut would put a huge hole in the state budget.
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—Cheyna Roth is a reporter for the Michigan Public Radio network. Contact WEMU News at734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
