Michigan lawmakers have discovered something new to tax: the “points” on a person’s driving record. Under a bill sponsored by Sen. Jud Gilbert, R–Algonac, drivers who accumulate seven points within a two-year period will be assessed an annual $100 “driver responsibility fee,” plus another $50 for each additional point. Failure to pay the point tax will lead to license suspension.
In addition, a host of new taxes will be imposed for various infractions. The more serious the infraction, the larger the surcharge.
For example, drunk driving or fleeing a police officer will result in a $2,000 surtax. The tax will apply also to accidentally hitting a construction worker, police officer, or farmer.
The bill will not prevent these offenses, of course, but will turn them into profit centers.
And minor offenses aren’t overlooked. For example, a motorist unable to find his or her proof of insurance when requested by a police officer — even if they were, in fact, insured — would be assessed $300.
The new tax has been sold as a way to deter repeat violators. But what’s really happened is that lawmakers, looking for a rationale for raising taxes, simply found one that few lawmakers would have the guts to oppose. After all, who wants to risk being accused of not caring about driving safety?
The public safety fig leaf slipped a bit when, following passage in the Senate, the bill was referred not to the House Transportation Committee, as one might expect, but to the Committee on Appropriations, which decides where all the money will be spent.
It slipped a bit more when it came to light that the higher fines would be classified as administrative “higher responsibility fees” assessed by the Secretary of State, rather than as penalties imposed by courts. What this means is that lawmakers want to circumvent state law — which dedicates money from traffic infractions to libraries or local governments. Instead, they want this money to go to Lansing, where lawmakers can use it for their own purposes.
Besides the fact that the new law isn’t really about traffic safety, there are several problems with it. Part of the rationale for dedicating this money to libraries and local governments is to avoid creating a financial incentive for the state police to issue more tickets. The driving point tax law is devoid of such scruples. Although the new “fees” may not go directly to law enforcement, it is not hard to imagine police agencies reaching “an understanding” with legislators: Greater point-tax revenues flowing to Lansing likely will be rewarded with higher appropriations for law enforcement.
But not all the money may make it to Lansing. Motorists facing $300 fines are more likely to fight citations that would otherwise take them over the seven-point threshold. Given a potentially larger workload, to keep the courts moving (and court-cost revenue flowing), prosecutors are more likely to make deals. They could allow motorists to plead to no-point violations, dodging the point tax but paying a larger fine to the local court.
In short, the new law will create an incentive to write more tickets. Those who rack up more time on the road would be more vulnerable, as would drivers in already ticket-happy jurisdictions. There could also be a disparate impact on urban drivers, who may encounter police more frequently than average. It will also fall more heavily on those with lower incomes, who may accumulate more points simply because they lack the resources to fight a ticket in court.
Michigan cities appear to be ratcheting up ticket writing to make up for state revenue-sharing cuts. Some local governments have reportedly admitted that they depend on fine revenue to balance the books. The annual take is reportedly $1.5 million in Lansing and $4 million in Jackson County.
Traffic fines are ordinarily levied by judges, within guidelines set by law. These huge new penalties will increase some fines by 300 to 500 per cent, with no discretion available to judges. Attaching so much money to traffic tickets could exert a corrupting influence on traffic-safety efforts and on Michigan’s legal system.
Governments do not need more inducement to operate speed traps.
(Jack McHugh is a legislative policy analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich., and editor of MichiganVotes.org, a service that catalogues legislation before the Michigan Legislature. More information is available at www.mackinac.org. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the author and his affiliation are cited.)

By Dave Bailey
Oxford Village resident
In October 2011 some press coverage of this initiative (not in the Oxford Leader) caught my eye since it did not explain up front in the article just what the Personal Property Tax is, and how it is levied. Now on January 11 I see a piece in the Leader by James M. Hohman which concerns me for a different reason. I will comment on Hohman’s piece at the end of this piece.
First concern: I have asked some members of the general public to tell me about their perceptions of the Personal Property Tax. They all say it is levied on persons. When I ask them whether they themselves pay it, they shrug their shoulders. When I ask why they are not paying it, they guess that they don’t own anything really valuable. These misperceptions extend to some people who might be expected to know better, such as one person I spoke with, a college senior at a good Michigan private college who is interested in government. She didn’t know.
Given that the general public is so uninformed, should not the media explain the basics to them? Isn’t that what we expect the media to do, at a bare minimum, when the public is uninformed?
Let me repeat that this complaint is not directed at the Leader. The January 11 piece does tell what the Personal Property Tax is, namely, a tax not on persons or on the property of persons but on businesses. .
Second concern: Should the Personal Property Tax be repealed, every municipality in Michigan will lose revenue, unless some action is taken. In many cases, the revenue losses will be large. In good times, the losses might be manageable, but these are not good times. Tax bases have been declining for some years, and any prudent planner should anticipate further declines. An immediate economic turnaround would be a pleasant surprise, but we shouldn’t count on it.
What the prudent planner might not have anticipated, is the present initiative to eliminate the Personal Property Tax. Coming as it does after the lean years of depression, oh I’m sorry, I meant to say recession… ‘anyway, for the already hard-hit municipalities, the impact of PPT repeal would be like a defender piling on after the tackle. No fair!
Third concern: In response to a repeal, municipalities can do some things to minimize the hit. But available options will vary.
The first thing which might occur to a city council or other local legislative body, is to raise the millage enough to maintain the revenue stream at or close to pre-repeal levels. This strategy has two problems at least:
In almost all municipalities the greater part of the new revenues must come from the residential taxpayers, not from the previous payers of PPT. The residents should understand and sympathize with their council members, who are just responding, as best they can, to trouble coming from Lansing. But many will not understand.
Some municipalities are already maxed out on their millages. In those localities, the officials and/or the voters might feel resentment, since the state legislators had changed the rules on them. And since they are maxed out, they feel helpless as well as resentful. To be fair, shouldn’t the Lansing folks include in the PPT repeal bill an increase in the maximum millages which the various types of municipalities may levy? That way, those maxed-out municipalities which want to maintain their levels of service would have a legal way to do it.
Another option for councils to consider is of course to reduce services. To be fair, they should reduce or eliminate those services which were provided to the previous payers of PPT. If that could be done exactly, the residential taxpayers would not suffer at all. But in the real world, most services are provided to all, including to the innocent residents, who therefore would suffer. However, I am sure that something could be arranged along these lines.
Additional options doubtless exist. I shall not attempt to list them all.
Fourth concern: Municipalities with bonds outstanding would be pushed closer to default. Council members would need to decide whether to default on their bondholders, or default on their residents by eliminating service. Perhaps we would then find out who their true constituency really is. Do bondholders vote?
Fifth concern: The initiative, if passed and responded to by the councils, would transfer wealth from the class of homeowners to the class of those who presently pay PPT. For that reason, it may appear to some voters as an act of class warfare, an act of war in other words. I won’t go into my reasons for wanting to avoid that happening.
What can be done, and what should be done?
These are two different questions. For example, it could be argued that nothing should be done. Let the state legislature enact the PPT repeal. Then, after the inevitable consequences take place, vote the foolish legislators out of office, and replace them with wiser ones. We in Michigan would end up ahead of the game, since PPT is but one issue, and wiser legislators would favorably impact all the issues.
If you don’t want to wait through several election cycles, then you might alter this plan a little. Do nothing, and then recall the foolish legislators. This is faster, but it won’t work unless the governor is recalled first.
I do not support either of these strategies. It would be better to oppose, up front, the passage of any bill that would repeal the Personal Property Tax. That way the municipalities would avoid even a temporary loss of revenue, and they would be able to continue their services to individuals and corporations without interruption. Later, if opposition to the bill should fail, and PPT is actually repealed, then one of the other two strategies could be used.
Sixth concern: In the title of his Leader column, James M Hohman used the phrase ‘without replacement?. Surely he must realize that if the PPT were to be abolished, many municipalities would want to do just that, namely, replace their lost revenues. I take offence at Hohman’s ‘without replacement? suggestion. The Village of Oxford, in which I serve as an elected official, has a Charter, granted to us by the State of Michigan. The Charter gives the village the power to levy a millage. Any attempt by Hohman, or by state legislators, to interfere with the powers granted to the village in its Charter, is an attempt to interfere with the Charter itself. The Charter of the Village of Oxford is our equivalent of the Constitution of the United States of America. I support and defend both. Mister Hohman, leave our Charter alone!
Dave Bailey serves on the Oxford Village Council.

Earth Day (April 22) approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism.
The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization.
Environmentalism’s goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where ‘nature? is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion.
In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, environmentalists have made ‘development? an evil word.
They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power’and every other practical form of energy.
Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the ‘rights? of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the ‘rights? of trees.
No instance of the progress that brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those ‘protecting? the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence.
Nature, they insist, has ‘intrinsic value,? to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man.
As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends.
Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action that changes the environment is necessarily immoral.
Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something.
The ideal world of environmentalism is not twenty-first-century Western civilization; it is the Garden of Eden, a world with no human intervention in nature, a world without innovation or change, a world without effort, a world where survival is somehow guaranteed, a world where man has mystically merged with the ‘environment.?
Had the environmentalist mentality prevailed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we would have had no Industrial Revolution, a situation that consistent environmentalists would cheer ? at least those few who might have managed to survive without the life-saving benefits of modern science and technology.
The expressed goal of environmentalism is to prevent man from changing his environment, from intruding on nature.
That is why environmentalism is fundamentally anti-man.
Intrusion is necessary for human survival. Only by intrusion can man avoid pestilence and famine.
Only by intrusion can man control his life and project long-range goals. Intrusion improves the environment, if by ‘environment? one means the surroundings of man’the external material conditions of human life. Intrusion is a requirement of human nature.
But in the environmentalists? paean to ‘Nature,? human nature is omitted. For environmentalism, the ‘natural? world is a world without man.
Man has no legitimate needs, but trees, ponds, and bacteria somehow do.
They don’t mean it?
Heed the words of the consistent environmentalists.
‘The ending of the human epoch on Earth,? writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, ‘would most likely be greeted with a hearty ‘Good riddance!??
In a glowing review of Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature, biologist David M. Graber writes (Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1989): ‘Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet . . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.?
Such is the naked essence of environmentalism: it mourns the death of one whale or tree but actually welcomes the death of billions of people. A more malevolent, man-hating philosophy is unimaginable.
The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives, i.e., the sacrifice of human lives.
But an individual is not born in servitude. He has a moral right to live his own life for his own sake. He has no duty to sacrifice it to the needs of others and certainly not to the ‘needs? of the nonhuman.
To save mankind from environmentalism, what’s needed is not the appeasing, compromising approach of those who urge a ‘balance? between the needs of man and the ‘needs? of the environment.
To save mankind requires the wholesale rejection of environmentalism as hatred of science, technology, progress, and human life.
To save mankind requires the return to a philosophy of reason and individualism, a philosophy that makes life on earth possible.
Michael S. Berliner is co-chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, Calif.
The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand ? author of ‘Atlas Shrugged? and ‘The Fountainhead.?
Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org.

Within the last two weeks the swallows returned to Capistrano, California and the vultures landed in Hinckley, Ohio. These are events met with excitement since they signal the return of spring. Various community events are scheduled to mark these annual historic days.
In Lake Orion, Oxford and Addison Township we are seeing the emergence of our own annual occurrence, namely the return of the Communities Together For A Senior Center Committee making their worn-out pitch for a community center. Evidently the plan is to infiltrate our minds with periodic folksy yarns about the need for a communal senior center to be located on the grounds of Crossroads For Youth. You would think that after a resounding defeat at the polls where 70% of the electorate voted against a community senior center, sending the ballot issue down in flames, this group would stay in hibernation for an extended period of time. Evidently they are somehow immune to embarrassment or are in denial, or are just delusional. I’m surprised that they haven’t called for a recount, but landslide results preclude that from occurring.
Unexplainably, members of the committee are beginning their public relations ploy again by inserting articles in the local papers in preparation for another run at our tax dollars. Their goal, much like the Greek Trojan Horse is to sneak into our psyche and then hope when the issue appears on the ballot some-time down the road, our minds will have been numbed by their incessant pleadings and irrational arguments to the point where we succumb and vote like robots in favor of the center.
As I thought about the Hinckley and Capistrano birds, it occurred to me that the Senior Center Committee should be paying homage to a bird that most parallels the Committee’s actions and thought process, namely, the ostrich. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the ostrich has ‘eyes larger than their brains?. I suspect that this transforms into an urge to expect more than what reality can deliver.
Another characteristic of the ostrich, at least in popular mythology, is that the ostrich is famous for hiding its head in the sand at the first sign of danger. And of course even with a large wingspan, the ostrich is not air-worthy.
So for purposes of comparison, the ostrich has aspirations larger than reality; avoids adverse situations by keeping its head in the sand; and can’t fly. Sounds like a perfect mascot for the Senior Center Committee!
In the minds of the 70% of the electorate that voted against the center there still are not any compelling reasons to build a community senior center, and yet the senior committee buries their heads in the sand and refuses to acknowledge that there are numerous alternatives for seniors already in place. And frankly as I read the current machinations from this group, I decided that I have neither the time, inclination or patience to respond to every warped argument for a new center. Suffice it to say that families moving into our community are interested in schools, public safety and a well-stocked modern library. A Taj Mahal Senior Center is not even on their radar screen! And if the offer of donated land on the grounds of Crossroads for Youth expires, so be it. For Oxford residents it may be centrally located but for Addison Township and Lake Orion residents we might as well be driving to Troy, Michigan.
Frankly, I’m as tired and weary as you in hearing the drumbeat for a center. Let’s just say that with our recent assessments indicating that the value of our homes has decreased and yet our taxes will still rise, I am not ready to pay for an ill-conceived, ill-timed center that the committee has failed miserably to justify. Keeping their heads in the sand to all the reasons why this won’t fly certainly makes the ostrich a suitable candidate as mascot for the committee.
Another characteristic of this fabled bird is its ability to run up to 40 miles an hour while trying to outrun its predators. In like manner, the committee seems to be running as fast as they can away from reality. The three townships have spoken unequivocally and the answer is – we don’t want a combined community center. But inexplicably the committee isn’t listening – could their hearing be as weak as their mascot, the ostrich?
So the next time someone comes to you about a proposal for a senior center or you read another folksy, down-home kind of article in the local papers about the increasing senior population and why the world is responsible for their care and entertainment, just utter the word ostrich, keeping in mind that this bird sees things that are outside the realm of reality and similar to the senior center proposal, it can’t fly!
Well, time to go. Looks like a Senior Center Committee member disguised as an emu and riding atop a Trojan Horse is knocking at my door. Wonder if The KFC Colonel needs some extra long emu legs in the Variety Big Box Meal?
Bill Kalmar
Lake Orion MI
(Former Director of the Michigan Quality Council)
(And a very old senior citizen)

By K. Joseph Young

Vote Yes on Feb. 24 to further the goal of ‘A successful and happy life to live more abundantly for the entire community.?
When you have the opportunity to add to your home, enlarge it, remodel it to be more efficient in the use of space and more energy efficient (reducing your utility bills), make it safer–bringing it up to new building code and security standards, more attractive and not pay a penny additional in your monthly mortgage payment, by extending the mortgage by ten years, you would do it! Well the February 24 School bond vote gives you and the entire community the opportunity to do just that!
The current 7 mill tax rate limit will remain the same for the next fifteen (15) years regardless of the outcome of this bond proposal. The current debt is expected to reduce starting in the year 2024, which under this bond proposal would start reducing in the year 2034 with a final payment due in 2041.
Your YES vote will allow for the building improvements to be made now, when our economy is struggling, and take advantage of today’s economic opportunities without a change in your tax rate for the next fifteen years! Even if you vote no the tax rate will remain at the 7 mill limit for the next 15 years!
* The $70 million is being split in two bond issues ($43 million and $27 million) that keeps the interest cost down by borrowing the bonds when you are ready to use them. A two phase construction plan enables this split and savings opportunity.
* The interest rates on the bonds at this time in our economy are the lowest in years, resulting in a cost savings on borrowing the funds.
* The construction costs are down due to the low demand for building projects which has created a very competititve bidding process. This results in providing the best return on our investment.
* The phasing of the construction (along with the borrowing) will not only continue with competitive pricing but will also allow for a longer economic shot in the arm over the next four years (from 2009 to 2012) for Oxford’s local community–creating our own Oxford Community economic stimulus plan. The project calls for 80% of the jobs, contractors and material providers to be within twenty-five miles of Oxford! The school bond project provides for a community economic stimulus plan that will provide much needed work and business activity and it does NOT raise our millage rate!
* The return on your investment is most significant–it is a win/win/win for schools, business and residents.
* The Parks & Recreation Department programs will continue to work with the schools to maximize the use of the expanded facilities.
* With the increased population, business activity will increase for our downtown restaurants, shopping and services.
As you ponder the School Bond Proposal February 24 vote, ask yourself what is the down side of having improved, safer, expanded facilities that will enhance the quality of life for the entire Oxford community and vote YES.
We have much to be thankful for. We are blessed with not only a clean and safe community, one that has great growth potential but most of all with people that genuinely care and want the very best for Oxford. On February 24 you have the opportunity to make the community even better by voting YES.

K. Joseph Young is a resident of Oxford Township.

By Kenneth M. Braun
On March 24, for the second time in four months, the Michigan House voted to allow public school districts to hold elections for so-called ‘sinking fund? millages so as to increase the amount of money taken for operating expenses (see: ‘Sneak Attack,? January/February 2009 Michigan Capitol Confidential).
Currently, as a result of passage of Proposal A in 1994, school district operating expenses are funded on a per-pupil basis from the state’s School Aid Fund, which is itself funded through a combination of earmarks from the state sales tax, the personal income tax, an education property tax, business taxes and more.
According to the Michigan House Fiscal Agency, FY 2008 funding ranged from a minimum of $7,204 per pupil to a maximum of $12,387. Now at $13 billion per year, the SAF is the largest single expenditure of state government.
According to Michiganvotes.org, House Bill 4313 would ‘allow school districts to levy up to three mills for ten years to buy or fix school buses, and to buy computers? and that ‘the tax increase election would be either on May or November election days.?
Under Proposal A, school districts may hold bond elections to construct or make improvements to buildings. Sinking fund mills are currently an extension of this power, allowing districts to put away money to pay principle on those bond debts and to make capital improvements ? but not for operating expenses such as school buses and computers. One original justification for Proposal A, approved by 69 percent of Michigan voters, was to put an end to local millage elections for operational funding by creating the SAF’s large pool of foundation allowance money at the state level.
Proposal A’s constitutional protections against a return to these local millages are such that some legal experts believe that it would require a three-fourths supermajority vote in both chambers of the Legislature to reinstate the millage votes. If true, this would require 83 votes in the House of Representatives, but HB 4313 received only 74 favorable votes on March 24.
According to the HFA, fewer than half of Michigan’s school districts now have sinking funds and more than 80 percent of those districts levy less than 2 mills, rather than the 5 mill legal maximum. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a staunch opponent of HB 4313, notes that if the use of sinking funds is expanded to operational spending, then there will be a powerful incentive for many more districts to hold sinking fund elections seeking much higher property taxes.
Calculating the potential impact of the sinking fund expansion that the House approved in December 2008, the Michigan Chamber warned that it could lead to property tax hikes of $3.2 billion to $7.6 billion. While the version of HB 4313 passed by the House is restricted to spending on buses and computers, and was thus slightly more limited than the 2008 version, the business group’s opposition to expanded taxing power remained high.
‘Since 1994,? noted a Michigan Chamber statement before the HB 4313 vote, ‘school funding for operations is up 99% and school debt funding (like sinking funds) is up 269%! It seems logical that administrators should be able to run their districts without trying a sneak attack on taxpayer’s wallets.? Elsewhere, the Michigan Chamber noted that total inflation was up only 33 percent from the passage of Proposal A in 1994 until 2007.
Demonstrating the seriousness of the hostility to HB 4313, the MIRS Capitol Capsule newsletter noted that the ‘story in the House is that the Michigan Chamber of Commerce has basically told Republicans that anyone on the GOP side of the aisle who votes yes on HB 4313 can expect to have the Chamber oppose them in future primaries.? Ultimately, 11 Republicans decided to do just that. Other business groups opposing HB 4313 included the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Michigan Manufacturers Association and the Michigan Association of Realtors.
Rep. Tonya Schuitmaker, R-Lawton, one of the Republicans to vote for the proposal, compared the spending of additional tax dollars by schools to spending by businesses. ‘I see it very analogous with companies that need capital improvements for technology,? she told MIRS.
Rep. John Walsh, R-Livonia, noted that he initially favored HB 4313, but then turned against it due to ‘overwhelming? opposition when he pitched the idea to his local businesses.
Another opponent, Rep. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair, made note of Michigan’s rapidly falling home prices and wondered how raising taxes on those homeowners would bring about better public education.
The bill is now before the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Nancy Cassis, R- Novi.
Kenneth M. Braun is the senior managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential. He may be contacted at braun@mackinac.org. For additional information and an opportunity to comment on this legislation, please see www.mackinac.org/10424.