Detroit News rips Granholm's pro-tax panel

It says much of what I've been saying. It's a good read and says it better than I did.

Spineless governor buys cover for raising taxes

If there was any doubt that Gov. Jennifer Granholm intends to raise taxes on Michigan residents, it disappeared when she appointed a commission of tax sympathizers to solve the state's budget mess.

Former Govs. William Milliken, a Republican, and Jim Blanchard, a Democrat, will head the Emergency Financial Advisory Panel, made up mostly of former politicians and bureaucrats, nearly all of whom have expressed sympathy in the past for higher taxes.

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Higher taxes would make things worse for everyone in Michigan, except for the governor, who would avoid having to make the tough choices and coming up with the bold ideas she's promised in two election campaigns but hasn't delivered.

Appointing Milliken and Blanchard is laughable. Both ex-governors confronted budget problems and both solved them with tax hikes, among other moves. On Milliken's watch in the 1970s, once the state ran out of accounting gimmicks, he turned to a temporary increase in the income tax.

Blanchard convened a commission early in his tenure in 1983, which suggested a tax hike. He pushed a 38 percent hike in the state income tax rate through a Democratic Legislature. As a result, more than a dozen recalls against lawmakers were started, some resigned, and two lost recall elections, turning the state Senate over to the Republicans.

Most of the other panel members are on record as favoring tax hikes over further spending cuts.