It is probably tilting at windmills, but I do want to continue to take on the conventional wisdom here that Michigan is the worst in everything having to do with state taxes, spending and the economy. As I have written previously, it simply is not true. We are struggling with the same set of issues that other states are. What is different here is that we are doing so with a dominant industry – that was the engine of growth for a century – that collapsed this decade.
More evidence that others have worse problems comes from a Northwestern University study cited in a Yahoo Finance article. It is a list of the eleven states most likely to run out of funds to pay off their state pension liabilities. Michigan ain’t on the list. Who is? Of course Illinois which we have written about before. But also states like Indiana, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky and New Hampshire. The kind of low tax/small government states we are constantly lectured are models for what Michigan should be. What nonsense!
