It’s hard enough for families across America right now, with the soaring inflation rate bloating the costs of everyday life, from the grocery store shelves to the gas pump. But elected Democrats in Michigan, including in the state legislature, say they’re cooking up a proposed bill that could make even having fun more expensive via a new excise tax. Details are unclear on what percentage an excise tax might be, at this point, but the potential targets for the burdensome fees are endless.
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Sadly but unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to pass along an “amusement tax” on already overburdened taxpayers:
Although a Democratic attempt to pass an amusement tax failed to gain traction when introduced in 2019, the Democrat trifecta currently controlling the state’s governorship, House and Senate increases the likelihood of the bill’s passage, especially during the lame duck session between Nov. 5 and Jan. 1, 2025.
According to a January Bridge Detroit report, efforts to tax fun were led by Detroit City Councilperson Angela Whitfield-Calloway, who partnered with Sen. Sylvia Santana, D-Detroit, and Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, to push the bill in Lansing.
The report went on:
“I am going to solicit feedback from all of my colleagues to have those conversations,” McMorrow, who is maneuvering to run for governor in 2026, told Bridge. “Is it zoos or museums or minor league baseball teams? What’s the scale, what’s the size to make sure that this is something that the majority of the Legislature is interested in at least taking a look at?”
She continued: “The fact that all the major sports teams have moved back into the city, now is the time to do it,” she said to Bridge Detroit. “It’s a very different time than it was back during the bankruptcy.
Councilperson Whitfield-Calloway sounded especially eager for the state legislators to pour out the cash, through the use of weasel words relating to venue “safety” and “cleaning up” after tourists to the Motor City, in the January Bridge report:
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“With all the things happening in our city, people are coming in from all over the world,” she said.
“We want to make sure everyone who supports our venues are safe, we’re able to clean up after everything is over,” she added, suggesting that state laws protecting citizens should be changed so that Detroit can provide a high “level of service.”
State Rep. Donni Steele, a Republican from Orion Township, pushed back on the idea in a statement posted to her office’s website:
“While many of us were rallying around a Lions team that hasn’t been successful for more than half a century, Democrats saw over 65,000 fans in Ford Field as joy-filled dollar signs just waiting to be taxed.
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“Democrats want you to pay more on tickets to the zoo so rich people can pay less for electric vehicles. They want to turn $10 ballpark hotdogs into $15 ballpark hotdogs, so they can give even more handouts to foreign governments.
Then in a direct hit against Dem Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her Democrat pals in the statehouse and Senate, Steele wrote:
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently gave her State of the State address where, in addition to touting the Detroit Lions’ successes, she announced several new, expensive programs she plans to push for in the coming year. Proposals included two years of free community college tuition for all high school students and tax rebates for electric vehicles. Republican Legislators were widely concerned about how these plans would be funded.
She’s right. There’s no good reason for this. The lesson that those tasked by the voters to run their state’s finances should learn from a shortfall in the state coffers is simple: stop with the overspending. That leaves Democrats in a pickle, though, since this is the Left’s only answer. And their methods often hurt the very person hey claim they want to help–the hardworking Michigan working class member and the family they support.
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If I can make an unsolicited suggestion for citizens of the Great Lakes state–if they do go through with this wrongheaded tax, continue subscribing your families to the philosophy in the song below, “Too Much Fun” by Daryle Singletary, a great ’90s country ditty about wet blankets like these big government politicians: