A friend published a good op-ed about Michigan that applies equally to states like Oregon, where about half the Legislature seems intent on following Michigan’s lead in the “how much can we become like Mississippi” race –

Published May 6, 2007
Cheryl Bartz lives in Lansing

Cheryl Bartz: Keep Michigan in First World

What’s the difference between a Third-World country and a First-World one?

That’s not the set-up for a joke, but rather an important question in light of events in Michigan.

When I was in the Peace Corps, the other volunteers and I would sometimes point out characteristics we thought served as indicators of development. One friend believed the key was how animals were treated. Another thought the best indicator was how well the Post Office functioned. A third volunteer believed that the condition of streets and roads was the best diagnostic indicator. Yet another asserted that the true test of first-world status was whether you could drink the water.

Some days, I was convinced that the real measure was how a country handled its trash.

I taught environmental education in 22 elementary schools. The return trip from one of them was an hour-long, mostly uphill walk in the tropical sun. Unfortunately, just when the slope was steepest and I was breathing hardest, I had to pass the smoldering town dump.

When I left the Peace Corps in 1991, I traveled by bus through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize. After my odyssey through Central America, I came up with the definitive answer to the question, “What’s the difference between a Third-World country and a First-World one?”

Taxes.

Tax-funded public services – all those pointed out by my Peace Corps friends as indicators of development – make life manageable and reasonably comfortable for everyone, not just the rich.

I spent a month in Nicaragua when it was just emerging from civil war. It was hard to find enough to eat and many people were literally dressed in rags. Yet there were some fabulously wealthy people, too. When asked whether it bothered her to whisk by poor people in her air-conditioned car, one of those well-off people said, “Oh, no. After a while, you just don’t notice them.”

I worry that such short-sighted selfishness is taking hold in Michigan. Some people seem to think they can lock themselves in a gated community, send their children to private schools and not have to worry about the conditions of others. But the fact is that none of us is secure unless all of us are secure.

Taxes buy us homeland security. Can we drink the water? Is the food supply safe? Are our highways well-designed and maintained? Are there enough police to keep our neighborhoods safe? Are there animal control officers taking dangerous animals off the streets? Is our trash carried away and disposed of in a way that doesn’t endanger public health?

I think the income tax is what made America great. Taxes give all of us things we can’t buy as individuals. Cutting services rather than raising taxes is a sure way to whittle our state down to Third-World status. And yes, businesses should be taxed, too. They benefit from all the services that make our homeland secure.

I encourage the Michigan Legislature to demonstrate leadership by levying enough taxes to keep Michigan a First-World state.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 7:45 am and is filed under Economy, General, Livability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.