The people who live in the state of Michigan are some of the toughest individuals living currently in the United States of America.

We deal with all four seasons and are currently in the grip of winter cold with temperatures subzero for the past four or five nights. In the summer, we have extreme heat and humidity, and we deal with severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding. Until recently, we had one of the largest jokes of an NFL franchise that had gone 32 full years without making it to the playoffs and winning a game.

The most brutal part, though, of living in a state that constantly gets mistaken for being a red state while it's blue is living under the consequences of politicians who are Democrats.

Also, there are ones who act like Democrats but say they're Republicans. 

We can get to that in a moment.

As you can imagine I was NOT surprised when I read right here that our dear leader for the next three years (as governor) has declared that she does not think that tax cuts for the citizens of an overtaxed state should be in the formula for the next year at least. 

It took all of two weeks into 2024 for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to reject the idea of an income tax cut in Michigan.

Speaking Monday after MLK Day festivities in downtown Lansing, Whitmer warned Republican lawmakers that no proposals to cut taxes are likely to advance in the Legislature.

The state House starts 2024 with a 54-54 tie between Democrats and Republicans. Last year, two House Democrats won mayoral elections and resigned their posts. That cost the House Democrats their 56-54 advantage, but it didn’t matter. The Legislature quickly adjourned for the year.

The year begins with 108 House members, meaning 55 votes are needed to pass any bill. Meaning that at least one Republican or one Democrat would need to cross over for any bill to pass. Everything done in the first months will be bipartisan, by definition.

I guess that is not shocking considering that Whitmer is a Democrat and Democrats by their very nature are reluctant to let people keep more of their own money. You also have to remember Whitmer was one of the COVID governors who was more than happy to throw restrictions down via executive order while skipping out of the state to go to other states, where she could ignore the very orders she demanded of her people.  

Just a quick reminder of what I wrote here about her COVID record. Gretchen Whitmer Is at Least Consistent About Insulting Constituents 

In addition to some of her actions as governor, highlighted above, she was also one of the governors who did some questionable things during COVID that should have scared the crap out of people. 

Mostly the elderly in nursing homes.

As some of you might recall, Gretchen Whitmer had a political crush on both Andrew Cuomo of New York and Dr. Anthony Fauci of "I am the science" fame. She followed them and their actions and recommendations without question, and her administration was sued by Charlie LeDuff

Pulitzer Winning Journalist Announces COVID Death Count Lawsuit Against Michigan Governor

From that article:

LeDuff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and currently, the host of the No Bullshit News Hour heard over on the Red Shovel Network here in the Detroit area of the mitten state. For over 20 years he has developed a reputation of taking on stories and subjects that people will ignore or don’t want talked about. With this story, he has taken on a doozy in announcing he is joining forces with the Mackinac Center to sue Governor Whitmer to release the COVID-19 death toll data in nursing homes.

LeDuff announced this action was being taken on his show after speaking with the incredible Janice Dean. The Fox News meteorologist has almost single-handedly made the New York story of how Andrew Cuomo has refused to release similar data in that state after the death of her in-laws last year and made it national news.

Here is what LeDuff said on his show…

The Whitmer administration has not fulfilled my request or our request on the No Bullshit News Hour for COVID death data that may shed light on the true extent of the nursing home devastation. This, in my opinion, is a violation of state law, and more so and this is not an opinion, it is a danger and a disservice to our institutionalized elders who have borne the brunt of the suffering and continue to bear it. (Guv) Cuomo in New York is now under Federal investigation, a second one apparently for misleading the public whose nursing home playbook was copied by (Guv) Whitmer. This in the aftermath of an investigation conducted by the office of the New York State Attorney General, a democrat.

LeDuff continues:

Release the data Madame Governor but she won’t, so Steve Deliee the lead policy lawyer on transparency and open government with the august and well regarded Mackinac Center the non-partisan think tank here in Michigan, they have agreed to take our case to sue the Whitmer administration for the death data

So it's not shocking that a Democratic governor hell-bent on COVID restrictions isn't in favor of a tax cut within the next year or really at any time at all.

And this is the frustrating part of it all.

Currently, the Michigan House of Representatives is deadlocked at a tie of 54 Democrats and 54 Republicans. The Republicans had held the chamber for over a decade but lost control of it in the red piddle election of 2022. The Democrats gained control of the chamber by one seat but one of their members ran for another office in November, and the chamber has been deadlocked since that member resigned and assumed their new office.

There is a special election coming up to fill that seat and normally the full force of the Republican Party of the state of Michigan would be working diligently to win that election and bring the house back under Republican control. 

Which would make Gretchen Whitmer's governorship a tad bit harder until at least November of this year.

Yet, if you've been reading any of my articles here at RedState about the current state of the Michigan GOP and their chairperson Kristina Karamo, you know that it's a dumpster fire of biblical proportion. Showdown: Michigan Republican Committee Votes to Remove Party Chair Karamo—She Vows Not to Leave

Thankfully, as I stated at the beginning of the article, the people of the state of Michigan are tough on several different levels.

All that toughness that was built up facing various challenges — both nature- and man-made — helped us become a bit resilient.

Just would have been nice if the current Democrat leadership were in favor of putting a little bit more money in our pockets to help with that resiliency.