Cut taxes? Just eliminate them! Why didn’t we do this before?

Pretend you didn’t know President Donald Trump’s approval rating is 42% in Michigan. 

You can tell Republicans are sweating the 2026 elections by the far-fetched, pie-in-the-sky ideas their candidates are floating to gin up support.

We’re figuring out why our paycheck isn’t going as far as it did three years ago, and for Republicans, the best answer is to eliminate a tax or two, something so unrealistic it’s hard to take seriously.

What else can they do? They can’t mention Trump’s tariffs, which have driven up costs.

Groceries are more. Coffee is more. Buying a brand-new house is a dream out of reach for just about everybody. A cottage Up North? Yeah, maybe if it’s been passed down through the family.

The Republican Congress jacked up our health insurance rates while shutting down the federal government a record number of days.

They’ve tried to distract us all by drumming up the nearly non-existent problem of non-citizens voting in elections.

Maybe they’ll present us with a ballot proposal that will require us all to dig up our passports, birth certificates and marriage licenses before we can vote again so a couple of Chinese nationals don’t vote in an election of 5 million people. Great.

Republicans presumed … and rightfully so … they could campaign off Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s unpopularity. Typically, an outgoing governor’s favorability numbers are in the toilet. Rick Snyder’s were at 26% in his last year. Jennifer Granholm was sitting in the mid-30s in 2010. John Engler’s were underwater.

But Gretchen Whitmer’s favorability number has been sitting somewhere between 53% and 51% since we left the pandemic. 

She’s softened her partisan edge, disengaged from anything remotely controversial and posts slice-of-life social media posts that everyone can relate to.

Campaigning off Whitmer is off the list.

Can’t use immigration as an issue anymore. Trump’s ICE agents are shooting disobedient protestors in the face.

Abortion? Settled issue. Gay rights issues? Society, especially younger voters, has accepted the LGBT community. Looser gun restrictions? That’s a big loser in the suburbs.

Republicans can’t even use their tried-and-true union bashing. A lot of them are Trump voters now!

So, where are Republican gubernatorial candidates going for an issue to run on? Suddenly, simply lowering taxes isn’t good enough.

Let’s get rid of them altogether! Who needs taxes?

It started a few years ago with this half-baked AxMiTax ballot proposal to eliminate all property taxes, but has leaked into the platforms of its gubernatorial candidates.

Anthony Hudson — who wants to hang people he’s personally convicted of treason – has embraced property tax elimination lock stock and barrel. 

Paying for police, fire, local road improvement and public schools? We’ll figure that part out later.

If you’re prefer to figure that out now, though, here’s what the Tax Foundation says we need to do. Unless we’re fine ending police and fire service, we’d need to raising the state income tax from 4.25% to 11.93%.

What about the sales tax? The Tax Foundation says there’s no “feasible sales tax rate” we could charge to make the numbers work.

More serious candidates like Perry Johnson, Mike Cox and Aric Nesbitt want to end the state’s income tax. 

The tax brings in $14 billion in revenue. The state’s General Fund is $14 billion.

Forget about waste, fraud and abuse in the budget. 

Getting rid of the income tax is getting rid of the budget!

Private prisons? Privatize all public colleges and universities? Corporate ownership of public schools? Sell the parks and roads to private management companies? Maybe we get the churches and non-profits to care for the sick and least among us?

Eliminate the State Police, Department of Civil Rights, abandon all state licensing and protections that can’t pay for itself. 

This isn’t apocalyptic. Unless Perry Johnson is paying for state government, we’re talking a tourism-killing 12% sales tax to cover the cost of everything.

That’s why Republicans never tried this when they oversaw Michigan government during the Engler and Snyder years.

Who wants to lead the charge on dismantling state government?

Apparently, we’re getting our answer.

 (Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)