Tudor Dixon plan to end state income tax creates more questions than answers, says expert

FOX 2 - GOP candidate for governor Tudor Dixon promises to phase out the state income tax over time and she claims she can do it without cutting education and law enforcement. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has not ruled out reducing the state income tax rate, but she most certainly does not endorse cutting it altogether.

Dixon's plan to eliminate state income tax over eight to 10 years would eventually reduce the state budget by $12 billion. Of course, the big question is, how do you fill that hole? Dixon conceded she does not have the hands-on experience to make that call.

"I know what I don't know as a leader, and I plan on surrounding myself with people who do," she said.

She said that is why she picked the former GOP Rep. Shane Hernandez as her running mate because he chaired the House Budget Committee for two years. Police and education funding won't be impacted she said.

"We will never effect education," she said. "We will never effect policing those fundamentals of government we want to make sure. But we also want to be smart about the budget and make sure we don't have pork in the budget."

Dixon believes if you eventually eliminate the income tax, more jobs and workers will come into the state.

"If we reduce our income tax, it draws population, and then we have a much bigger pool of taxes and will bring more corporations here," she said.

Tim Skubick: "On a scale of one to 10 this is?"

"Maybe a three," said Mitch Bean.

Bean is the former head of the non-partisan House Fiscal Agency in state government and warns that while you are waiting for folks to relocate in the state, the state services will have to be cut in the interim.

"You'd have to find cuts every single year for the next eight years," he said. "It doesn't make any sense."

FOX 2: "At the end there is no guarantee that people will flock to Michigan?"

"That is a silly assumption, quite frankly," Bean said.

Dixon believes it will work. here.