Tim Skubick

Check out these numbers.

40,000 miles logged on her truck that already has 268,000 miles on it.

She wants 600,000 valid petition signatures just to make sure she turns in 400,000 plus legal names to the state.

100,000 petitions are in the field.

She’s given 150 presentations on her idea across the state with more to come.

She’s got 180 days to meet an October deadline for getting this job done.

And she is paying nada, zippo, zero dollars to her legions of volunteer petition circulators hoping they are motivated enough to get the names minus a paycheck on the other end.

The “she” in all this is anti-tax crusader Karla Wagner of West Michigan who is back at it again after her first foray flopped to eliminate all property taxes in the state. Oh and by the way, she is also running for governor on the GOP ticket.

Busy. Busy. Busy.

As part of her skin in the game she showed up on the statewide Michigan Public TV gab-fest “Off the Record” and told the panel, “Everyone is telling me that total elimination of the property tax is the need (and) people are hurting sadly and they feel they have no voice and for some reason I have become that voice because I started this citizen’s petition drive. They are looking at me to help them.” Translated: Vote for me for governor.

She has entered the crowded and expensive field of four other better-known and better politically GOP-connected candidates who at this read have a much better shot at the governor’s nomination but could lightening strike for her?

Passing property tax relief in this state has a checkered and storied past spanning three governors and over thirty years of trying which is to say this not an easy legislative nut to crack.

Ms. Wagner seeks to upset the political apple cart on the issue. Many of the leaders of local governments that depend on the property tax and school officials who still get close to $3 billion from the P.T. are nervous about this dramatic change since the impact on their services is huger than huge.

The critical question she faces is how do you replace that lost revenue and still keep local governments and schools afloat?

“There’s billions of dollars of waste at the state level. Millions of dollars of waste at the county level and hundreds of thousands of waste at the township level. Let’s address the waste,” she argues when asked to answer the “where do you get the money to back-fill the loss of property tax revenue?”

The “billions” of that supposed waste at the state level appears to be just a tad off the mark, if GOP Rep. Matt Maddock is right. He and others have been on a scavenger hunt for waste, fraud and abuse for years and currently he suggests the dollar amount is “in the hundreds of millions.”

She also wants to tighten up the state sales tax system on services and other items by applying the tax to everyone and not “the 200 exemptions” the lawmakers often grant to some lucky taxpayers.

She wants to kill the use of the property tax to fund zoos, museums, and libraries because if people want to use them they should pay for them “at the door” as she puts it. “Anything on the property tax bill that should be paid by the consumer should be paid by the consumer” and not all property owners.

She would also pirate 10% of the state income tax cash to replace the deficit; she would tax alcohol, pot and tobacco along the way. Some will argue that will not get the total job done. She obviously disagrees and points to a provision in her petition to impose a constitutionally mandated revenue stream from the state to county governments for essential services such as police, fire, and roads.

For those who think an all-volunteer army of anti-taxers can’t pull this off and get 600,000 signatures, one need only recall back when a similar group of civic-minded government reformers asked citizens to sign their anti-gerrymandering petitions. The know-it-alls in this town predicted with a confident smile that the eyes of the average Joe and Josephine would glaze over as someone tried to explain the convoluted process of rigging the construction of voting district lines for the legislature and congress.

After the aforementioned know-it-alls wiped the egg off their mugs, they not only saw enough names in the hopper but more importantly more than enough votes to pass this.

Suffice it to say everyone who owns a slice of land understands the property tax so this one is a much easier sell.

So that rumbling of the earth around the state capitol is audible and you can bet the opposition to Ms. Wagner and friends movement will be fought at every turn including the courts and the ballot box making the outcome of this story yet to be written.