Government solution in Michigan: rob the people of more of their money. This time through a gasoline tax. I guess taxing people on the way out of the state is something of a parting shot for the parasitic (and short sighted) political class — a way to tell people “and stay out!”

People fleeing the state of Michigan are not only the unemployed. They are people with jobs, and college degrees who want to keep their money. Unlike the politicians, most of us don’t view things like taxes as a civic duty, charity, or even a necessary evil. But the fools in Lansing don’t get it.

The politicians seem to be blind to that fact that it’s no accident that more and more laws have been passed, more and more taxes and fees continue to be passed upon We The People in Michigan … and people are exiting this state quickly.

Just last Dec, in Ann Arbor.com:

A drastic contraction in Michigan’s population is a recipe for further economic erosion, a Michigan State University researcher said today.

Michigan lost 89,844 residents from 2005 to 2008, according to a new MSU report released today. … MSU Land Policy Institute Director Soji Adelaja said the decline was largely attributable to people who moved to other states seeking job opportunities and better quality of life.

Also, from April 2009 in the Det News:

A Detroit News analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service data reveals that every day, Michigan gets less populated, less educated, and poorer because of outmigration.

The state’s net loss to outmigration — the number of people leaving the state minus those moving in from other states — has skyrocketed since 2001. Although the Census Bureau does not report totals moving in and out each year, Internal Revenue Service records show that the population decline is a result of two disturbing trends: The number of Michigan residents leaving the state rose 25 percent between 2001 and 2007, while the number of new residents moving in plummeted by nearly one-third.

Since 2001, migration has cost Michigan 465,000 people, the equivalent of the combined populations of Grand Rapids, Warren and Sterling Heights — the state’s second-, third- and fourth-largest cities.

Does government realize that less people calls for far less government? Will they reduce their size? Hell no.

If anything, there have been some horrible suggestions that there is too little government. Lansing was criticized by the msm at the close of 2009 for passing “only” 240 new laws! And remember, every new law is a little more liberty lost.

They closed 2009 by threatening to go after home-schoolers, calling home-schooling “an avenue for parents to hide abuse.” They signed a smoking ban into law; even brazenly sitting in a bar for the signing ceremony.

Thus, they demonstrated at the close of the 2009 legislative session that they (and by “they,” I mean both sides of the Republicrat Party) are not done growing the size of government.

In other words, there is little reason for people who wish to keep their money to stick around. So it isn’t just the poor and jobless exiting, looking for work. It is the college educated, the job providers, the investors, and more who are leaving this sinking ship.

Also from the Det News article:

Those leaving Michigan are the people the state most needs to keep — young and college-educated. The state suffered a net loss to migration of 18,000 adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2007 alone — the equivalent of half the staff of the University of Michigan crossing the state line.

…

Michiganians who fled the state in 2007 took with them almost $1.2 billion more in paychecks than the paychecks of those moving in. That represents a 45 percent increase in lost wages in just one year, money no longer spent in Michigan businesses, paying mortgages or paying taxes.

Those leaving Michigan had incomes 20 percent higher than those who moved here ($49,700 to $40,000), a disturbing reversal of a long-standing trend.

And those figures don’t take into account the “ripple effect” those paychecks would have had here — an estimated $3.7 billion.

• The net loss of school-age children was more than 12,000 in 2007 alone, costing individual school districts roughly $84 million in state aid.

• With about 36,000 more households leaving the state than moving in, that leaves 36,000 empty houses and apartments, damaging already weak home values. “When there are more properties on the market, it drives down prices,” said Ron Walraven, a real estate agent in West Bloomfield. “With the layoffs and the buyouts at the auto companies, people are leaving. Some are just abandoning their homes.”

Expect this exodus from Michigan to continue, because Lansing only plans to throw more government at people — thus, chasing the rest of us out of the state.

I hear New Hampshire calling to me.