They're not the best choices. They are the ones that were politically manageable.

Michigan had a long-hated "Single Business Tax". After years of argument over the premise of taxing businesses who paid more in wages and benefits than those who paid less, regardless of business income or profit, our state's legislative body came up with a new disaster, the Michigan Business Tax. Now we are taxed on gross business income and on business profit. So if you have a business that sells $400,000 a year of goods, but only makes $10,000 a year in net profit, you pay 4.95% of the $400,000 plus 0.8% of the $10,000 which amounts to $19,880. If you sell a high profit item, and have $200,000 net income, you pay $21,400. Yeah, the state is going to put a lot of us, small business owners that are the foundation of local economies, out of business entirely by rewarding those who jack up prices or outsource cheaper inventory.