Embryos AND Tax Cuts

[Haiku]

They've done it!!! They've found a way to combine their two favorite things!

Michigan GOP Wants Tax Breaks for Fetuses

The wingnuts who run the Michigan legislature, where Republicans control both chambers by large margins (and the governor’s mansion too), have come up with an innovative new strategy to combine their two obsessions: embryos and tax cuts.

Michigan lawmakers may consider allowing a fetus of at least 12 weeks to qualify as a dependent for state income tax purposes — a move that if put into law might be the first of its kind in the nation.

House Bills 5684 and 5685 were given a hearing in the House Tax Policy Committee on Tuesday. And critics quickly question its motives, saying it appeared to be a back door way to try and crack down on abortions…

One of the legislation’s main sponsors — Rep. Jud Gilbert, R-Algonac — said it appears Michigan would be the first state to implement such a policy.

“You’re recognizing the fact that people have additional expenses, another person to take care of,” Gilbert said of the rationale behind allowing fetuses to be claimed as income tax exemptions. “Money saved there could be contributed to doctor’s bills and all kinds of things.”

This from the same Republican-controlled legislature that has cut the Earned Income Tax Credit for poor families with real children — you know, post-fetal humans, the kind they don’t give a shit about — along with Medicaid and many other things that would “recognize that people have additional expenses.” Fetuses are great, but fuck you once you’re born.

Michigan...how far you've fallen.