Last week, Republicans in the state legislature provided a clear symbol of why change is so desperately needed in Lansing. On Wednesday, the day after the primary, the Republican leadership forced through a vote to repeal the Single Business Tax, creating a $1.9 billion hole in the state’s general fund without offering any details on whose taxes they will raise and which programs they will cut to balance the budget.

The response from Wall Street was immediate. Standard and Poor’s, a top bond ratings service, downgraded Michigan’s economic outlook to “Negative.” The analysts at Standard and Poor’s noted that the repeal of the SBT without a plan “creates a structural imbalance for fiscal year 2008 that exceeds any one-year imbalance that the state faced during the prior recession.”

That’s right: according to the economists as S&P, this arrogant Republican stunt is worse than anything we faced during the last recession.

But Standard and Poor’s is not alone. When the legislature first floated this plan in the spring, another Wall Street ratings service, Fitch Ratings, stated that repealing the Single Business Tax without a plan to replace the revenue would “complicate the state’s ability to manage the (auto industry) downturn.”

It should be noted that these are Wall Street bond ratings services, not political organizations. Their job is to provide investors with non-political, unbiased information as to the ability of corporations and other borrowers to pay back their debt. That’s what makes this so damaging for Michigan: this negative rating reflects Wall Street’s view that our ability to pay back our debt has been impaired.

There is no doubt we needed to replace the SBT. It was an uncertain tax, making it harder for businesses to accurately forecast their tax liabilities. Just as important, it penalized job creation, something we should never do and especially not in the current economic climate. But there was a right way and a wrong way to move forward. By axing the SBT without a plan, Republicans in the state legislature took an uncertain situation and made it worse.

Wall Street has responded forcefully to the special combination of arrogance, irresponsibility, and incompetence displayed by our legislature. The people of Michigan deserve better. We can’t afford a legislature that continues to play partisan games with our state’s economy. It’s time to kick this legislature out and finally get Michigan back on track.

(hat tip to MichiganLiberal.com for some of the above sources)