USA Today talks tax cuts and Kalamazoo

If the Bush tax cuts had not been in place would there be a Kalamazoo Promise? USA Today asked that question about the scholarship program for Kalamazoo’s high school graduates of Southwest Michigan First’s chief executive officer and Ron Kitchens responded:  “If that money had gone to federal taxes, it wouldn’t be here.”

Excerpt:

Here in southwest Michigan, the tax cuts acted as a life preserver for an area beset with business flight and job loss. Companies such as Upjohn pharmaceuticals and General Motors, along with six paper mills, fled town at the end of the past century. But in the past seven years, about 40 start-ups have sprouted. 

“I just don’t think they would have existed otherwise,” says Ron Kitchens, chief executive officer of Southwest Michigan First, the local economic development agency.

To find out reactions from other Kalamazooans, read the rest of the story.

Source: USA Today