PAUL RAHE: Taxing Time. “This is, you see, a stealth election – deliberately scheduled at a time when next to no one is paying any attention – and its aim is to raise the sales tax rate throughout the state. If this were the work of the Democrats, I would not much mind. I do not expect better of them. They are the party of high taxation, of well-funded public-sector unions, and of poor service. Raising taxes and redistributing the fruits of our labors to free-loaders is their raison d’être. What burns me is that this dirty trick is the work of our Republican Governor Rick Snyder and of the go-along-to-get-along Republicans we elected as state representatives and state senators in 2010 and 2014.”