Good News: Michigan is open again. Bad News: Hookers cost more.

So, after a few hours of being closed, the state opened back up. I didn’t notice, although I did stock up on smokes just in case. Really, not many people noticed, aside from the campers thrown out of the state parks on Sunday.

Now, with the new budget plan, we’re dealing with some new taxes. Income tax is going up, and service taxes are being levied on a few things that weren’t taxed before.

Some of the new things make no sense, like vending machines and payphones. First of all, I haven’t used payphones in forever, but I wonder if they are going to have to modify them to accept pennies. “Please insert 38 cents for the next three minutes…”

Fortune telling and astrology services are being taxed now, too. I wonder if they saw that one coming.

The one thing that surprised me the most, however, was hookers. Right there in the list of things Michigan is levying service taxes on… escort services. They are taxing the hookers now!

I wonder how many of these escorts are going to see themselves brought up on tax evasion charges, or on prostitution charges should they honestly report their income? It’s the Al Capone thing all over again. They can’t bust them for what they want, so they get them on tax evasion.

You can see a full list of the new taxed services here. (Apparently somebody still offers baby shoe bronzing, and it’s a big enough industry that the state sees a benefit in taxing it. Who knew?)