Fiddling while Rome burns.

Substitute "Michigan" for "Rome" and you have a precise description of our political system, now totally in partisan gridlock over what to do about the Single Business Tax.

The Republicans who run the legislature are hellbent on passing legislation that would repeal the SBT, taking effect, most likely, a year from October. The tax, now widely reviled as a "job killer," brings in $1.9 billion a year to the state's treasury.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm, having tried and failed to get the Republican-controlled Legislature to consider her 2005 proposal to cut the SBT rate from 1.9 percent to 1.2 percent, now says she'll veto any outright repeal. Why? On the grounds that it's financially irresponsible to blow a $1.9 billion hole in the state's $9.3 billion general fund without replacing that money -- or showing how that much spending can be cut without destroying essential services, like our universities.

But the Republicans are chortling. They think they've put Granholm into a difficult political situation, forcing her to veto repeal of an unpopular tax.

So legislative Republicans have clammed up, and aren't talking about what replacement tax on business they'd favor or how they'd cut the state's budget.

Doing the latter would not be pleasant -- $1.9 billion is about what the state spends on our colleges and universities or on the entire prison system. Show me a lawmaker who wants to eliminate either, and I'll show you a lawmaker with a very short political future.

And just to be cute, GOP lawmakers tossed into the bill to repeal the tax instructions for the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors.

The lawmakers want the advisers to come up with a replacement plan by Jan. 1, 2007.

Who says politicians don't have a sense of humor?

That council is composed of 47 members drawn from every possible interest group. It has as much chance of coming up with a broadly acceptable tax plan as the Detroit City Council has of being declared a major league baseball team.

This time, I'll side with Granholm. It's just outright irresponsible to even talk about eliminating one of the biggest sources of state revenue without a serious plan to replace it -- or specific ideas about what cuts you're going to make to save $1.9 billion.

By the way -- all the easy cuts were already made, long ago. It is cheap and easy to let the partisan rhetoric fly. But here are a few uncomfortable facts that most of the blowhards would prefer to avoid:

* Michigan is generally regarded as a high-tax state. Not true. We were 29th in the nation in state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, the last year for which data is available.

* There is no evidence whatsoever that cutting taxes alone produces economic growth, as some ideologues claim. The states with the highest growth rates tend also to be relatively high-tax states.

* Forget all the propaganda -- Michigan's government is, in fact, undernourished. The state has run a $1 billion-plus operating budget deficit for the past six years. The politicians have plugged the hole so far by selling off assets, cannibalizing rainy-day funds and accounting gimmicks, but the fact is that state income today is far below what it was six years ago. And the piggy bank is just about empty.

* Michigan is today faces a supremely difficult and supremely necessary transition from brawn-dependent manufacturing to a brain-based knowledge economy. Yet state spending on higher education has been cut repeatedly over the past four years, while our political masters spend more and more on the prison system and Medicaid.

Other than mere irresponsibility by our politicians, the underlying reason for all this gridlock is Lansing's supposed Iron Rule that any politician who can be labeled (fairly or unfairly) as being for increasing taxes is toast. And to be fair, most voters, when facing proposals to increase taxes with no clear idea what for, will find themselves somewhere between skeptical and outraged.

I don't blame them. But lots of voters are willing to tax themselves for specific purposes, such as fixing the potholes in the street in front of their house or making sure their kids get a decent education.

So here's a modest suggestion to get out of the gridlock: Repeal the SBT. How do you replace the money the state needs?

Simple. Take the monkey off the lawmakers' backs, and let the voters decide. Put something on the ballot that gives us a choice:

A. Either replace the SBT by broadening the sales tax to include services (like haircuts, for example) and lower the overall tax rate from the present 6 percent, or ...

B. Increase the state income tax by a large enough amount to make up the money. In either case, earmark a specific part of this revenue stream to create a system of lifelong learning. As part of that, provide vouchers for each Michigan resident that would cover either an associate's degree from a community college or a four-year degree from a state university. And provide serious job retraining for the thousands of workers who are taking buyouts or permanent layoffs from General Motors Corp. now -- and, inevitably, the other auto companies soon.

If the lawmakers have a better idea, let's hear it. But we need action, now. And most of all, we need for our leaders to quit fiddling.

Phil Power is a longtime observer of politics, economics and education issues in Michigan. He would be pleased to hear from readers atppower@hcnnet.com.