If you are a taxpayer in the city of Port Huron, and you're looking for a sports metaphor to fit what is about to happen to you, try "One, two and three strikes - you're out!"

In the next three weeks, your state, your county and your city all are moving forward with plans to tax you to death.Almost since the day Gov. Jennifer Granholm took office, our schools and educational systems languished due to a lack of funds and her inability as the state's CEO to deliver a balanced budget on time. I know, I know: Five years later and it's still John Engler's fault. Granholm has used endless voodoo accounting schemes like increasing taxes by moving up property tax payments, delaying state-funding payments to schools and borrowing against the tobacco settlement funds. Should I go on?

Still, the state is facing a $ 1.8 billion shortfall beginning Oct. 1. Just three weeks away. Grab hold of your wallet and hide the cookie jar. Here she comes with an income-tax increase.

Plus, there are your St. Clair County commissioners. Having already spent $70 million on a new jail and an office building for themselves, they now are moving ahead with a plan to tax you even more. Ignoring the deafening sound of voters saying no by a 2-1 margin to a tax to fund the central dispatch and 800-megahertz system, your commissioners are hatching another scheme to pick your pocket.

They hope to tax cell phone and other electronic communication devices. This could be a $1 million tax increase.

County board Chairman Wally Evans has made it clear he heard the voters. Evans believes the funds should come from the tens of millions of dollars sitting in the delinquent tax fund or from one of the county's cash cows, the landfill fund.

It appears Commissioners Steve Simasko and Pam Wall now are supporting Evans' opposition to the new tax. The others must have a hearing problem!

Then, it's strike three if you're a Port Huron resident. In the next three weeks, the City Council will move forward with its plan to implement massive new water-and-sewer taxes on top of the previous enormous water-and-sewer taxes from the past five years.

While it's outrageous and certainly violates state law and the Headlee Amendment, the council doesn't appear to care. It just wants to milk you like a cash cow.

One important point: City Hall and the City Council constantly blame this financial mess on the state of Michigan and its sewer-separation mandate.

That is absolute nonsense. The state ordered Port Huron only to stop dumping raw sewage into our waterways. I believe the estimated cost of doing the state-mandated separation was about $80 million, which could have been paid for with recaptured TIFA dollars and other funds.

The cost of the project rose to $185 million, plus another estimated $64 million in interest, because City Hall pushed to also repair street, old water and sewer lines, old pump stations and other capital improvements that had been neglected for 40 years.

As they pick your pocket, they blame the state and you for their financial problems. Like Michigan's other governmental entities, they need only look in the mirror.