Tag: 2010 (page 3)

Anyone with the stomach for regular reading in the regressisphere or the ability to listen to news reports featuring state Democrats without throwing shoes at the television has probably noticed a regular theme that looks to make excuses for the party in power by telling us things really aren't that bad.  The line you hear and read most often typically goes something like this- `Michigan is currently in the middle of the pack when it comes to tax burden...it's all John Engler's fault.'

We even got an unhealthy (and somewhat sneakily delivered) dose of that nonsense over the weekend from Booth's Peter Luke.  In an article ostensibly written to chide Liberals like Rick Snyder and Mark Brewer over their penchant for hyperbole in place of common sense reform, the author furthers the Lefty meme that A) taxes really aren't that high and B) it is all John Engler's fault.  

...Current economic policy, to the extent there can be one at the state level, isn't much different than the policy in the 1990s that saw record growth... In 2000, state tax collections equaled 9.5 percent of personal income. In 2010, it'll be 7 percent.

Now, adjust that rate for inflation and then consider the fact that the statistic is abso-freaking-worthless to begin with and we'll be halfway to an honest conversation about Michigan's economy.

See, the thing about 2000... Michigan's unemployment rate was hovering in the 3 to 4 percent range.  In other words, "a whole lot of people" were working then who aren't now and those people paid taxes.  The state was taking in more adjusted dollars from a significantly larger pool of taxpayers.  Fast forward to 2010 and we've got fewer people working fewer jobs for a less valuable dollar and enduring higher tax rates.  There's also "a whole lot of (jobless) people" taking in "personal income" directly from the state.  

Even if one bought the Lefty lie that the state's tax policy isn't onerous and isn't a problem, the argument that there's no difference between Granholm and Engler economic policy is ridiculous on it's face.  The last six-plus years in Lansing have been perhaps the most antagonistic towards job makers in the history of the state of Michigan and in direct contrast to the first ten years of the previous administration.  

Not that you have to take my word for it.  Ask one of the thousands of former Michigan small business owners now pulling down profits instead in other states.

Read on...

With a state budget $1.8 billion in the red and federal stimulus cash disappearing faster than Vanilla Ice (and leaving just as unpleasant a memory) I'm willing to listen to just about any kind of plan to shake up the status quo in Lansing.  

When the Michigan Education Association lambasted Dillon I was that much more prone to agree with the man.  When Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Cox several days ago supportively praised Dillon's concept I became that much more encouraged by the possibility of bipartisan cooperation and real "change."

This morning, personally, I'm chalking up one more notch on the PRO side of the ledger... spite.  Pure, unadulterated, spite.  

Booth Newspapers reported late yesterday that Governor Jennifer Granholm hates Dillon's idea because, apparently, it is a difficult political issue.  And if that doesn't make you want to find the nearest Granholm apologist and shake him firmly you're a better, more balanced person than me.

"The concern that I have is that this plan is not something that would save money in the budget year we are negotiating or the budget year afterward," Granholm said. "The timing of this is challenging."

Um, hello?  McFly?  McFlyyyy?  Anybody home McFly?  A $1.8 billion CHRONIC budget deficit, a nation's worst 15.2 percent unemployment rate and already a half-million one-time-residents exported to other states... those issues are challenging.  "Timing" has got freaking nothing on the economy the Governor, her number two John Cherry and Dillon himself have done their best over the last half-decade to permanently cripple.  

The "timing is challenging?"  Are you kidding me?  Madame Governor... look around this state!  You're worried that the timing is challenging?  The timing is challenging.  Lamest excuses in the history of lame excuses.  Add that one to the lame excuse hall of fame right alongside "the dog ate my homework" and "I have to wash my hair."

Read on...

That is all.

Below is a passage every conservative needs to read, it's from the bottom of the story so I cut/pasted it below:

"He [Rick Snyder] supports using human embryos to create stem cells for medical research. He favors government recognition of rights for gay and lesbian couples much like those accorded married couples. He opposed the ban on race and gender preferences approved by Michigan voters in 2006."

After reading that, begs to question.... what party is Rick Snyder a part of, because those are NOT the ideals of the Republican Party.

Full story: Ex-Gateway CEO weighs a run for governor

Alas, we're not that lucky.  We're stuck for the next year and a half with Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry's particular brand of executive performance and if we're not on our toes, tossing everything we've got behind an alternative... ANY freaking alternative this election cycle, we'll be getting another four years of stories like these...

The Detroit News really knows how to be an encouragement on a Monday morning as it quantifies factory job losses during the Granholm-Cherry administration's control of Lansing, and it's a staggering number to boot.  Try 950,000.  Between late 2000 and 2010 almost 1 million blue collar jobs are expected to have disappeared.  

The national recession, folks in other states remember better than us, actually started in 2007.  In other words, Lansing had this state in the ICU before the rest of the Country caught a sniffle.

Read on...

On top of that, residential building permits in southeast Michigan fell for a fourth straight year in 2008 -- the sharpest decline in more than 50 years, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments.

The bad news is that the proverbial "no one" is buying or building.  The good news, I suppose, is that hundreds of eye-sores, especially in the Motor City, are getting the old Eight Mile treatment.  Legally, of course.

If only Detroit could disappear every eye sore that draws heaps of negative attention towards the city.  Alas, Congressman John Conyers' wife, Monica, may have plead guilty to accepting bribes but she still hasn't been sentenced. And apparently she isn't going away until someone PUTS her away.

C'mon, Johnny Law.  Can't we speed up those wheels of justice?

If I have to read about or listen to this woman try to cloak herself in pseudo-Gospel speak one more time I'm going to become a real-life "Bible Thumper," using the massive hardcover study Bible on my shelf to beat myself into peaceful oblivion.

Read on...

An early contender for the "most patently ridiculous quote of the year," Warren's embarrassing  attempt at quasi-ethical faux-reason was, apparently, an attempt to rationalize her support for House Bill 5164, legislation that ignores longstanding, bipartisan state and national standards and legally forces pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the "abortion pill" despite personal, moral or religious objections.

The bill is cosponsored by twenty-three other House Democrats.

Currently, health care workers, including the good folks who after a badly skinned knee fill the prescription for your child's antibiotics, are legally entitled to refuse to participate in procedures they object to ethically.  Like, say, killing kids.

That's not sitting "in judgment" of a doctor and a patient.  That's sitting in judgment of one's own conscience and actions, Representative.  

Unfortunately, that's not even the most insidious legislation just introduced by members of a political Party beholden above everything else to the multi-billion dollar abortion-on-demand industry.

Warren and twenty other House Democrats have also introduced House Bill 5158, effectively designed to drive crisis pregnancy centers out of business. The legislation creates fresh regulation that mandates each and every non-profit CPC in the state provide, in writing, information about where and how to acquire an abortion, including directions showing pregnant women how to get to the abortion clinic.

The real irony in all of this is just how patently ANTI-CHOICE each of these bills is.  Eliminating pharmacists' choice on whether or not to physically participate in a procedure they may consider anything from mildly objectionable to a mortal sin, all via government mandate and the threat of force doesn't exactly promote that whole "liberty" concept.

Meanwhile, the Crisis Pregnancy Center legislation is inarguably designed to force pro-life organizations to permanently close their doors, leaving hurting women with only one option... pro-abortion Planned Parenthood.

Each of the bills has been referred to the House Judiciary committee, chaired by Democrat Mark Meadows.  Meadows is the primary sponsor on the anti-CPC bill and a co-sponsor on the pharmacists-as-abortionists mandate.  We know where he stands.

There are two prominent Michigan Democrats whose opinion we still don't know, though.

House Speaker Andy Dillon, a man who has been endorsed by Michigan Right to Life in cycles past and one who is rumored to be considering a run at the Governor's office next year, has not commented publicly on the bills making their way through his chamber.

Similarly, Lieutenant Governor and 2010 Gubernatorial candidate John Cherry has been silent on his party's pro-abortion, anti-choice legislation.  

Michigan voters have a right to know where each of them stand.

Three listings follow.  No excuses.  Please find five minutes today... right now, on your lunch break, on the road in between meetings... whenever... and drop an email and CALL Mark Meadows, John Cherry and Andy Dillon.

Tell them what YOU think about the Democrats' anti-choice legislation, ask Meadows and Dillon to stop the insanity before it reaches the House floor and ask Andy Dillon and John Cherry whether or not they support their Party's shockingly anti-choice legislation, HBs 5158 and 5164.

Then swing back by and let everyone know what they said!

John Cherry

Phone: (517) 853-8050


Email: ltgovcherry@michigan.gov

Andy Dillon

Phone: (888) 737-3455


Email: andydillon@house.mi.gov

Mark Meadows

Phone: (517) 373-1786


Email: markmeadows@house.mi.gov