Tag: Detroit City Council

Things are shaping up nicely.

I imagine that fiscal wreck that is Detroit's finances will right themselves in no time.

The latest deadline for a decision under P.A. 4 on Detroit is looming fast (and our relentlessly positive governor really, really, really, really with a spoonful of sugar means it this time).

This situation has become very fluid over the past several days.

Don't have a scorecard?

Here's a quick round-up.

So we'll forgo it today.  

That's right, I'm not going to pick on the Ivory Tower for their ridiculously disconnected suggestion that Michigan's real problem is that it taxes too little, all-but urging Lansing to raise taxes across the board by 4 percent in the middle of the toughest economy in the last ninety years.

No sense in going into the Detroit News report that Detroit City Councilwoman and Democrat JoAnn Watson is now embroiled in a massive tax-cheating scandal that make's Governor Granholm's problems with the tax-man (and multiple tax liens) look light weight.

Not even going to pick on the AP editor who somehow managed to headline an article with a sentence that starts "50 Cent" and ends "shot in Grand Rapids." And you know how much I love Fitty.

Instead, I'm going to track down my dad and my brothers and tell them "thanks" for the time they spent serving our country and putting themselves on the line to protect the rest of us.  And I'm going to take some time to remember those who never came home.  Those guys are my heroes.  All of them.  They're yours too, whether you know it or not, so find a couple yourself in between the burgers and the dogs and say thanks!

There's the same-old, same-old that could seemingly (and probably will) carry a political conversation for an entire Presidential term with talk of restructuring in the Big 3; this morning we learn the UAW may be making concessions with General Motors.  There's the steady and continuing escalation in jobless claims and applications for benefits.  Autos and layoffs in Michigan.  We've been down that road before and we'll be down it again.

There's better... and more peculiar... news out there this morning, too, though.

We've got Attorney General Mike Cox taking on Blue Cross, for instance, over their decision to again dramatically hike health insurance rates on Michigan senior citizens.  According to the Ivory Tower:

"Blue Cross should stop putting profits over people and focus on its mission as the insurer of last resort," Cox said in a statement announcing the challenge.

Overall, average increases sought would be 56% for non-elderly people buying their own insurance; 42% for group conversion policyholders who purchase coverage they once had at work, and 31% for seniors with supplemental Medicare, also known as Medigap policies.

The massive hikes would slam more than 400,000 Michigan seniors, folks on fixed incomes who can afford it the least.  Of course, BC/BS claims they're caught between a rock and a hard place and can't afford NOT to hike rates.

I get tough times.  If you live in Great Lakes State then YOU get tough times.  Baseball, apple pie, hot dogs and tough times.  That's how we roll.  The Attorney General doesn't think Blue Cross is quite as pinched as they're claiming, though.  Remember, this is the same company that last year gave away more than $1.54 million in bonuses to members of their board of directors.

And while we're on the subject of inappropriate use of scant resources, the Detroit News checks in with the Detroit City Council which continues to break land-speed records for inappropriate behavior and irresponsible spending.

The City currently faces a $300 million budget deficit but the City Council has increased their own budget by 12 percent over the last three years and now spends over $6 million a year.

Read on...

Alas, the good news seems to stop there.  Raise your hands if you DIDN'T see this one coming... General Motors new restructuring plan, the one being proposed this week by the CEO and the Board of Directors President Obama personally appointed, is going to propose nationalizing the company and ceding complete operational authority to the federal government.  Because that management structure worked so well in the old Soviet Union.

The Detroit News reports:

The U.S. Treasury Department would own a majority of General Motors Corp. and have the right to appoint all of its directors, under the company's turnaround plan unveiled Monday -- the latest sign of the government's growing role in the automaker's restructuring.

The administration also told the Detroit automaker it wouldn't support giving bondholders any more than 10 percent equity in the company.

The bondholders, obviously, aren't happy.  And neither should be the Michiganders working at GM plants or relying on those retirement checks.  Many expect this move is a precursor to a bankruptcy filing and a messy round of fire sales and layoffs.

15 percent unemployment, here we come.  Tomorrowish.  And thanks specifically to the Obama administration.  

By this point we should be used to Democrats behaving badly, though.  The locals here in the Great Lakes State aren't exactly going to win citizenship awards any time soon, either.  Over in Flint we've got the former mayor and potential 2010 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Don Williamson making a liar out of himself and demanding $600,000 in back pay from the city.

Read on...

And so we focus on sunshine and rainbows.  Like, for instance, this week the big-shot politicians in Lansing will start figuring out how to spend $625 million of our grandkids money to repair those potholes that put such a serious crimp in yesterday's trip to church.  

Yeah, yeah, spending our grandkids money might not make the most economic sense but c'mon, nobody likes pot holes!  Plus, they're spending so much to make these road repairs, if push comes to shove they can actually fill each pot hole with stacks of twenty dollar bills.  So that's a win-win.

Good news... good news... Monica Conyers arch-enemy on the Detroit City Council is going to run for Mayor of Detroit this August.  Good old Kwame Kenyatta.  (Apparently rumors of the man's impending cancer-related death were greatly exaggerated by the Council President.)  

That's... something.  But even better, according to the Detroit News, he's one of more than 50 (FIFTY) some odd candidates whose names might appear on the ballot.  

And by "might appear" I mean over 50 have already grabbed the paperwork to file.  Not rumors, not speculation... 50+ are already starting the legal process.  Guess how many are going to wind up filing as Republicans.  Go ahead... guess.

Talk about a crowded field.  Somebody should work up some brackets and we could run those elections NCAA Tournament style, then instead of cutting down the nets, the ultimate winner could take the first shift re-roofing Cobo Hall with city cash since they refuse to take any money from the state.  Oh, wait, they don't have any cash to stop the leaks... shoot.

But, seriously, in happier news, big ups to the Michigan State Spartans and the University of Michigan Wolverines men's basketball teams on their selection to the NCAA tournament beginning this Thursday!  Start working on those faux-coughs and sniffles around the office today or tomorrow, gentlemen, because come 11:30AM-ish on the 19th we're in for four days of pure, unadulterated madness.

This is Michigan's first trip to the tournament in a decade and Maize and Blue fans are pretty geeked today.  They should be extra excited about their first round draw, too, matching up against a tough but beatable Clemson team.  At that point you're only a sterling game away from the Sweet 16.  

And the Spartans?  A well deserved 2.  Casa De Leeuw will undoubtedly have competing brackets this year with some picking the Green and White to win the whole thing and others playing the homer-role and picking those guys from Ann Arbor to run the table.  Silly Wolverine fans.

That said, it should give me a clear path to the family pick-em championship and THAT, my friends, is good news.

President Barack Obama

So much for that.

Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers, the wife of Congressman John Conyers (MI-14) both reminded us of how absolutely hateful Democrats can be and personally destroyed another sliver of my faith in humanity when she accosted fellow council member Kwame Kenyatta, making fun of his alleged battle with cancer while being restrained by security officers from physically attacking the man.

What provoked her behavior?  Kenyatta dared request that official budget proposals be made in writing.

That cad.  How dare he?!

Read on...