Tag: Granholm-Cherry

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...

How are each of you on this magnificent morning?  I woke up with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. (It was the theme song for Perfect Strangers, if you were wondering.)  Toss in the fact that the Tigers play two today against the hated Chicago White Sox complete with a chance to expand the percentage-points division lead and how could anyone complain on a day like today?

Well, I mean, I know HOW folks could complain.  But if that's all you want to do then you're going to have to take that noise somewhere else.  Nobody's brining the rest of us down on a Happy Friday.  Now... to the news!

Let's start in the Ivory Tower, which scored an encouraging exclusive interview with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing.  During their private sit-down Bing announced that he'd seen the light and better, he's ready to act on the Motor City's financial troubles:

After spending most of his first two months in office poring over Detroit's financial books and organizational structure, Bing said the city is so deeply in the red that the following measures must be taken to avoid bankruptcy:

• The consolidation and elimination of some city departments.

• A reduction in nonessential city services.

• Concessions by city employees, including job losses in some cases.

• The hiring of an outside emergency collection agency to help recoup some of the debt owed to the city.

Bonus for Detroiters... not a new tax hike on the list.  Remember, Bing is a Democrat in a 100% Democratic City but he's also a successful businessman who knows exactly what tax increases do to current and potential job makers. The fact that he's looking to plug a $25 million deficit by right-sizing government should be enough to get every Detroiter jumping up and down. Except, maybe, for some of the over-priced bureaucrats whose jobs are suddenly in danger.  (And yes... that counts as happy news, too.)

Bing's apparent leadership on the whole deficit issue looks even sunnier when compared to his Party's leaders in Lansing.  

The Granholm-Cherry administration took precisely the opposite approach yesterday during their own discussions about pools of red ink but even that provided some of the better news conservatives have had in a long, long time!

(There's a bright, shiny silver lining if you 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.

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...

Hmm.  Not quite as pithy.  Nevermind.  Besides, you get the point.

I mean, we could discuss General Motors escape from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Ivory Tower even manages to poke a little fun at the Obama administration, which is a little bit jarring on first blush, but nice for a switch.

We could discuss the Associated Press's revelation of additional shady business from elected Democrats in the Motor City.  Shady unless you consider using emergency funds to purchase a $1,600 floral arrangement good stewardship.

Then there's the Detroit News taking the Granholm-Cherry administration out to the woodshed for lying about Michigan's graduation rates.  

(And oh so much more... please read on...)

First there was the accidental release (sans medication) of a convicted butcher-knife killer who'd racked up 124 major misconducts in prison.

Seven days later we learned that the Democratic administration accidentally released 62 convicted sex offenders... rapists, pedophiles... nice people.

Now, the very next day, we learn the folks at Granholm and Cherry's Department of Corrections ignored for a month an arrest warrant to pick up a parole violator named William Dunlap who'd allegedly beaten and robbed his girlfriend, Fran Wolf.  According to the Ivory Tower, this "mistake" was much more costly than the previous two may have been.  

At 3:30 a.m. on June 14 -- only 20 minutes after the last bartender left - Wolf was in the bar's office when Dunlap approached her from behind and bludgeoned her with a sledgehammer before stabbing her multiple times in the chest in front of a security camera, police said. Dunlap fled with a few thousand dollars, police said. Police found him four days later, hiding in a crack house in Detroit.

If Dunlap had been apprehended on the warrant before the murder, he would have been detained pending a special hearing to determine whether he violated parole. A guilty finding most likely would have returned him to prison, Marlan said.

"The state could have prevented this murder," said Deila Ruiz, a longtime friend of Dunlap. "He should have been locked up."

According to good old Russ Marlan it is "not uncommon for investigators with busy caseloads to take a month or more to track down parole absconders."

And by "parole absconders" he means convicted criminals who wind up taking sledge hammers and knives to the girlfriends they'd just gotten done abusing while the administration twiddled it's thumbs for a month.

Think about this, kids... Dunlap was initially released through all of the proper channels.  He was out on parole.  Now the Granholm-Cherry administration wants to set loose early THOUSANDS of additional violent convicted criminals. Dunlap was the low hanging fruit.  He was one of those they ALREADY thought was safe to release.  

The thousands of additional cons they want to release now (as they make room to import Californian prisoners) have NOT been paroled yet.  In some cases that means they're literally considered MORE dangerous than Dunlap.

So let's say we cut them loose.  Say we turn out another 2,000 or 3,000 violent felons and they violate their parole.  Are we supposed to believe the administration will be willing and able to track them down and execute the warrants to lock them back up again?

They had a warrant here and still let Dunlap live in the same apartment with the woman he'd just pummeled.  That "mistake" cost her her life.

And how do Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry respond to the tragic news?  They don't. They ignore their administration's mistakes and hope we'll forget. That trouble will simply go away.

Which is sort of tough... when they patently refuse to put the criminals away.

A second major malfunction at the Michigan Department of Corrections has come to light this week, following almost immediately on the heels of the accidental release of a convicted murderer with 124 "major misconducts" under his belt.  

Sure, they mistakenly cut that psychopathic butcher-knife killer loose without giving him his meds, endangering his family members and everyone else in the neighborhood, but that's tidily-winks compared to today's admitted screw-up. The Granholm-Cherry administration's DOC will see that one murderer and raise us 62 accidentally released sex offenders.

62.  Convicted.  Sex.  Offenders.

"The issue has been rectified," Marlan told the Associated Press on Wednesday, but not until some bureaucratic goof in the system set loose 62 of the most dangerous, reviled and clinically ill men in the corrections system.

And no, this wasn't a move to clear room for those Californian killers the Democratic administration is hoping to import.  This was just a pure, unadulterated bungle.  Another one.  This week.

See, the reason they build prisons is to house the nut jobs, the pedophiles and the rapists specifically so they don't have interaction with innocent, unsuspecting potential and future victims.  Releasing them "accidentally" sort of defeats the purpose.  And while a far-too-late round-up might put the monsters back in their cages it won't put the genie back in the bottle, especially if any of the convicts took advantage of their time on the outside and returned to old habits.

These aren't minor mistakes.  These are life-changing, potentially life-losing mistakes.  Lives, quite literally, hang in the balance.  Things are bad enough when we're simply talking "early release."  When Matthew Macon was intentionally cut loose by the administration six years into a ten year sentence he went on a rape and killing spree that racked up a half-dozen victims.  And he was one of the guys DOC thought they'd rehabilitated.

The 62 sex offenders?  Not so much.  By the Granholm-Cherry administration's standards and actions, they believe them to be MORE dangerous than Matthew Macon was.  And still they wound up roaming the streets.

Now I'm not blaming Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry directly.  It isn't like the Governor called up the prison, named off half-a-hundred names and John Cherry drove the bus that dropped them off at their homes.  But on the flip side, we have seen ZERO consequences or even hints of consequences come from these "mistakes," sending the unmistakable signal up and down the bureaucratic ladder that incompetence won't only be tolerated... it will be defended.

It is well past time to clean house at MDOC.  Tragically, it looks more and more like someone's going to have to get killed... again... before anyone is held accountable.