Tag: michigan legislature

http://conservative.org/ratingsarchive/stateratings/2012/MIStateLegislativeRatings.pdf

ACU rated 17 house votes and 18 senate votes from 2012.  Many of the bills are the same for both halves of the legislature.  Many of the bills are closely related to unions and education.

When did it become an accepted theory that government has the ability to create jobs in much the same manner that my kid sister used to pop out cool multicolored extrusions with her Playdoh Fun Factory?

I'm not sure if anyone even knew this little fact or not, but Michigan law requires that legislators pass a balanced budget by September 30th of each year. I think it was on the news.

What this means, of course, is that months before the legally mandated deadline arrives, the well oiled machine of benevolent government will draw closely together and make all the tough decisions necessary to smooth out a budget. All the "t"s should be crossed and all the "i"s dotted in plenty of time for the governor to sign her Jennifer Hancock on the bottom line long before lawmakers run afoul of the Michigan Constitution. Sure. Not since Kwame Kilpatrick was forced to vacate the Manoogian Mansion have so many lawbreakers been housed under one roof.

I take my own initiative and avoid smoking quite successfully. There is no smoking in my car, my house, or in my office, and when I venture into a smoking restaurant or into a smoker friend's house, I do so without dictating my demands to everyone already inside. (Humility obviously being one of my more impressive perfections.) I also believe that when it comes to private businesses and buildings, it is the owners of these establishments that should dictate which lawful activities take place inside, much like I do in my own home.

In my book this is called freedom. A lot of sullen bureaucrats would call this a bummer.

Oh, we knew we were broke, we just didn't realize how broke we actually were. In fact at that moment in time we had already stumbled head first into a $1.3 billion budget pit. It seems the state's unemployed had stopped paying taxes, the state's relocated citizens were buying their appliances within other borders, and the Michiganders still blessed with jobs were tight-fistedly hanging on to whatever money they had scratched together so that they could plop down their savings on state mandated rising energy prices.

That sobering shortfall was covered through over $300 million in budget cuts combined with the reapplication of $1 billion of the federal stimulus money that was generously tossed our way because (as everyone knows) Washington DC does not have a budget problem. The rest of the stimulus money was set aside to be spent buying everyone in the house chamber an exquisite sugar sprinkled pastry to be served by Daniel Mulhern's indispensable personal staff.

Last year the Michigan legislature passed a radical energy package that was designed to, among other things, force the two major electricity producers in this state to provide their customers with electricity that is at least ten percent generated through clean or renewable energy sources by 2015.

I say force because it was a very tough sell.

DTE and Consumer's Energy, as a result of their selfless generosity, were granted virtual monopolies in the areas they serve and as an added bonus, this time to consumers, the law allowed these benevolent utility behemoths to pass along rate increases to cover the costs of the more expensive alternate electricity. And you thought selling Michael Moore a Deep Fried Pastry of the Month Club membership was easy.