Tag: Regressisphere

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...

Last November RightMichigan was the first outlet anywhere in the world to tell readers about a militant homosexual organization's violent physical attack in the middle of Sunday service on congregants of Delta Township's Mount Hope Church.

Now, more than six months and nearly a half-million google links after the story exploded, the Alliance Defense Fund is taking the next step.  They've filed suit in United States District Court on behalf of the church, seeking an injunction against and damages from "Bash Back," the organization that orchestrated and carried out last year's assault.

"They don't have the right to come in and terrorize the congregation," Kevin Theriot, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund told the Lansing State Journal. "This case would have never been filed if these folks had just stayed on the public sidewalk, held up their signs and didn't disrupt the service."

Of course, they went much further than that.  

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The Left doesn't like waterboarding.  Waterboarding is torture.  Waterboarding is the devil.  The Left especially doesn't like the Bush administration because it used waterboarding as an interrogation technique to garner information about terror attacks from unrepentant terrorists.  Can't torture terrorists... that's inhumane.  American citizens and fellow Michiganders with whom you happen to disagree politically?  Apparently that's a different story.

Read on...

Want to watch two of your favorite (right?  RIGHT?) conservative bloggers go head-to-head with the state's leading Lefties?

Check out this week's special bloggers edition of "Off the Record with Tim Skubick" over at WKAR.org.  

You can wait until it shows up on your local PBS affiliate this weekend or you can stream it right now!

The alleged unwillingness of banking giant JPMorgan Chase to renegotiate the terms on conversion vans full of cash owed by Michigan based auto giant Chrysler LLC was going to throw a monkey in the wrench of a potential merger with Fiat Group SpA, they told us.  Hundreds of thousands of Michigan jobs were at risk.

The only thing to do, obviously, was cut up your Chase credit cards, close out your checking accounts and hide the cash under your mattress.  

They filmed themselves taking scissors to their plastic.  

They blogged about it.

They circulated petitions.

They launched a Facebook group.

They even brought in other cogs of the Soros / Stryker money machine to help spread the word.  According to Progress Michigan:

"By refusing to help Chrysler negotiate on its debt, JP Morgan Chase is all but assuring thousands of hardworking Michigan families that joblessness is an inevitability, said Leigh Fifelski of Progress Michigan...

If Chrysler is forced into bankruptcy, as many as 300,000 auto workers stand to lose their jobs and their health insurance coverage. Chrysler retirees, too, could suffer a significant setback, as pension benefits and ongoing health insurance plans could be liquidated. This threat is especially significant for Michigan auto workers, as Chrysler and the rest of the Big Three auto makers comprise a large backbone of the state's consumer economy.

Ms. Fifelski is right about one thing... a Chrysler bankruptcy could kill 300,000 Michigan jobs.  And she and the rest of the regressisphere is right, in principle, about something else... Fiat is threatening to walk away from a job saving Chrysler merger.

One little issue, though.  It's the lack of a willing negotiating partner in UAW, not Chase, that could scuttle the deal.

The Detroit News reported yesterday:

Fiat Group SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne is ready to walk away from a proposed alliance with beleaguered Chrysler LLC if the U.S. automaker's unions do not agree to concessions that would put their pay on the same scale as workers at North American plants owned by foreign car companies...

"Absolutely we are prepared to walk," he was quoted as saying by the Toronto newspaper. "There is no doubt in my mind. We cannot commit to this organization unless we see light at the end of the tunnel."

Ron Gettelfinger and Big Labor leadership continue to take a hard line on negotiations and all-in labor costs at the Big 3 remain, by most estimates, nearly double those of automobile manufacturing employees in Right to Work states.  Not other countries.  Other STATES.  That's between $20 and $30 an hour more, for every employee just to operate here in Michigan.

If Gettelfinger and his team continue to stonewall in defense of programs like the "jobs bank," Fiat appears poised to walk away from the deal, killing 300,000 Michigan jobs.  Union jobs.  

What says the regressisphere?

Well yesterday they said nothing.  But I understand, conceptually, how group-think works.  They need to wait for their marching orders out of C4P, the Open Society Institute, MDP and the DNC.  It can take some time for orders to filter down to all of the troops.  I get it.

So I checked again this morning... still crickets chirping.  Crickets chirping and a lot of very crude sexual humor.  (Because nothing says "my ideas are better than yours" than scatological snickering.  Welcome back to the sixth grade.)

How about it, regressives?  When a bank was going to stop a merger because it wouldn't negotiate you threw a fit conniption and cut up your credit cards. No one now willing to call out Gettelfinger and Big Labor leadership?  No one willing to cut up your UAW membership card?

We're talking about the EXACT same principle.  The EXACT same problem.  The EXACT same terrifying reality threatening to ninja kick this State in her collective face.

Nothing?  Really?  So much for principle and integrity.  

Hypocrisy thy name is regressisphere.

There were those in Congress who stood up and lambasted the Detroit auots.  They said that we here in Great Lakes State were out of step, that we didn't build cars people wanted and that a pair of uniquely Michigan companies didn't deserve the same sort of economic restart that had just been handed out in spades to the bad players in the banking and financial services industry.

The response, especially from union members and Democrats was down right apoplectic.  How DARE anyone question the Big 3?  How dare those folks in Washington question Michigan manufacturers and blue collar workers?  Especially after the Congress had just given so many billions to their friends who happened to hold their mortgages back at home.

Frankly, a lot of those criticisms were spot-on accurate.  Michigan did get a bum rap.  The Big 3 hasn't coaxed nearly enough concessions out of Big Labor, but they're working on it (often without a good-faith partner in the form of UAW leadership, but that's not their fault).  Similarly, our domestic automobile industry is leading the world right now in so-called "green vehicles," making fuel efficiency cool and affordable while pioneering battery technology for the first wave of gas-free autos.

There was a glaring double-standard in the way different companies were being treated and the Washington insiders WERE picking on us like they hadn't picked on anyone else.

Wait, did someone mention double-standards?  Oh, right, that was me.  Good point about double-standards, Nick!  (You can't see me right now but if you could you'd see that I'm slapping my own back.)

Read on...