Tag: Tax hike

You most likely associate it with the military making equipment and personnel less visible to detection methods.

But did you know that this is also a tactic used in the business world?

And if you haven't caught it already, our governor is a business guy and likes to adopt business methodology wherever he can to accomplish his agenda. Especially when he feels that his agenda won't go over very well with the people he purportedly serves.

Why is it that you never hear Robert Schostak or Reince Priebus come right out and say this? Aren't they ever proud of these actions of the elected members from their own party?

But bear with me on this one, because this time, the cast of characters is different.

How so you might ask?

So how's that going to pan out?

The Grand Rapids Press is reporting that Farmer's Insurance will today announce plans to create 1,600 jobs in suburban Grand Rapids.  Maybe.  

I mean, the announcement is coming today and Governor Granholm will be there giving a speech and looking extra gubernatorial... but the actual creation of 1,600 jobs is a little more iffy.  

The announcement is expected to coincide with expected approval of huge tax breaks for Farmers by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority Tuesday morning...

The company would have 12 years after completing (two new) facilities to create 1,000 additional jobs at the campus in order to qualify for a 100 percent employment tax credit.

Farmers would need to create 1,400 jobs by the end of the 17th year in order to qualify for the final year of tax credits.

The only other certainty is that the Democratic governor had to offer a 100 percent tax credit (that's all of it, for the arithmetic-challenged) to convince a company already located in Michigan to consider expanding their operation effectively over the course of two decades.

Fingers crossed, knock on wood and any other superstition of your choosing that Farmers comes through but the recent track record of MEGA hasn't been that hot.  Won't stop the mainstream media from fawning all over the Governor, though, and giving her credit for creating thousands of jobs that won't exist until her kids are approaching the big 4-0.  

Going to go out on a limb and guess there won't be a reporter at the presser or anywhere else in the state with the stones to call the Guv on her tax policy hypocrisy, either.  The best kept secret in the state of Michigan is how much faith the Democratic administration actually places in tax CUTS as tools for economic stimulus and job creation.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the state where automobile manufacturing plants continue to be shuttered, laid off Michigan auto workers can do little but look on as another auto manufacturing operation gets set to open somewhere else.  The Detroit News is reporting that the auto manufacturing hotbed that is... Louisiana... is set to build a few extra cars.

A well-financed company is close to choosing a shuttered north Louisiana site to start a new automobile manufacturing facility, creating up to 1,500 jobs, according to two elected officials from the region.

State Rep. Jim Fannin would not identify the company but said the vehicles would be its first and would be built at a former Guide Corp. plant in Ouachita Parish. He said Gov. Bobby Jindal would make an announcement about the deal Wednesday.

Monroe City Council member Arthur Gilmore said the project, which would build fuel-efficient vehicles, involves California venture capitalists Ray Lane and John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, which has been extensively involved in "environmentally friendly " projects and companies.

Got that?  California environmentalists are set to open a green-car manufacturing outfit in Louisiana.  Not Michigan, where our workers, engineers and infrastructure have been built for the last one-hundred years specifically for projects like this.  Louisiana.  What do they have that we haven't?  I mean, besides a dynamic, successful economic conservative in the Governor's office.  

Then again, maybe the more relevant discussion is about what Michigan has that Louisiana doesn't.

RightMichigan: On the decision of other GOP candidates to oppose a no-new-taxes pledge:

Cox: "I'm very disappointed that I'm the only Republican... you know, I expect some Democrats might be against a no-tax pledge, but I don't think that the problem is we're sending too little money to Lansing..."

RightMichigan: On a new constitutional convention?

Cox: "I'm afraid of mischief... I like the amendment process much better... I don't like these stealth projects like we saw last year with RMGN."

RightMichigan: Cherry's decision to duck the candidate debate on Mackinac Island?

Cox: He ducked us.  Absolutely.  Isn't that telling?  Part of that is, if I were him, I don't know what I could say.  We are last place in employment, third from worst in business taxes, we increased income taxes and he was the final vote a year and a half ago.  He's been wrong on all of the issues so I can understand why he doesn't want to talk about them."

And much more...

Few races will be as closely watched as the contest for Attorney General and we're bringing the candidates directly to you!

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop recently announced his candidacy for Attorney General and has been traveling the state making public appearances and speaking about his vision for the office and the state of Michigan.  

He is simultaneously heading Republican efforts in the legislature to deal with a rapidly growing state budget deficit with Democrats in the House, Senate and Governor's office arrayed against him.

This weekend I had a chance to catch up with Majority Leader Bishop to discuss the Attorney General's race, his candidacy and the budget crisis gripping Lansing.

What does he think about the current budget crisis?  Could we see another tax increase?  What will Senate Republicans propose THIS WEEK?  Does he have any regrets from the 2007 tax hike debacle?  What does he think about the Democrats likely AG nominee, state Senator Gretchen Whitmer?

Without further ado, here are the answers to these and many more questions...

Who says Motown hasn't had a hit in years (Eminem not withstanding)?  We absorb more and more of them every day.

And thanks, especially, to Andy Dillon and legislative Democrats, cash-strapped Michigan families are about to take another punch to the gut.  The Detroit News reports this morning that Consumers Energy will raise rates again.  This week.  3.5 percent amounting to about $2.99 a month.

Consumers says it needs higher rates to upgrade power lines and equipment, reduce emissions, install software for improved billing and customer service, and develop metering technology to pinpoint outages.

Last June, regulators authorized Consumers to raise the average residential bill $2.64 a month. Detroit Edison, the state's largest utility, could raise electric rates in July, depending on what regulators decide.

In other words, in the last year Consumers has raised rates by 6 percent... ish... and by over $5 a month.  DTE is set to follow suit.  

Amazing what you can do when you've got a legislatively protected monopoly.

Dear Speaker Dillon, any interest in cutting me a $10 check from your personal account every month to cover these rate hikes?  I get that you're the government and I'm not.  You can (and do) use the coercive threat of force to compel $10 from my bank account every month and I don't have that same ability.  That's why I'm applying to your humanity and your sense of fair play. Just be warned... there are millions of Michiganders in line with me hoping you'll whip out that checkbook.

And either way, at least Michigan is maintaining her status as a nation leader in one category or another, even if that category is governmental absurdity and the price it lays on the shoulders of her citizens.  Well, that and Day Time Talk Show Hosts Per Capita... or DTTSHPC.  

Read on...

Twenty-four hours ago we were reading startling and scary news about Michigan's state budget deficit.  $785 million, the experts told us, with a fresh $5 million added to the pool of red ink every morning and half of the fiscal year behind us.  

Those were the days.

By mid-afternoon the word had leaked in Lansing that things were much (much... MUCH) worse than anticipated.  $1.3 billion in red ink.  That's a rough six hours.

Listen, we have a good time here on RightMichigan.  Our tongue is often firmly planted in cheek, we razz, we encourage, we joke, we enjoy a good bit of sarcasm and cynicism.  This is not one of those times.  

$1.3 billion in red ink with a balanced budget requirement in the Constitution and only half the fiscal year remaining to make the cuts.  

Dear Lansing- the fun and games are over.

We could look back over the last few years and analyze how we got here and there's a time and a place for that, too, but this is not it.  It is time to look forward.

The Granholm-Cherry administration was expected early next week to make $200 million in budget cuts via an executive order while asking the legislature to plaster over the rest of the deficit with one-time cash via federal stimulus funds.  Not only would that move be insufficient in light of the drastically larger deficit, it would be just plain irresponsible.  Period.

The legislature should convene an emergency session TODAY to start making deep, drastic and yes, painful spending cuts.  If the Governor won't call an emergency session and the House won't play along then the Senate should be the adults in the Capitol City and do it themselves.

Lieutenant Governor John Cherry and Senator Hansen Clarke should cancel their mid-day open bar lobbyist meet-and-greet fundraiser, too.  We literally cannot afford one more day of inaction and status quo.

$1.3 billion in cuts from six months worth of a budget will not be easy and it is going to hurt like the dickens.  $1.3 billion in cuts from five months worth of a budget will hurt that much worse.  $1.3 billion from three months worth of a budget... you get the idea.

The time is now and urgency is required.  The House GOP, for their part, is ready to rock and roll.  Minority Leader Kevin Elsenheimer yesterday sent to budget negotiators a substantial list of proposed spending cuts while they continue to hunt and work for more.  

Representative Chuck Moss, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee said: "At the rate we're going, we may actually beat one of the auto companies into bankruptcy. We need drastic, immediate steps to put our state back in order. We tried the game of tax increases, look where that got us. It chased away business, foreclosed more homes, unemployment hit 12.6 percent. And we still didn't get the promised reforms. The day of reckoning is now. "

"Clearly the governor and Democrat's plan from 2007 has failed," said state Representative John Proos, R-St. Joseph. "We were promised that the largest tax increase in state history would solve the problem, but now we're left with a larger deficit and a much larger unemployment rate. History is repeating itself because nothing changed -- no reforms, no change in spending habits, and no change in budget deficits. We learned in 2007 that tax increases are not the answer. With the state of the economy and the national economy, we simply must spend less money."

Unfortunately, the House Minority seem to be about the only ones in Lansing taking this seriously, and that isn't just a knock on the Democratic Majority.  We could stand to see a little more leadership out of the Senate GOP, too.

Dear House Democrats- we tried your tax hike idea in 2007 and it has done nothing but made the problem (exponentially) worse.  Spending cuts will hurt.  Bad.  A real pain in the neck.  The alternative will hurt a lot more.  

Dear Senate Republicans- start acting like Republicans.  If the Left won't do the job (and every indication is that they won't) then it is up to you to save this state on your own even if that makes you "the bad guy."  Consider it the cost of character.

$1.3 billion in red ink.  And the legislature isn't in an emergency 24 hour marathon session to cut spending because...?

The sunshine and rainbows have gone away, ladies and gentlemen.  Time to get to work.