Tag: hypocrisy (page 2)

Apparently whatever spending sickness is afflicting lawmakers managed to make it's way onto east-bound I-96, too, and landed smack dab in the FREEP's editorial room.  The same column which they use to caution against irresponsible budgeting (lest our state bond rating be negatively affected) also contains the Ed Board's suggestion that Lansing spend irresponsibly.

The week before state lawmakers' Fourth of July break has frequently been a time when budgets were settled for the fiscal year beginning the following Oct. 1...

A good strategy would be to spread the available stimulus money in roughly even chunks over the next two budget years.

No, a good strategy would be to avoid one-time-fixes.  You know, the kind used by former Republican legislative majorities and lamented vocally for years by the Granholm-Cherry administration?

Because these problems... these massive multi-billion dollar deficits... they aren't going to go away before that bailout funding does.  In fact, they're likely going to get much worse.

The Detroit News reports this morning on an often overlooked budgetary byproduct of massive auto layoffs... suddenly vacant industrial space.  See, the thing about vacant industrial space is that it's vacant.  There's no one there.  In other words, there goes another big dollar source of tax revenue.

Read on...

And we all love trees.  I have four or five of them in my back yard and another in the front.  They produce oxygen, shade, they smell nice, I can burn them to stay warm if my heat ever gets shut off... errr...

In the 75 centuries or 869 quadrillion years this planet has been circling the sun (depending on your source, of course) Earth has managed to adapt and survive just about everything.  Colossal, global floods.  Meteor showers.  Ice ages.  Quasi-nuclear winters.   Human beings.  

Leave it to automobiles to signal the end of all that is, was or ever could have been.  Thank goodness we've got these brave environmentalist crusaders willing to fight pollution whatever the cost.  And thank goodness there are so many of them here in Michigan to enable the Granholm-Cherry administration as they join with President Obama in foisting these massive new CAFE standards on an automobile industry on the verge of permanent financial ruin. Without them we'd have negligibly dirtier air and 50,000 auto workers wouldn't be mapping the best route from their soon-to-be-foreclosed homes to the nearest unemployment line.  And who would want that?

I mean, except for the Michigan Left.  Because according to the Detroit News, that's precisely how many Big 3 jobs are expected to be killed by the Democrats new environmental red (or should it be green) tape.

Nearly 50,000 jobs could be lost in the auto sector as a result of President Barack Obama's decision to approve fuel efficiency requirements for the nation's cars and trucks, according to government documents and a former presidential adviser.

At the same time, the increased fuel rules could cause full-size truck sales to fall significantly without government help, a Wall Street analyst said.

Those trucks, by the way, have long been the last remaining cash cow for the Big 3.  Buh-bye marketability.  Hello pink slips.  

All of this thanks to our elected officials?  

Read on...

The Associated Press reports that the Democrats' bill carves out one not insignificant but highly incongruous exception.  Business is booming on casino floors across the Motor City and it would suffer were the legislature to eliminate patrons' right to light a square.  Banning smoking would cost the casinos more than a couple of jobs and the Democrats can't have that.  Killing jobs in bars and restaurants... that's OK.  Because apparently some jobs are more important than others.

"Last time I checked, picking and choosing what businesses fail in Michigan is not in our lawmakers' job description," said Lance Binoniemi, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association.

Representative Jim Stamas provided the lone dissenting voice in committee, but even some Lefties recognize the destructive nature of their Majority's legislation.  The AP:

Committee chair Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, said he supports broadening the exemption to include bars, small businesses he said are struggling to survive "our tough economy." One approach would permit smoking in any business with an age requirement of 21 years. That would exempt some bars from the ban but not restaurants.

The rest of Johnson's Party disagrees.  And we've played this game before.  

We can go around and around about personal freedom, health, general welfare, the whole kit and caboodle.  Sadly, the concept of a smoking "ban" appears to be a settled issue in the legislature.  Last cycle the House did what they did yesterday, voting to kill jobs but only certain jobs.  The Senate at least managed a little consistency, voting to ban smoking inside public establishments across the board... no carve-outs for the Democrats' special interest pals.

Then again, maybe the elimination of personal freedom ISN'T a settled issue. Senate Republicans aren't idiots.  They know that an across the board ban on smoking would never fly in the House.  By approving a ban on smoking they're effectively ensuring a ban on smoking never becomes law.  Shrewd.

Dillon and the House Dems failed to move the Senate bill last year and if the Reg Reform Committee's actions this week are any indication they haven't learned a single new trick.  So round and round we go.  Which is pretty OK on this end.  In their zeal to kill SOME jobs while managing to protect their political donors and local cash cows, Team Dillon winds up accidentally protecting jobs and personal freedom.

Oops.

I have mixed feelings about this. We certainly should not reward incompetence, but as someone who would like a million dollar bonus one day, I don't think we should discourage dreaming either!

As is usually the case with issues of this sort, the outrage exploded before the facts were known or contemplated (not that facts make much difference in Washington). Consider:

1. The AIG bonuses represent less than 1/1000 of the bailout money, or less than 0.10 percent. During the presidential debates, the One dismissed McCain's concerns about earmarks because, the One claimed, they involved less than 0.5 percent of the federal budget. Even at 0.5 percent, the earmarks compared to the budget are more than 5 times the relative size of the bonuses compared to the bailout. As a percentage of the federal budget, the bonuses are less than 0.005 percent, or about 100 times smaller than the earmarks the One felt were not really a problem. So, it can't be the money itself that has everyone outraged.

2. Perhaps it is the perception of greed that has everyone upset. What has been lost, however, is a fact revealed today by the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in a letter to Barney Frank -- the AIG executives who got the bonuses did so pursuant to renegotiated contracts in which they agreed to take the grand sum of $1.00 -- that's one dollar -- in salary for 2009, provided they got their 2008 bonuses. That surely makes things sound a little less greedy. You don't see the One, Frank, Dodd, Reid, or Pelosi agreeing to work for $1.00.

3. You want to talk incompetence? Also revealed in Cuomo's letter is the fact that while AIG agreed with Cuomo that it would not pay bonuses out of its Financial Products deferred compensation plan (and it honored that agreement), the brilliant attorneys in the New York AG's office neglected to obtain the same agreement regarding the Financial Products retention plan from which the bonuses -- which were retention bonuses! -- were paid. If you lock up the savings account, you'd better make sure the checking account is covered; if you don't, you can hardly blame AIG for writing checks.

4. Ah, but you say AIG has broken the law because the $787 billion stimulus plan puts limits on executive compensation, right? Well, sort of. There are limits, but they do not apply to the AIG bonuses. Why not? Because of a little provision inserted by Democrats (remember, Republicans had nothing to do with writing this thing) in the next-to-last section of the bill, specifically section 7001(b)(3)(D)(iii), which says:

The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.

Since the AIG contracts were signed before February 11, the limits in the stimulus don't apply.

5. So we should change the law, right? Here comes the hypocrisy, by the bushel. The Enchanted Mitten's own Gary Peters has introduced a bill that he claims will effectively tax the bonuses at 100 percent. Who voted for the bill with its carve out for pre-February 11 bonus agreements? Gary Peters. Chris Dodd called the bonuses an "outrageous example" of executives "enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers." Yet it apparently was Dodd himself who inserted the pre-February 11 bonus language and, of course, championed the bill. Any attempt now to write a law that attacks these specific bonuses will likely be challenged on the grounds that it violated the Constitution's prohibition on bills of attainder.

6. What about the renegotiated contracts between the UAW and GM? Why shouldn't AIG executives be held to the same standard? They are! They renegotiated their contracts to take their salaries down to $1.00, which in many cases means a 50 percent cut in compensation. Sure, the numbers are much larger than auto worker wages, but don't tell me they didn't negotiate.

That's the word this morning in the Ivory Tower.

Democrats on Capital Hill are in the process of raking bank presidents over the coals this week because the billions of taxpayer dollars they gave them seem to have up and disappeared.  They plugged budgetary holes, they erased red ink and they kept banks afloat... all well and good and nice and pleasant but not exactly what was expected of them.

That initial bailout was supposed to stir job creation and open up the lending spigots.  None of the banks seem to know if it has.  Alas, it appears the money was used as a one-time fix.

Welcome to Thursday, February 12, 2009, the day the Granholm - Cherry administration is expected to reveal their budget for the coming year.  To reveal their budget and to commit the exact same bailout-spending-sin that has Congressional Democrats foaming at the mouths this morning!

Read on...

I can tell you very simply why Detroit is in the dumps. The inmates have taken over the asylum. It happened some time ago, but the most incompetent people imaginable are in charge of the city. Case in point today - Monica Conyers. From the pages of the freep this morning:

Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers had to be restrained during a confrontation last week with Councilman Kwame Kenyatta in which she hurled insults at Kenyatta about his hearing aid, health and education.