873 search results for "Detroit"

Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Republicans

The DPS Bailout – The Bankruptcy Alternative Not Taken

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Part I - No, The Richmond USD Case Did Not Challenge U.S. Bankruptcy Court Authority

Daniel Howes ImageGovernor Snyder browbeat the Michigan Legislature to approve the $ 617 million bailout of Detroit Public Schools which he signed today by regaling them with a parade of horribles which would occur if the bailout was defeated and DPS was forced to file for bankruptcy. Daniel Howes regurgitated Governor Snyder’s compelling tales of impending doom delivered behind closed doors in a Detroit News article, but was any of it true?

Right at the top of Governor Snyder’s parade of horribles was the Federal bankruptcy filing of the Richmond [California] Unified School District on April 19, 1991 . Governor Snyder portrayed the outcome of this action as the U.S. Bankruptcy Court denying the petition and ordering the State of California to financially bail out the district.  From Daniel Howes’ article:

There is scant precedence for school districts filing for bankruptcy, the Snyder administration found. In 1990, according to an administration letter to state Rep. Laura Cox, R-Livonia, the Richmond Unified School District in Northern California filed for bankruptcy because of $42.5 million in debt. The judge ruled the district could not be protected by the court in bankruptcy and ordered the state to provide the district with operating funds.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

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Michigan, Michigan Politics

Gamrat Cleared

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Cindy A GamratAt least there is an end to some of the nonsense.

From Click-on Detroit:

Lansing District Judge Hugh Clarke Jr. ruled Tuesday there’s not enough probable cause for tea party conservative Cindy Gamrat to face felony misconduct in office charges.

Who pushed for this in the first place?

Oh yeah.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Democratic Socialism Comes to Southeast Michigan

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RTA Funding Could Buy All Their New Riders New Cars, And Pay For Their Fuel and Insurance To Boot!

RTA Transit Map aThe new Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan is out today with their transportation master plan to soak taxpayers in Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne Counties for another $ 3.3 billion in property taxes over a 20 year period.Michael Ford Smiling RTA CEO Michael Ford released the regional mass transit plan RTA will submit to voters on November 8th under PA 387 of 2012. A 1.2 mill property tax increase and $ 1.7 billion in new Federal & State subsidies will provide four new bus rapid transit lines, 11 cross county connector lines, one regional rail line, and some extended/intensified local service.

Let’s have some fun by subjecting the new RTA regional mass transit plan to some real, pre Common Core, mathematics.

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All the Other Stuff, Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Get Yer Jack Boot On

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The 'other' definition of "force" once again rears its ugly head.

Pure-TicketThe logical conclusion to an over applied nanny state is the use of violence to prevent one from hurting oneself.

The Stings are on.  Grants to step up ‘enforcement’ (key use of words here) have been doled out. Click on Detroit says:

The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office will be participating in a mandatory seat belt enforcement grant beginning May 23-June 5.

Take the money, or else.

Indeed.  Click it, or we’ll put a gun to your head to save your life.  As Michigan goes into the high travel Memorial Day weekend, the stage is set once again to punish those who tempt fate by not strapping in.  In Macomb County they want to do it the nice way:

Extra patrols start Monday and continue through June 5 as part of the latest “Click it or Ticket” campaign, targeting motorists who are not wearing seat belts.

“Our primary goal is always to encourage voluntary compliance with the law. For those drivers who do not comply, our deputies will deliver warnings or issue violations as the circumstances dictate,” Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said.

Oh, how friendly.

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Detroit, Michigan

They’ll Find the Money

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Lawmakers will come up with enough dough to settle this temporary matter.

Somewhere.

There is a $460 Million unexpected shortfall in the Michigan Budget.  The Free Press reports:

The budget gap is the combined result of a revenue shortfall of about $330 million for the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years, plus higher Medicaid caseloads that are expected to cost the state about $130 million more than estimated, Budget Director John Roberts told journalists after the conference at the Capitol.

The added strain comes as the Legislature is already grappling with tens of millions of dollars in extra spending requests related to the Flint drinking water crisis and a major financial rescue that’s proposed for the Detroit Public Schools.

Oh yeah..

The Detroit Public Schools.

Gee, we never saw that coming.

 

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Rent Seeking, Republicans

If we can convince you that smoking is good and get you to eat for breakfast what we want you to, then we can definitely get you to support this.

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Take a good look at the picture below.

Edward Bernays Image

He’s going to factor heavily in this post (and more importantly, what YOU can do to protect your pocketbook).

{Continued below the fold}

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Cronyism, Detroit, Elections, Michigan, Taxes

Save The Children!

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Are Bailouts The Right Answer for DPS?

school-926213(Reposted from JasonGillman.Com)

The Michigan House just voted to give the Detroit Public Schools a $500 million bailout and the State Senate wants to give $800 million.

104th State Representative and incumbent Larry Inman explains it away as a necessary evil. He suggested on the Ron Jolly radio program Wednesday morning, that lawyers warned house leadership that if they didn’t do something, the courts would take over, and it could be far worse. He referenced the Michigan constitution, and its requirement on the legislature to provide funding for the schools.

My guess is that he did not ask the question of the attorneys advising the house “what might happen if every school district subjected the taxpayers to the same challenge?”

YES, the state is supposed to provide an education. The legislature is supposed to “maintain and support a system of elementary and secondary schools.. ” In fact, From the state constitution:

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Cronyism, Democrats, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics

Same As It Ever Was

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Why would we expect anything else from the party of Clinton?

Flint Water ImageDemocrats have been screaming about Republican leadership’s failure on the Flint water issue.

While we have no overreaching love for the governerd, who brought us expansion of Obamacare, lost our insurer of last resort, broke the law for his ‘roads’ funding boondoggle, and still hands out money like its not his own, it was not Rick Snyder who put lead in the pipes of Flint.  He took credit for the failure of his bureaucracy to properly assess a fast developing public health issue, but he surely did not cause the problem.

Was it the bureaucracy itself?  Yes.  Decades of poor decision making by those who have by hook or crook made their life’s work to be the decimation of ‘Buick City.’  Poor planning and perhaps a little power mongering graft?  From Reuters:

“Henderson’s lawsuit alleged that Mayor Karen Weaver ordered her assistant and a volunteer to redirect donors from a local fund set up to help families affected by the water crisis to her political action committee instead.

The lawsuit charged that the city employee was “specifically directed” to instruct people “step-by-step” to donate to the mayor’s “Karenabout Flint” fund through its website, rather than the Charity Safe Water/Safe Homes fund through the city’s website.

Sure thing.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Republicans, Taxes

Blowback

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When A Devious, All Too Clever Plan Goes Awry

Rhodes Image 1aRetired U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven W. Rhodes got just a bit too clever in his latest ploy to stampede the Michigan Legislature. He is trying to ram a $ 720 million bail out for the Detroit Public Schools through the Legislature, but wound up creating a labor relations firestorm. He even managed to grievously damage the prospects of the bail out in the Legislature. As always, it is the DPS students who are suffering the fallout.

Judge Rhodes, the DPS ‘transition manager’, sent out an email on Saturday telling all and sundry that DPS would have no money to pay teachers after June 30th. He urged Michigan lawmakers to “act thoughtfully, but with the urgency that this situation demands”. The Detroit News later reported:

Rhodes, who warned over the weekend the district would run out of money June 30 and stop making payroll for employees who get paid over the summer, urged employees, parents and others Monday to press lawmakers to pass the rescue plan.

Rosen ImageThis is a reprise of the successful panic tactics he and his buddy U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen developed to force acceptance of the phony Detroit bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment. This effort, celebrated by Michigan’s nitwit media, left a smoking, $ 491 million crater in Detroit’s post bankruptcy finances. Mayor Duggan has been reduced to chiseling money from demolition contracts. Don’t forget that the $ 720 million bail out plan also turns total, absolute DPS control over to Mayor Duggan and his crack team of demolition contract negotiators. Out of the frying pan and into the fire we go.

This is how Michigan’s devious elites now get what they want, when they want, from an embarrassingly slow and cantankerous constitutional government process which they despise.

Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies

Some boys goes up the trail for pleasure,
But that’s where you get it most awfully wrong;
For you haven’t any idea the trouble they give us
While we go driving them all along.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Proposal 15-1, Republicans, Taxes

Forensic Audit – Now!

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Rhodes Image 1aRetired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven W. Rhodes, now the Detroit Public Schools’ ‘Transition Manager’, just let another financial whopper out of the bag. Detroit Public Schools received about $30 million in U.S. Department of Education reimbursements for the pensions of grant-funded employees, but failed to forward those federal funds to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System. So DPS owes MPSERS $ 30 million dollars, give or take. They are ‘negotiating’.

DPS officials knew of this funds misappropriation in December 2015. Judge Rhodes knew “in March 2016”. Before or after the Michigan Legislature got suckered into passing HB 5296 and HB 5385, the DPS emergency bailout and purported financial review commission?  HB 5296, the $ 48.7 million emergency DPS bailout, cleared the Michigan House on 17 March and the Michigan Senate on 24 March. Governor Snyder signed it as Public Act 54 on 12 April.

Did anyone in Lansing know that 60% of the PA 54 DPS bailout was headed straight to the MPSERS?

If so, why did they not share this little detail with the rest of the Legislature and the public prior to the passage of HB 5296?

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