$47 billion for 2012, and now asking $53 billion…and an estimated $2 billion more each year in tax increases proposed in Prop 1…Just where is all this money going???…Let’s follow some (most) of it…I have…
Because the special interestroot cause of Proposal 1 makes this timely.
Wood stoves? Close your school? This is our state government in action, folks. Lansing’s Republican majority dare touch the insurance industry’s $20B slush fund? Nyet.
Think this kind of government endorsed behavior has no effect on you?
Just wait until Lansing starts working on Snyder, Bloomberg, and Obama’s energy policy in Michigan.
Well informed RightMi.com readers cannot say they were not warned here, here, here, and here.
MITA gave another $ 25,000, new total circa $ 5.42 million
Michigan Aggregates Association gave $ 20,000, their first act of obeisance
PVS-Nolwood gave $ 25,000, new total $ 75,000
Operating Engineers Local 324 gave $ 35,000, new total $ 135,000
The motives of three late contributors are pretty obvious. PVS-Nolwood is a chemical company in Detroit specializing in acids and their disposal. As [a very profitable] part of this business, they unload neutralized acid byproducts on wastewater treatment plants as clarifiers. Those wastewater treatment plants just happen to be owned by various units of government which, in turn, use their water billings to rape the public at large. PVS-Nolwood have a long history of sucking up to Michigan’s power elites to further their very lucrative business interests.
You know, if one really needed a better reason for a part time legislature in Michigan, all one would need to do is shine light for the pedestrian observer (that’s you, taxpayer) as to what our elected politicians do once all the campaign talk is over, and they settle into their sworn Oath’s of office.
What are we talking about? Let’s take one particular individual to use as example of what idiocracy occurs, which is innocuous in appearance but, when they all use the same topical claptrap while shirking actual duties such as, oh say, allowing roads to deteriorate and crying poor?
Peter Lucido says not necessary. While most lawmakers are cowering in fear lest someone learn how they stand, he is as clear as glass on the issue. In this case, its a $20,000,000,000.00 pile of dough that earns nearly a billion a year? Given the planned obsolescence of such a fund in the wake of ‘insurance reform,’ why on earth would we NOT consider its use for paying down current and immediate needs.
$20 billion? holy guacamole.
Oh and someone stand watch over Rick’s ‘stash’ ok?
Has MITA's Spending Now Slammed Into Its Members' Financial Limits?
MITA (Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association) just added $ 205,000 to the SafeRoadsYes! war chest yesterday. Not much when you consider that they have already lavished $ 5.19 million on SRY. The Detroit Regional Chamber‘s ‘Powering the Economy’ PAC political committee, on the other hand, went one better and added $ 250,000 to the SafeRoadsYes! war chest yesterday. Dwarfs their $ 125,000 in contributions during the regular reporting period. The Detroit Regional Chamber contribution far exceeds the $ 17,105 DRC reportedly had on hand only a few days ago. Someone has given Powering the Economy a lot of money this week, but we won’t be privileged to know whom for three months. Both of these contributions were made to SRY on April 27th, three days after the closing date for the SafeRoadsYes! pre-special general report.
SafeRoadsYes! has evidently burned through the $ 8 million plus they received in contributions during the regular reporting period and is now heading towards a $ 9 million cash burn. Hard to tell how much SRY have spent with any exactitude, the latest figures from April 24th show expenditures of $ 7.212 million. But they had a balance of $ 843,482 on that date which is presumably gone or going quickly. Expect more thrilling stunts and stimulating advertising in any event. Their war chest just got reloaded.
The paltry late contribution from MITA, taken together with the outsized contribution from the Detroit Regional Chamber, suggests that MITA is scraping the bottom of their member’s bank accounts. Or that they are employing a new form of campaign contribution concealment, feeding contributions through DRC’s Powering the Economy so contributors’ identities won’t be reported until after the election. Their servants in Michigan’s media reported the outsized involvement of road constructors in pushing Proposal 1 this week and it hasn’t played well with the voting public.
Will the Proposal 1 fight decapitalize Michigan’s road constructors? Will they raise their bids to recoup their political expenditures, further draining Michigan’s road funding? Are MITA and DRC gaming Michigan’s campaign finance laws to avoid any further embarrassing disclosures? Or have we just found out what $ 1.2 billion in additional annual contracts are really worth in profits to Michigan’s road constructors?