Cronyism

Cronyism, Detroit, Michigan, Opinion

Dan Gilbert Begging For Taxpayer Money Capture – Detroit News Says Please Give.

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Imagine if all industries were subsidized with capture process.

Set the example, right?

Cronyism is still alive and well, and Detroit interests still have their hands out. And maybe it’s not JUST the developers? Detroit’s high taxes, and expensive operating environment has created impediments to natural growth.

Years after Dan Gilbert took money from taxpayers to move his employees into Detroit where they would pay a new income tax, and endure travel challenges, he want to see more of the bottom of the taxpayer purse through capture strategies. And he has cheerleaders.

The Detroit News has opined in favor of taking money from Michigan families and giving it to big developers to subsidize otherwise unprofitable real estate projects. The News wrote:

“In Detroit and other older Michigan cities, rents are still not high enough to fully offset construction costs without incentive packages.”

If the News extended the same logic to its own situation, we might see something like this in a future editorial:

“In Detroit and other old two-newspaper towns, subscription and ad rates are still not high enough to fully offset continuing operations without incentive packages.  If we were to get subsidies captured from the taxes paid from our employees, our success would be guaranteed, and [those] taxes would increase!”

Just think of the page rent decreases it could offset!

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Cronyism, Government Incompetence, Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Rent Seeking, Republicans

Absolvendi Officium

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"Public-Private Partnerships" Are bad business for government.

SB 97 passed 32-4 last Friday.

Seriously flawed in it’s very concept, the bill grants private operators the ability to operate as-if they are the chartering government itself, sans the payback at the voting booth.  Contracts could extend far beyond term limitations, and the ‘authorities’ created would be of a new design.

It will place those who fail to pay the private concern as immediately liable for fees as-if it were a government entity. It also brings back the spectre of eminent domain, and abuse of authority.

It also grants special rights to those who profit from such projects as described in the bill from paying property, sales or use taxes taxes.

Read it here.

Tell me I am wrong.

Please.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Pensions & Retirement Benefits, Republicans, Taxes

Michigan’s Tax Charade

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No Michigan Tax Deal Is Ever Worth The Paper It Is Written On

Since our devious Governor and his RINO caucus pulled out all the stops to quash the HB 4001 decrements in the state income tax last Thursday, it has dawned on Michigan politicians that the optics of the SB 111 – 115 Dan Gilbertville tax breaks just got real ugly. You can’t hand $ 1.8 billion of state revenue over to politically connected developers after stiffing the public at large without gruesome consequences. This is going to decrement some Senators’ campaign finance committee balances.

No one should fault Speaker Leonard for putting HB 4001 up for a losing vote. Bottling up and fiddling legislation behind closed doors until a winning margin is assured is not an exemplar of government transparency. Brits and Europeans may regard such shifty back room shenanigans as the hallmark of sophisticated political process, but here in America constituents want to know exactly how they are being represented. Thursday’s vote told us more about the RINOs in the Michigan House than years of deceitful political media articles and reports.

Thank you Speaker Leonard for fostering genuine political transparency.  Long overdue in Michigan.

It now appears that killing both tax reductions was the plan all along. Bridge Magazine and the Michigan Municipal League just launched a trial balloon to gut the Proposal A constitutional amendment of 1994. Proposal A limited the tax depredations of government employees acting through their local units of government, a popular activity in Michigan’s more leftward big cities and counties. The sales tax was increased 50%, but property owners got some constitutionally protected tax relief in return.

Local government employees and their Democratic political puppets want to renege on the 1994 Proposal A tax deal. Well, not entirely. Just the constitutionally protected property tax relief. No one is offering to restore the 4% sales tax rate. What was it JFK said about negotiating with the Soviets? “We cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.” Public employees and their subservient Democratic politicians have a lot of gall claiming that President Trump is a Russian stooge and a neo communist tyrant to boot.

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Government Incompetence, Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Republicans, Taxes

Just in case anyone is wondering why Michigan Taxpayers are getting screwed over (again)…

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And what ever happened to that whole “I-BELIEVE-government-must-practice-fiscal-responsibility-and-allow-individuals-to-keep-more-of-the-money-they-earn.” mantra?

All I’ve got to say here is: “Beware of bipartisanship”.

{More below the fold}

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Fees, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Pensions & Retirement Benefits, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Who Rules Michigan?

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The Administrative State or the People?

The titanic political struggle unfolding in Washington is sucking the oxygen out of Michigan politics, but is analogous to the central political struggle which has been playing out here in Michigan for 48 years. Political media breathlessly report on a struggle between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. This struggle is not between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, nor RINOs and true believers. The Democrats, liberals, and RINOs are completely discredited in Michigan, as they are across most of the United States. All that remains of them is jammed into the Hillary archipelago.

The present political struggle is between the people and the administrative state. Call it bureaucracy, deep state, or administrative state: they are unelected government employees, their agents in the media, and the select beneficiaries of government largess. Their opponents in this struggle are the majority of Americans and Michiganders who pay the price for the administrative state; a now seething mass whose ascendancy was a rude surprise to the administrative state.

The outcome of the struggle in Washington is yet to be determined, but in Michigan the administrative state is clearly winning despite its total responsibility for the Flint water fiasco. The administrative state owns Governor Snyder body and soul. The administrative state will stop at nothing to manipulate the Michigan Legislature when the chips are down. Refractory (but innocent) legislators are expelled before legal process while cooperative (but guilty) legislators sit unfettered until legal process is completed.

How else can you explain the PA 177 of 2015 road tax package, indistinguishable from the soundly trounced Proposal 2015-01? Or the bogus Detroit bankruptcy which somehow neglected a $ 491 million financial hole which will haunt the city with a vengeance in 2024? Half the city’s annual budget. Or the refusal of Michigan government units at all levels to even consider tax reductions due to the simmering public employee pension catastrophe? Those pensions enjoyed by members of the administrative state are but a distant memory to the Michiganders who pay them.  Indeed, all of Michigan’s units of government are jacking up fees to get around Headlee Amendment taxation limits.

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Rent Seeking, Taxes

Nolan Finley really should come out of the closet.

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Supporter of Detroit bailouts and special Detroit tax hikes, a non-libertarian “Libertarian” for president, noted contributor to the democratic party and now this.

This latest rant might have been credible if it weren’t for this.

I’d post that clown pic of him right about now…if I didn’t find that demeaning to actual clowns whose job it is to get people to laugh on purpose.

‘Nuff said.

 

 

 

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Fees, Michigan, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

26 Cent Gas Increase?

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We expected the gas tax increase to bring about a $0.07 gas, and $0.11 diesel bump, but ..

We are getting reports from around the state show increases are a little higher.  In Traverse City, Gasoline that was at $2.33 per gallon jumped to $2.47, and stations with  $2.35 gas jumped to $2.59.  It seems there is some confusion caused by the GOP led legislature’s ‘Christmas’ present of 2015.

What is happening where you are at?

 

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics

Kwame’s Sinkhole

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The former Mayor of Detroit's "impact" lives on.

Kwame Kilpatrick is the gift that keeps on giving.

Long time readers might remember that our outgoing president once lauded praise upon the once venerated Detroit Mayor.  Barack Obama who in the video here was speaking about the “great mayor” responsible for Detroit’s “renaissance” etc.

The as-yet-to-be-elected Senator Obama speaking at the Detroit economic club could little imagine how Detroit’s political crime syndicate was about to crash with Kilpatrick at the wheel. And the As-yet-to-be-dismissed president Obama might be less inclined to offer the intransigent former mayor felon a pass on future political relevance.

Kilpatrick’s current crib will likely remain occupied by the big K.  His legacy is a thing of legend. From the Ivory Tower:

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Fees, Fees, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Rent Seeking, Taxes

More Trouble With TIF

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Traverse City enables more cronyism in its latest money grab.

Does a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) scheme really work?

It seems that each year, special TIF districts are set up throughout our state in order to promote growth or development of a particular economy or industry.  The revenues raised through a TIF scheme are theoretically targeted, specifically for the district raising the value of that district over a specified period of time.

But does it work well enough and is it worth the effort, and goodwill lost, as it continues to be abused by those who hold the authority?  As voters look at the millage requests on the ballot, they now see the language that reminds them that not-all-of their voted in millage will go where it is intended.

A TIF scheme is done by

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