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

Michigan’s Tax Charade

by 10x25MM • February 27, 2017 • 4 Comments

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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Democrats, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans, Research & Analysis

Money Well Spent

by Jason • February 23, 2017 • 3 Comments

Michigan students at the bottom of the educational assessment list.

V.I. Lenin: Our National Dream Realized!
USSR Education Poster, 1950

Michigan schools are demonstrating unbelievable performance levels.

perhaps not in the way one might like, however. From the Freep:

“A new analysis of results of a national educational test shows Michigan students have continually made the least improvement nationally of scores since 2003.

..

That analysis comes less than six months after the release of the Michigan’s Talent Crisis report by Education Trust-Midwest that found Michigan’s students are falling far behind their peers across the nation. The ETM report found that Michigan is in the bottom 10 states for key subjects and grades, including early literacy. “

Surprising?

Oh wait, they probably need more money. Everyone knows that the amount of money spent per child is closely linked to student performance. More from the article:

” Jacob, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said there is no single explanation of the Michigan rankings.

“I believe that there are a number of factors responsible for Michigan’s weak performance: a lack of adequate state and local funding for schools, the highly decentralized nature of governance that makes it difficult for the state Department of Education to develop coordinated reforms, the lack of regulation and accountability in the charter sector, and the economic and political instability that have plagued Detroit and other urban areas in the state,” he said. “

Whoop, there it is.

With a bonus. Bigger control from centralized government, ignore the failing ‘regular’ schools, and put the hammer on the charter schools..

Comrade.

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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?

by 10x25MM • February 18, 2017 • 1 Comment

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, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Government Incompetence, Humor in Michigan, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Philosophy

The democrats are coming! The democrats are coming!!!

by KG One • January 15, 2017 • 1 Comment

Let's see if they can last?

I’ve mentioned previously that get contacted fairly frequently asking for my input on various political things going on around the area.

This one is too good for me not to share with everyone here.

{Continued below}

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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.

by KG One • January 4, 2017 • 6 Comments

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

Kwame’s Sinkhole

by Jason • December 28, 2016 • 5 Comments

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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Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics

Human Error?

by Jason • December 19, 2016 • 5 Comments

Plausible deniability of the year tale comes with "machines bumping up against each other"

I probably could have commented on this several times since the recount nonsense.

The unintended consequences of the Jill Stein recount, was to officially put the Michigan Secretary of State on notice that there are irregularities with the voting in the motor city. Of course the unspoken truth has always been known, but proof of such shenanigans was elusive and considered inconsequential for most elections.

Given the revelation of fraud, and the incredible magnitude which it has appeared, it would seem only proper to fully investigate all of those who are entrusted with our voting responsibility in these precincts. Criminal sanctions are likely warranted in some cases revealed by Stein’s efforts, yet the players caught with their hands in the cookie jar are not going to admit culpability too easily. From the New American

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