Michigan Politics

Michigan Political considerations.

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.

You Betcha! (9)Nuh Uh.(1)

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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Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature

Okay, here we go. The next Michigan Trump Flashmob: March 4th

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Okay, I’ll make this simple.

Calling All Deplorables!

The time to show our President some love is here! Calling all Flashmob people!  All Trump supporters! Join us!

When and where:  Saturday, March 4th. Noon to 3pm on the east lawn of the Capitol in Lansing (and other locations listed below).

Why: President Trump is under attack for fighting to restore the values that make America a great.

Trump has our backs, we need to demonstrate we got his back covered too! Let’s make REAL news!

Show you support for President Trump!

Bring your kids, flags, signs and enjoy the afternoon with other Americans supporting Trump!

Come take a picture with the Trump Unity Bridge too!

Can’t make it to Lansing?  Then go to www.FlashmobMichigan.com for other Trump Flashmob locations around the state.

Sponsored by:

The Michigan Conservative Coalition. Leading the Grassroots in Michigan.

{More locations below}

 

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

Money Well Spent

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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.

You Betcha! (7)Nuh Uh.(0)

Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics

2018 Michigan State Senate Elections

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Cross-posted at The Western Right, Right Michigan, and Red Racing Horses.

All 38 seats in the Michigan Senate are up for election in 2014.  Republicans currently have a 27-11 supermajority, and have controlled the senate since 1983.  Republican control of the state senate has prevented democrats from complete control of Michigan’s government in some years, and stopped a lot of bad things from being passed.

Fortunately for Republicans, the Michigan state senate is up only in midterms, which usually favor Republicans much more than presidential years.  Republicans had a good year in 2014, picking up one state senate seat, following four pickups in 2010.

The 2010 redistricting produced a map that was moderately pro-Republican, while complying with all relevant laws.

Michigan Redistricting: Official Republican State Senate Map Released
Michigan Redistricting: Republican State Senate Map Passed

There are 26 open seats due to term-limits, 7 D and 19 R.  There may be other openings due to retirement or seeking another office.

All current state senators are former state representatives except three (Colbeck, Conyers, Hertel).  This pattern held in the past, and most credible candidates this time are current or former state reps.

I have included election data for the 2014 state senate election, and McCain (2008), Romney (2012), and Trump (2016) results in each district.  More data is available from Republican Michigander and RRH Elections.

Republican Michigander district profiles (see sidebar)
RRH Michigan Senate Data File

The McCain numbers look terrible for Republicans because he collapsed after publicly pulling out of Michigan.  The largest McCain percentage in any Michigan state senate district won by a democrat in the past twelve years is 46.2% in (old) district 31.

Here is a breakdown of the individual races.  State reps years in office are listed after their names, with P meaning present.

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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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Michigan, Michigan Politics

Jihad Better Believe It!

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Washtenaw County fails in its mission to equally apply the law.

Stupidity must be painful or it continues.

Unfortunately, it continues.  From Jihad Watch:

Back in November, a University of Michigan Muslim student reported that she was “accosted by a white man who told her to remove her hijab or he would set her ablaze with a cigarette lighter.”

So eager was she to be the face of an “Islamophobic” attack by a white supremacist that she invented the whole story about this “white man.” Yet rather than be held accountable, “the Washtenaw County Prosecutors Office is not proceeding with any legal action,” perhaps because they don’t want to appear “Islamophobic.”

At the time of her fabricated report, the university’s public safety and security division flew into emergency mode and rushed to “call the incident an act of ‘hate and intimidation’ and ‘ethnic intimidation’”.

Michigan penal code 750.411a says “not so fast”

Sec. 411a.

(1) Except as otherwise provided in subsections (2) and (3), a person who intentionally makes a false report of the commission of a crime, or intentionally causes a false report of the commission of a crime to be made, to a peace officer, police agency of this state or of a local unit of government, 9-1-1 operator, or any other governmental employee or contractor or employee of a contractor who is authorized to receive reports of a crime, knowing the report is false, is guilty of a crime as follows:

And while the prosecutor has a degree of latitude as to whether this crime is prosecuted, the lack of prosecution in this case clearly defines ‘unequal treatment’ under the law.

The law is NOT equally enforced in Washtenaw is it?   In a ten year period Washtenaw prosecutors stuck it to 197 felony false reporters, and 139 misdemeanor false reporters.

FAIL.

 

You Betcha! (19)Nuh Uh.(1)

Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion

Moderation

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Post, Comment, Whine. this isn't Facebook.

Sometimes you gotta make the call.

Usually I prefer to let things lay.  If someone posts a comment that is especially rude, it may come down, but there is a high threshold.  Sometimes an article is a little too ‘titillating’ to be allowed, at least on RightMi.com.  Again, it takes a pretty bad piece for me to kick in website survival mode.

Some contributors have no such survival instincts however.  They could care less about the their own reputation, much less that of this site.  And for a conservative web log, the liberal practice of allowing random postings for self (or specialized) promotion has been allowed to continue.

But if your only post is to slander another member of the community here, or to whine about how badly you were treated, it goes into the private (members only section)

I’ll let you figure out how to get there.

 

 

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