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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Philosophy, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Mackinac Policy Conference At The Grand Hotel: Protect Your Wallet!

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Detroit Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference 2015 Starts Today - You Won't Like The Outcome

Is that a donkey in front of the Grand Hotel?

Is that a donkey in front of the Grand Hotel?

Later today Michigan’s Self Very Important Persons start checking in at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s 2015 Mackinac Policy Conference held on Mackinac Island. At $ 2,150 per person for Chamber members and $ 2,925 for Chamber wannabees, average Michiganders will not be much in evidence. The attendees list reads like the last itemized contribution report for SafeRoadsYes!, along with the clueless Michigan politicians who endorsed Proposal 1.

The Detroit Regional Chamber’s “Vision and Pillars” for the 2015 Conference is innocuous enough, but the Conference’s agenda is far less oblique. A host of left luminaries and crony capitalists orbiting Michigan government will be plotting higher taxes, bigger spending, and more vexatious regulations.  When they are not drinking.

The official agenda is all about Detroit, Michigan schools, alternative business subsidies, and the roads, but there is also the transformation of Detroit Water & Sewerage Department into the Great Lakes Water Authority lurking in the background. Roads are the most interesting part of the official 2015 Conference agenda, given the near universal support for Proposal 1 amongst the attendees. Despite touting ‘vision’, expect the Conference to endorse new taxes over improved efficiencies and better engineering.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Philosophy, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Did Proposal 1 Decamp to Washington?

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Spectacular Death in Michigan No Bar to Success in Washington

Government Spending Image 3While Michiganders were being entertained and infuriated by the lies of Proposal 1 proponents, few of us noticed that the very same roads funding strife is reaching a crescendo in Washington. The Federal Highway Trust Fund spends about $ 50 billion dollars on ‘transportation’ across the U.S.A. each year. Michigan received $ 1.39 billion from the HTF in Fiscal Year 2014 for new construction of roads and bridges, along with mass transit activities. As a point of reference, Michigan spent an additional $ 2 billion of funds raised within the state for the same ‘transportation’ purposes. The Federal HTF paid for 40.9% of Michigan ‘transportation’ spending in FY 2014.

Funded in the past by an $ 0.184 per gallon Federal gasoline tax ($ 0.244 per gallon on diesel fuel), the Highway Trust Fund’s traditional fuel tax revenues have fallen to about $ 34 billion. The Federal government has been supplementing the Highway Trust Fund from general deficit spending revenues since 2008. In Fiscal Year 2014, the Federal government supplemented the Highway Trust Fund with $ 11 billion in general revenues.

How did this happen?

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Philosophy, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

From each according to their ability…to each according to their need – Part, oh, whatever

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First off, I’d just like to thank those who have sent in suggestions so far for “The Right Michigan Solution for Fixing Michigan Roads” (and yes, I have gotten a few already). I’ve got an update that I like to pass along after the fold.

And for the record, the title of this post isn’t referring to these “poor” schemps.

{More below the fold}

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Philosophy, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Weasel Words? Really? We can do much better than that!

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You people in Lansing are supposed to be Conservatives. Why not try acting like a Conservative for a change?

There is an axiom that everyone has probably heard numerous times already that goes something like this: “Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”

A friend of mine would add in a second line to that to make it a little bit more interesting…”Those who fail to learn the lesson of history correctly, well they are just plain doomed.”

It strongly looks like were seeing that second line play out here in Michigan after the defeat of Proposal 1.

This time around, though, it doesn’t have to end that way.

{More after the fold}

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Conservative News, Democrats, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Philosophy, Republicans

Mackinac Center’s ‘VoteSpotter’ Application for Smartphones

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A Useful Political Intelligence Tool for Political Junkies

VoteSpotter JPG Image
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has created a free, interactive smartphone app which tracks state and federal bills pending floor action and your legislators’ votes.on those bills. This useful app is called VoteSpotter and has has been debugged to the point where it works well. There are only about 1,000 Android users of this app presently, but it is growing in popularity. It is available from both the Google PlayStore and the Apple IOS App Store.

You enter your voting address and the program determines your state and federal representatives from its database. Then you receive regular notifications of impending legislation soon to be voted upon by those legislators, described in plain English. You can then contact your legislator on any legislation for which you receive a notification, indicate your preference before the vote, and then concur or disagree with your legislator after the vote. Legislators have access to the ‘polls’, but not your individual information unless you elect to send them an email through the program.

Mackinac Center is now in the process of extending this application beyond the State of Michigan.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Michigan, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Rent Seeking, Republicans

Day by Day the Irony Grows Thicker

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Prop 1 Unpopularity to Voters was Unprecedented
‘We can elect Democrats and get that result’

Go read for yourself.

kermit

All I’m going to say about Snyder’s SRY Team is, does it take a $100k contribution to sit at the table?

Now, we return you to regularly scheduled blame the other Party programming…

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2015 MIGOP State Convention, Democrats, Elections, Michigan Politics, Philosophy, Republicans

Protecting The Brand

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We have an opportunity to clean up the way in which Republican candidates are selected.

This weekend the Michigan Republican State Committee will likely vote on a motion submitted by Tom McMillin to rescind the Open Primary rules that were passed last year.

Generally, many of us who are still in the GOP have decried the corrupting influence of those who could give a rats ass about the platform; a platform which is perfectly reasonable if it was honored.   A couple days ago, Tom wrote to state committee members

Dear fellow State Committee members
Attached is an FAQ regarding rescinding the Open Primary rules passed by the prior state committee.

This year’s state committee, not last year’s, will administer next year’s primary.  We should not shrink back from that responsibility.  It’s clear that Republican activists are tired of people outside our party influencing the primary process, especially when casting votes.

I think it would be wise and healthy for us to reset the table, discuss and debate the options and have the current state committee come to a conclusion.

Sincerely,
Tom McMillin
8th District Chair

I don’t have a copy of the FAQ at this time, but have learned to trust McMillin’s instinct on items like this.

And frankly, we’ve seen the damaging effects of the corrupting influence.

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