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(8)Nuh Uh.(2)Taxes
Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Taxes
15 Million Dollars Worth Of Dark Sky
by Jason • • 6 Comments
Emmet County commissioners are apparently out of touch with the electorate.
I Could have predicted this.
Perhaps I would have; if I lived in Emmet County. However, there should still be nothing surprising about an apparent divergence of priority between the voters and the elected numbskulls who ‘serve’ them. The same type of thinking that drives the nonsense in DC can be just as bad locally, and have a more immediate financial effect.
Reading the bills, or allowing a real debate to happen before committing millions of dollars extracted forcefully from taxpayers should be paramount. The latter option was never allowed to happen however. A year ago, Emmet County commissioners jacked the electorate without the chance to object, leaving them to foot the bill for a $15 Million boondoggle.
As quick as a shooting star, Emmet County commissioners (pictured above) approved a sale of $15 million in bonds with nearly half of the proceeds being used to build an observatory and a new event building at the Headlands International Dark Sky Park in Mackinaw City.
Without the chance to object.
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(19)Nuh Uh.(2)Cronyism, Michigan, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Philosophy, Republicans, Taxes
Tuesday’s TOTD
by Corinthian Scales • • 1 Comment
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(32)Nuh Uh.(2)All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Fees, Flint Water Fiasco, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes
Unconstitutional: Great Lakes Water Authority Lease Violates Michigan Constitution
by 10x25MM • • 8 Comments
--- Absence of Enabling Legislation Clearly Violates Article III, Section 6 --- 40 Year Lease Period Clearly Violates Article VII, Section 30
Friday, the Great Lakes Water Authority board approved a 40 year duration lease of Detroit Water & Sewerage Department’s assets and operations outside of the city of Detroit. This approval passed by a 5 to 1 vote with only Macomb County’s representative on the GLWA board opposed. The terms of the lease subordinate the DW&SD to the GLWA, a new intergovernmental authority created out of the ashes of the City of Detroit’s bankruptcy by a Memorandum of Understanding.
This deal was constructed as a lease to evade the 1963 Michigan Constitution‘s requirement, under Article VII, Section 25, for a vote of Detroit’s electors to approve the sale of any public utility. However, by constructing the deal as a lease, the City of Detroit is essentially granting a lease franchise covering the DW&SD’s water and sewerage operations to GLWA. The 40 year term of this lease franchise clearly exceeds the 30 year maximum permitted by Article VII, Section 30 of our 1963 Constitution:
Merriam-Webster defines a ‘franchise’ as “ the right to sell a company’s goods or services in a particular area; also, a business that is given such a right”. Exactly the nature of the GLWA lease agreement with the City of Detroit. Should you doubt that the City of Detroit constitutes a ‘company’, Merriam-Webster defines a ‘company’ as “ an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise”. Exactly what DW&SD has been doing for over 100 years.
State Representative Kurt Heise (R-20th) from Plymouth has challenged the establishment of GLWA under the 1963 Michigan Constitution’s Article VII, Section 28:
Taken together with the 1963 Michigan Constitution’s Article III, Section 5:
it establishes our Legislature’s authority over intergovernmental units. But these two sections do not unambiguously grant the Michigan legislature exclusive authority over intergovernmental units, so there is probably legal wiggle room here. Contrary to Representative Heise’s contention, a good lawyer could make a case that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court could establish the GLWA under Article VII, Section 28 and Article III, Section 5.
However…..
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(17)Nuh Uh.(1)All the Other Stuff, Cronyism, Democrats, Fees, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes
$ 3 Gas Across Michigan: Warming You Up For A Gas Tax Ratchet?
by 10x25MM • • 1 Comment
House Road Funding Package Puts Gas Tax Increases on Autopilot --- Tax on B5 Diesel for Heavy Trucks Cut 20%
Southfield, MI Gas Prices 12 June 2015
Michiganders woke up this morning to discover that regular unleaded gasoline prices are now $ 3 per gallon, a $ .25 increase, or more, from yesterday. Refinery problems, summer driving season, and SE MI’s special fuel blend are blamed in the press, but really this price shock is an intended consequence the Federal Reserve’s zero interest policy and their determination to boost stock prices. Oil derivatives are cheaper than dirt when there is no cost to money.
Wall Street wasn’t happy early this year when plunging oil prices drove down stock averages. So someone is furiously selling off Treasury paper and buying oil & gasoline futures contracts. Treasury interest rates have been rising in lockstep with oil & gas prices, on the same days, even the same hours. Officially, no one knows who is behind these trades, but the Federal Reserve is sitting on $ 4 trillion in Treasury paper and is fighting any effort to audit their holdings. A coincidence? Not likely.
Your government extracting more money from your wallet.
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(14)Nuh Uh.(0)Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Fees, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Rent Seeking, Taxes
We’ll show you!
by KG One • • 4 Comments
You’d better not mess with Detroit! Or, you’ll get what’s coming to you!
The latest shakedown of Taxpayers in Southeastern Michigan took an interesting turn this morning.
Not because of its inaccessible meeting location at Waterworks Park in Detroit.
But, because of something that wasn’t expected during the meeting.
{Oh, you’re gonna love this…}
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(13)Nuh Uh.(0)Detroit, Fees, Humor in Michigan, Michigan, Opinion, Rent Seeking, Taxes
$uper $oakers and Suckers
by Corinthian Scales • • 0 Comments
Yep. Y’alls is getting the government you deserve – good and hard.
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(11)Nuh Uh.(0)All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Republicans, Taxes
Let Them Buy Their OWN Damned Insurance.
by Jason • • 4 Comments
We finally have a chance to tell Obama where to shove the atrocity known as the ACA, but ...
The play is set.
State Senator Jim Marleau is simply a two faced Obama sycophant. He operates under the Republican banner, but he has presented himself as a wimpy cradle-to-grave patriarchal potlicker. On the upcoming decision in the Supreme Court he doesn’t represent the stated GOP view that Obamacare is bad, but rather wonders aloud (sympathetically) what all the leeches in Michigan will do if their precious health care entitlements go away. And then he suggests something must be done!
“He could have done it that way to begin with, but he wasn’t really excited about that,” said state Sen. Jim Marleau, R-Lake Orion.
“I think he’d have to. Our back is up against the wall, and we’ve got a lot of people in this state who are using it. That’s the thing. What do you do with those people?”
Let them find their own insurance without fear of penalties you imbecile!
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(16)Nuh Uh.(1)All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Fees, Fees, Flint Water Fiasco, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes
Southeastern Michigan Water Fight
by 10x25MM • • 3 Comments
Last Act of the Detroit Bankruptcy Stumbles Behind a Wall of Secrecy
The final Detroit bankruptcy plan established a 14 June deadline to reach an agreement transferring operating control of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department’s (DW&SD) assets outside of Detroit to the newly created Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA). The State of Michigan, Detroit, Wayne County, Oakland County and Macomb County all signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) creating the GLWA late last year, subject to a 200-day due diligence period. Under the MoU, the City of Detroit would receive a $ 50 million annual lease payment from the GLWA while retaining full control of DW&SD assets and operations within the city. Erstwhile DW&SD customers outside Detroit were promised a 4% cap on annual water and sewerage increases for a 10 year period, which have been running above 10% per annum, in residential bills, in most Southeastern Michigan communities.
In point of fact, what has actually been occurring are secret negotiations over future tax increases across Southeastern Michigan. Water rates have become a surrogate form of incremental taxation. These negotiations will set tax fee increment rates for decades into the future. For taxpayers ratepayers who haven’t even been born yet. How are these negotiations going?
No one who knows is talking. Why?
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(13)Nuh Uh.(0)Democrats, Michigan, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Taxes
Kids, it Looks Like You’re Walking
by Corinthian Scales • • 0 Comments
Read: http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2015-HB-4672
Thank you, Sam, come again.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever pay a $500 fine to those in government for smoking a legal product in a personal vehicle.
But, hey, you know what? All those liberal Republicans and their barking moonbat Progressive Left Democrat counterparts just love children to death.
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