Tag: stimulus (page 4)

According to the administration's favorite reporter at the AP, the potential for $5.5 billion in cash borrowed by the federal government and loaned to the state of Michigan is just the kind of gimmick and one-time fix that has "the Democratic governor cautiously looking over her dream (spending) list again."

We might just get a sneak peak of that list tomorrow when she addresses the Michigan legislature and everyone else twisted or bored enough to listen (yes, that definitely includes me) during tomorrow evening's State of the State speech.

She'll propose measures to help homeowners avoid foreclosure and give the jobless more time to pay their overdue utility bills. She'll ask for a law banning municipal utilities from shutting off power and natural gas to the disabled and elderly. And she'll have an insurance advocate she appointed last year propose ways to reduce auto insurance rates.

She's also looking at infrastructure and construction programs that she claimed on cable TV yesterday could create 150,000 Michigan jobs.  Of course, there are three problems with that... 1) it's misleading because most of the folks eligible for that work will end up with more than one of the jobs over the course of their flash-in-the-pan existence, 2) they aren't long-term jobs, meaning that after a construction project is finished, its finished forever and 3) the number is just plain total bologna.  

Of course she'd be hard pressed to spend $5.5 billion on filling potholes, even in Michigan.  The rest will be used to erase deficits, secure the good old social safety net and will be passed around to public universities.  In other words, it'll get cycled through the bureaucracy from one government agency to another until every last dollar is spent.

Read on...

Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) has had a busy afternoon.  He began by meeting with the GOP conference and President Obama and is this afternoon testifying before the Rules Committee but in between took a few minutes from his hectic schedule to speak exclusively with RightMichigan.com about a pair of amendments to the massive Obama stimulus package he submitted today.  

And we're not talking about run-of-the-mill process stuff here.  Roger's proposals are dynamic, exciting and hold a heck of a lot of promise.  So what are they all about?  Interview follows:

Read on...