LOL. Fail Bot. Elissa Slotkin will respond to President Donald J. Trump’s Joint Address to Congress tonight. Senator Slotkin stands…
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READ MORE ►Thrown together for your amusement/entertainment. From the perspective of a fly on the wall in Lansing. You Betcha! (10)Nuh Uh.(0)
READ MORE ►Read: http://michigan.gov/minewswire/0,4629,7-136-3452-370158–,00.html
{Yawn} y’all were warned…
Thank your unscrupulous legislators for ushering in the replacements. As always, their votes can be viewed here.
(10)Nuh Uh.
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I have never been a fan of pressured giving.
It’s giving Tuesday, and one might wonder if the United Way is, or ever was an organization that speaks to our collective benevolence in conscience. We might ask what joy is there in supporting organizations that encourage business to round up it’s employees and make them actively acknowledge that they are “not giving today, thank you.”
As an employee of UPS in Traverse City a couple of decades ago, I attended the Friday morning Charity of the week sessions where United Way sent representatives to talk about the good it was doing with our pulled-from-the-paycheck donations. We stood around for a half hour (paid by UPS) listening to the mandatory presentation on why we should continue giving. I Didn’t much care for that; I was there to work.
(19)Nuh Uh.(0)Notice he mentions Common Core? Ya, me too. When 2018 comes around, remember that in Michigan.
H/t Sundance
(11)Nuh Uh.(0)Yeah, we gripe when its due.
But we know how good we still have it. May you all be safe, prosperous, and have much to be thankful for this holiday and beyond.
(9)Nuh Uh.(1)
+ Hi–Blast needed on Michigan’s SB306 (again!)…it’ll be up for a vote this time…This is a bill to bind Michigan to an interstate compact to pay a staff to force other states to option in on a constitution convention supposedly to pass a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. There are many problems.
FIRST, there is no guarantee a ConCon will be limited to one issue, or that it will be bound by the ratification. More than 600 times it has been tried and each time dropped when folks realized the risk. Sec. of State Thomas Jefferson pursued it in 1796 and when the Jay Supreme refused the opine that such a convention could be limited to one issue. James Madison was alarmed when two states were calling for and Art V ConCon just a year after the Constitution was ratified. It dawned on him that this provision slipped through and was very dangerous. If a ConCon was too dangerous when Washington was President, John Adams VP, Hamilton and Jefferson in the Cabinet, Madison in the Senate and Jay on the Court, how much more dangerous would it be now with an electorate that chose Obama twice, and a political class that puts in congressional leadership people like Pelosi and Reid and Republican capitulators like McConnell and Boehner/Ryan? It is WAAAY too risky. The Constitution needs to enforced not gutted
SECOND, this compact allows Governors to name the delegates and binds that the delegate from first state to ratify (South Carolina) will chair the ConCon. It seeks to bind states and the Congress in ways contrary to the Constitution and Art. V and sets other criteria that will not stand up to current Constitutional authorities. Under Article V states petition but Congress calls a convention and will set criteria. The same Congress that will not limit spending.
(13)Nuh Uh.(2)
Less noticed during this year’s roads tax furore, a roiling commercial property tax dispute has exposed a widespread, sub rosa business activities tax hidden in commercial real property taxes. A hidden tax you have been paying with every purchase at big box chain retailers who occupy stores they themselves own. Big box retailers have been exposing and successfully challenging this corrupt assessing practice through the Michigan Tax Tribunal and local units of government are howling over the loss of their ill gotten revenue. Michael B. Shapiro of Honigman, Miller has been leading the charge against these bloated assessments.
Local units of government are demanding the Michigan Legislature overturn long standing real estate valuation principles and the Michigan court rulings which hold that assessed true cash value (i.e. fair market value) for tax purposes be based upon what a property would be sold for at arm’s length. They want true cash value to effectively incorporate the retail success of current owner-occupants. This artificially jacks up the property’s true cash value, its taxes, and the prices you pay at the store. Remember that businesses don’t pay taxes, customers of those businesses – in this case you – do.
Michigan’s nitwit media have deceitfully relabeled traditional true cash value assessment the ‘Dark Stores Loophole’. Local government organizations are screaming about lost revenues. Even MoveOn.org is right in there with a petition to support their favorite spenders. This is a devious effort to stampede our state’s legislators into codifying creative assessment methods solely intended to extract surreptitious revenues from shoppers. A follow on to the more blatant ‘Amazon Tax’ campaign of 2014. The State of Michigan got into your pocket last year, now it is your local government’s turn.
The term ‘Dark Stores Loophole’ was created to suggest that vacant big box stores have lower, fire sale values when compared to occupied stores. True enough, but we are discussing assessments used to determine real estate, i.e. property, taxes. Not taxes on business activity. The two creative assessment methods used most often to loot shoppers are ‘construction cost‘ and ‘imputed lease‘ calculations. Each might be valid under some very limited circumstances, but both are entirely invalid when assessing big box retailers.
(9)Nuh Uh.(0)Folks,
As a quick heads up, House Bills 5074-5076, which provide the tax carveouts for datacenter operators, will be heard in the Tax Policy committee on 1 December at Edit: 1030 (previously Noon).
I plan on being there, and if you want to crash the party, you should too.
I still haven’t seen any traffic for the Senate Bills (Senate Bills 616-618) – which are an identical match.
(11)Nuh Uh.(0)
Susan Demas, not exactly known for sympathy to conservative causes must be having fun.
Recently editing the Inside Michigan Politics scoring of conservative and liberal state representatives, she gets to shame Republicans with their own rhetoric, and as a bonus, can gloat over the self inflicted loss of true conservative voting in the Michigan house. Her report:
Inside Michigan Politics has compiled the definitive rankings of the “Most Liberal and Most Conservative” members of the House of Representatives for 2015. The rankings are based on 28 litmus test roll-call votes this year.
“Most Conservative” winners Courser and Gamrat both notched 4.8% liberal voting records. Following them is Rep. Gary Glenn (R-Midland) with a 7.1% liberal record. Reps. Jim Runestad (R-White Lake) and Lana Theis (R-Brighton) tied for third by posting 10.7% liberal voting records.
Snap.
A reminder BTW, that such ‘diehard’ conservatives Glenn, Runestad, and Theis all voted yea on the expulsion of Gamrat, and the expected expulsion of Courser prompted him to resign prior to expulsion. Gosh, they could have used a vote or two of support on HB4736, as each voted correctly to deny the government beast more of our kibble.
Hello Birthday Tax.
(11)Nuh Uh.(0)
The gravity exerted by SE Michigan is nothing short of incredible.
Bailouts of Arts, Pensions, Water systems, and of course the cherry on the sundae, school debt. From today’s Cap-Con, Summarized here:
“Various bailout plans are currently under discussion in Lansing as an alternative to entering federal bankruptcy court. One plan pitched by Gov. Rick Snyder comes with a $710 million price tag.”
Don’t make any plans with that mattress money folks.
(12)Nuh Uh.(0)
