Well, yesterday’s, as I just noticed today but, it is noteworthy: Click here.
You see, once one moves past what I call Chuck’s cutesy outhouse-genius mentality of telling wondering tales, it all comes down to the $116,000,000.00 baked into Proposal 1 that Chuck & Co. would like to get their hands on for Rick Snyder’s perpetual Detroit bailout and his Utopian moving of chattel schemes.
There are many viable Plan B options in the works, and we all know that. The end.
Ps. we all should thank our lucky stars for term limits. Moving to a part time legislature is way past its needing, too.
Pps. does one wonder why Chuck is so sensitive about protecting the insurance lobby sitting on $18 Billion without ever opening up their books for audit?
Just sayin’…
(22)Nuh Uh.
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So that's what became of Chuck "the TOOLman" Moss.
Is it just me, or does any time these community activists look for "investment" in their pet cause, their first stop isn't to Wall Street or the nearest bank where the money really is, but instead to the nearest politician?
If politicians were restricted on what they can spend public money on with something like, say the Constitution, I can't help but wonder how much of their own personal money they would sink into these cockamamie schemes lie the Redundant Transportation Authority?
These are not two very popular opinions...yet they were mentioned in passing above and I've always felt that somebody in conservative circles has needed to question the concept(s) at every turn over the past decade or so:
We can't reasonably fix what has taken this long to break 'part-time' period. If we fix it so well that this is the case....hallelujah. Yet at this point in our '(failed) experiment' we aren't even to the point where we can pass an extremely weak FOIA law without it taking literally generations to limp across the finish line ineffectively. We don't care about transparency. We could care less as to even forcing our legislators to enforce or wholesale change the Open Meetings Act...the very most BASIC of tools that we have (presently) to determine what the next step towards 'reform' should actually be (intelligently) in the first place. I don't want a part-time professional. I want somebody in there FULL TIME guarding the store and could care less if he or she has their feet up on the desk all day long waiting for the next shark to circle the lifeboat.
Secondly, I am very frankly sick and tired of this MCPP and often even 'union'-based philosophy of simply "closing the fund" as the fix-all solution to every single fraudulently administered pension/get-rich-quick-and-keep-it-that-way-for-life scheme of the past decade or so. Close the fund? How about declaring that we simply can't possibly 'fund the fund'...and give 3/4 of what we are paying out right now in local/state bankruptcy (our true state of being) courts to those stuck with cleaning up the messes that 'the fund' created? I need to find somebody to do a job for not even half of what some guy now laying on a beach far away from here intentionally left in shambles? What do you 'pay' people who are willing to dig up the dead bodies all around them, point fingers as to how it all happened and educate our children so that it never happens again...to them?
I want BRAVE individuals doing the job NOW that others simply did for the quickest way out of this state and a check in the mail for life. If we don't make this combat job full time..LIFETIME if they can prove that they're at least 'trying' at the polls (we have already proven that the grassroots can't consistently field quality candidates against the political machines) and well worth their while financially by taking away from the crooks and giving it to our saviors?..good luck with finding your 'ideal' (knowledgeable/professional/even dependable) part-time legislator on a term-limited basis.
There, I said it. Let's not ask our kids to clean up horrifying messes and deal with shyster types (ever hung out outside a legislative session in Lansing and simply 'looked around'?) even INITIALLY for anything less than what we can take from those who don't deserve it already (the unprotected teacher health care pension comes to mind immediately).
I love heroes just like everybody else. I simply don't fantasize anymore that they're all rich, live in a cave somewhere under Gotham City and are willing to 'spring to action part time/for free' to risk their lives/livelihoods fighting ever villain popping up past, present or future.
...it might also help to remember that after literally years of being forced to hear the Mackinaw Center (lying)equating Pension Obligation Bonds http://michiganvotes.org/Legislation.aspx?ID=146854...as the end of the free world as we all know it...they immediately 'saw the light' when it was even so much as 'proposed' that present day pension manipulators ride off into the sunset (backwards) guns blazing at even their own grandchildren wide-eyed expecting to follow.
Our own gray haired TPers were riding shotgun with the MCPP/everybody praying to be 'bonded out' at the expense of their oh-so-precious-tax-related 'principles' at the same time...which (to me) makes ANY reference to ANYONE who speaks of (now)'closing the fund (not necessarily the author here)' laughable' (or should we cry?) at best.
So, let us get this straight here. You say that local government who has closed its "defined benefit" for "defined contribution" is bad, and your great ideal of no term limits and full time politicians in Lansing are a good thing yet, you bitch about being unable to clean your own backyard who are neither term limited nor part time politicians.
That's not an oxymoron, however, you are a regular moron, JD. And, no, all your incessant communalism child worship wailing in the world will not change the fact that they're not my problem but, they are their own worst enemy. Besides, you poke it you own it.
Now, we all will await your next War and Peace-sized rambling comment.
'..So, let us get this straight here. You say that local government who has closed its "defined benefit" for "defined contribution" is bad, and your great ideal of no term limits and full time politicians in Lansing are a good thing yet, you bitch about being unable to clean your own backyard who are neither term limited nor part time politicians..."
Not even close.
You and I both know that all this 'hailing'/patting-themselves-on-the-back over these past few years for closing the door on or 'buying out' any pension/pensioner has been the largest scam and biggest smokescreen that this state has ever produced..period. I know these people and you do too. They've been playing a tax-funded game of musical chairs for decades now with every loser a winner...and when the music stops?... everybody's a winner save those who have to set up the chairs again and now play the game 'just for fun'. It's the same game that we played in '07-'08 when the wheels came off and every 'patriot' was calling for NOBODY to be bailed out. Yet when it came time to face the music (ie. in 2012 with the unquestioned unanimous passage of "pension obligation bonds with no vote of the people required)...every gray-haired 'patriot' was suddenly looking at HIS funding sources being bankrupt several times over due to unfunded liabilities..as a WHOLE different ballgame!
No loud calls for local municipalities or even 'state' bankruptcies 'here' (by gosh!)in order to to start from zero/redistribute to those forced to clean up the sewage/flush it out..."..we'll simply tax burden our grandchildren with Cadillac benefits that none ELSE will certainly ever receive in the future history of man...and the hope/pray that the only people who actually 'know us' (my generation) keep their mouths SHUT as to how it all exactly happened!
Throw insults, do what you wish...even kick me off of here.
This is what happened in 2012 when folks were intentionally silent in regards to POBs "without a vote of the people required".
The entire long-in-the-tooth 'conservative' movement here in Michigan wouldn't say a word about it or (heaven forbid) OPPOSE it 'then'...and they certainly aren't able to reference any opposition to it NOW...which obviously seems to be a good enough reason to shoot the messenger during any simple history lesson concerning same.
It was the single most important piece of Michgan-based legislation in possibly the single most important election cycle in who-knows-how-long...and it passed unanimously without a word from anybody in conservative circles even WITH "no vote of the people required" PROUDLY stamped on a multi-billion dollar package.
Our children will never forget it and they will (rightfully) USE IT every single time that some old fart pops up and tries to tell them about all that they 'tried' to do before everything went south.
Not your problem?...I hope that they don't feel the same way about older folk when the time comes for them to make financial decisions regarding 'us' which aren't necessarily be favorable by simple necessity .
I'll take it even one step further to offer that this is one of the major reasons that few become involved at the grassroots (conservative) level in any level of thoughtful discourse.
Either there is someone loudly insulting someone as everyone stands around without a word to say otherwise...
...or a somehow 'taboo' topic such as term limits or part time legislators rears its ugly head yet again...and you're either 'for it' without reservation or shouted down angrily due to a long ago hammered in assumption that this was indeed the price of admission to simple conservative conversation.
People have different opinions, folks...'get over it' or you'll be stuck with the same old guys rehashing the same old 'sacred truths' over and over again...with no hope of ever recruiting anyone under '50' into the conversation (if there ever was one).
Well, John, you did not disappoint in bleating incoherence, however, you could probably run for local office and be the change you want to see, yes? But, we all know that ain't gonna happen so, ramble on for now as we also know you're not an individual who keeps their word.
As for your under fifty crowd you lust for, well, here's 200+ useful Millennial idiots who make Harry Hay's cultural Marxism proud. Again, am not impressed with your diaper sniffing child worshiping Bee-esS.
But, ya, when the entertainment loses its luster again, and the distraction outweighs your value, count on wearing out your welcome on my posts. If other author's care to suffer you within their posts that's their problem - not mine.
Truth.
"praying to be bonded out"
There was action based on municipalities wanting to do this. That is all. From what I have seen, MOST TP folks have had little exposure to what is a an absolute catastrophe coming down the pike due to can-kicking pension obligations and a MERS system that is less than forthright to local legislative types.
Bonding out is a bad idea. Check.
Do people understand the issue? Not very well. intentionally silent, not-so-much, - Ignorant, yes.
As for kicking out.. the are very few conditions under which anyone would be removed from the conversation other than their own discretion. I welcome the discussion; each person speaks for themselves.
Precisely why I clarified worn out welcomes to the confines of my posts.
OABTW, that's why you gotta follow the juggernaut's bouncing ball to keep up with Lansing's marching orders, Hoss.
Not to worry, Boehner and McConnell have the situation under control. You know, Mitch's Kentucky wingman will save everything. You can bet your Yob on that.