Tag Archive for MDOT

Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

MDOT Station Hosts Wild Party

by Jason • August 17, 2015 • 6 Comments

Perhaps we ask the MDOT why the May 5th question failed so badly.

The Michigan Department Of Transportation continues to ‘effectively’ use transportation monies provided by the richest state citizenry in the nation.

But a “wild party?” OK, maybe just because its usually accompanied by cookies and orange juice. And yes, as some readers might suspect, I have the sarc switch on. ‘Effective’ use of our taxpayer dollars might actually mean that we don’t have to face the crony machine kicking into full gear tomorrow. The Steudle led MDOT does indeed continue to spin its wheels and waste our resources in areas not reflected in their mission.

There is no question the good works provided by our blood letting missions will save lives, and continue to provide our hospitals with the perishable commodity that we all share. Indeed we have need for those organizations who will accommodate blood drive efforts, and we hope those needs will be met.

However, it is neither the mission or responsibility of the Michigan Department of Transportation to manage,, aid, provide assistance, or promote such efforts. Yet they think it is:

August 17, 2015 — The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) encourages state employees and the general public to give the gift of life by donating blood at the Ishpeming Transportation Service Center (TSC) Aug. 26.

The Upper Peninsula Regional Blood Center will have its mobile collection vehicle at the facility from noon to 2 p.m. The TSC is located at 100 S. Westwood Drive in Ishpeming.

“Making the decision to donate blood can save lives, it’s really just that simple,” said Harmony Michaud, the MDOT employee coordinating the event. “We sometimes take for granted that there will always be blood readily available in an emergency, but what if no one donated? It only takes 10 minutes to donate and it could help save a family member or friend – or someone else’s family member or friend. There are a lot of people who need long-term treatments and donated blood is their lifeline.”

Harmony’s paycheck is from the state (taxpayers), not the UP Regional Blood Center.

Perhaps her time might be best spent filling out the warranty orders?

Policy Changes:

Making MDOT accountable.

What good are road warranties, if you won’t enforce the ones you have already?

Given that literally MILLIONS were wasted when it was recently reported that MDOT let road warranties expire without any action being taken, legislation should be implemented to hold those accountable. No one would tolerate an employee who simply walked off in million in Michigan Taxpayers money, so why should hiding under the guise of being an appointed official and not doing the job you were hired to do, be any different?

Exactly.

Some things are hard to change, yes?

Some folks expect action to fund more of the same to happen this week.

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

Plan B – A Philosophy

by 10x25MM • May 7, 2015 • 7 Comments

Spending Money Is Not Leadership

Kwame’s and Bobbie’s ‘Bridge of Bucks’ over Telegraph Road

Now that Michigan voters have mercilessly dispatched Proposal 1 to the garbage can of history, lets talk a bit about the philosophy of a truly effective plan to get Michigan’s roads and bridges up to par. This will provide a proper foundation for developing a ‘Plan B’ which will actually improve Michigan’s roads and bridges, and be acceptable to the population as well.

The underlying premise of Proposal 1 was that the only action required to fix up Michigan’s roads and bridges was injecting big money into the Michigan Transportation Fund. The depraved philosophy of modern American government. Not true and the voters knew it. But Michigan’s power elite believed that opposition could be neutralized by icing a pile of feces with chocolate frosting. Didn’t work despite a lavish $ 10 million effort.

The condition of Michigan’s roads and bridges has only a casual relationship with the funds available in the MTF. In 2014, 11% of MTF funds were siphoned off by various State of Michigan Departments in the form of charge backs for ‘services’ rendered to the MTF, as well as priority grants that have little to do with roads and bridges. Debt service is also a component of this 11%, but that is effectively a payment for previous time preferences of bureaucrats and politicians. Then 9.5% of the remainder was diverted to the Comprehensive Transportation Fund for mass transit. Finally, the MTF was partitioned amongst the State Trunkline Fund (36%), county road agencies (34.6%), and cities (19.8%). In each partition, further funds are siphoned off by charge backs, pension payments, and OPEBs. What’s left for the roads is more a function of politicians and bureaucrats preferences at every level than the amount of money front loaded into the MTF.

So how do we proceed? First develop a philosophy to frame and inform the ‘Plan B’ debate. After the fold.

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Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Taxes

Now Where Did I See THAT Before?

by Jason • April 25, 2015 • 0 Comments

Endless supplies of throwing stones used for media purposes.

On the way to work yesterday morning, it dawned on me that I had seen a certain triangle shaped piece of road that was missing from the pavement somewhere else.

Then I recalled the Snyder/SafeRoads ‘rock giving tour.’ The travel business of the Governor handing out pieces of taxpayer owned property to media types around the state has been a boom. {word has it he is negotiating a deal with rock tossers from around the world for our surplus road bits}

Given the recent photo ops given by the ‘progressive’ governor, Maybe we can get Rick to travel back up here to ‘patch’ our roads too?

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Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

MDoT Train Wreck Still Emptying Michigan Wallets

by Jason • April 23, 2015 • 4 Comments

Michigan Department of Transportation passing even more cost through to taxpayers.

The failure that is Kirk Steudle and the Michigan Department of Transportation continues to demonstrate that it cannot plan nor manage taxpayer funds efficiently.

RightMi.com readers might recall that the MDoT has been spending taxpayer dollars to babysit equipment that other people own. In the last few years, it has amounted to a drop in the bucket when compared to what is a bloated state budget of 52+ billion smackers, right? But buckets eventually fill from all the droplets as we all know, and the spigot in this case is opening more. From the Lansing State Journal:

At the current lease rates, that means MDOT would have to sink about another $4.4 million into lease charges before it is able to put the cars into service.

That line is sufficient to point out that Steudle’s comment earlier in the year was nothing more than lip service.

“These cars are costing us money right now and we’ve got to figure out how are we going to … stop the bleeding,”

As the old joke goes .. “Whats this ‘we’ s##t Kemosabe?”

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Taxes

Where’s The Bridge?

by 10x25MM • March 16, 2015 • 6 Comments

Questionable MDoT Database Compromises Auditor General's Bridge Inspection Performance Audit

The Michigan Office of the Auditor General released its overdue performance audit of MDoT’s Bridge Inspection Program Friday afternoon, just in time to miss last week’s news cycle. Weekend news reports focused on bridge inspection frequency, but there is a more fundamental question which should be answered first: Are the MDoT bridge records which were audited complete and correct? Even remotely so?

The Federal Highway Administration collects bridge data from the State DoT’s and other sources to create and maintain the National Bridge Inventory. It is supposed to list all American bridges which have roads running across them or below them, along with ownership, identifiers, and condition data. Condition data is given as a number from 0 (failed) through 9 (good beyond current standards). These numbers then get converted into the descriptors you read in the press, such as ‘structurally deficient’, poor, good, etc.

The MOAG performance audit is replete with statistics derived from MDoT’s bridge inventory database which show – no surprise – that some of Michigan’s bridges are in poor shape. You can see MOAG’s statistics as of April 30th, 2014 in the audit or go to a searchable database of individual bridge data across the entire country, as of 2012, brought to us by Alexander Svirsky of MassRoads.com.

A first pass at the MOAG bridge inspection audit involved looking at the worst condition category of bridges, those rated 0 or 1 for failed or imminent failure. Going through the Wayne County owned bridge summary on Page 51 of the new MOAG audit, I was heartened to see that Wayne County has no condition category 0 or 1 bridges. But there are at least two zero condition category major bridges in Wayne County across the Rouge River, so let’s say I am experiencing a little cognitive dissonance just now.

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Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Taxes

Michigan Roads – How Bad?

by 10x25MM • March 9, 2015 • 10 Comments

You are about to be buried in pseudostatistics and factoids purporting to demonstrate just how bad Michigan roads are. We have already demonstrated that the TRIP vehicle maintenance factoids fabricated by a devious road contractors’ business league are a complete fraud.

Now State of Michigan government entities are unleashing a wave of propaganda intended to drive your vote on Proposal 2015-01. Two State of Michigan government entities have prepared campaign flyers on behalf of Proposal 15-1 using Michigander’s tax dollars: MDoT and the Transportation Asset Research Council (TAMC).

Both MDoT and TAMC have spent years preparing slick pamphlets decrying the sad condition of Michigan’s roads, citing PAvement Surface Evaluation and Rating (PASER) data collected by TAMC with MDoT and local road agency help. These pamphlets claim that 30 – 40 % of Michigan roads are in poor condition. But are they really?

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Republicans, Taxes

Pavlov’s Politicians

by 10x25MM • February 25, 2015 • 0 Comments

Reflex Conditioning Drives Uncontrolled Government Spending

The brilliant, Nobel Prize winning physiologist Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov demonstrated that you could condition a dog to salivate by sounding a metronome. All he had to do was sound the metronome when putting out food for his dogs. It did not take long for his dogs to associate the sound of the metronome with food. Then he no longer even had to put food out to get the dogs to salivate; he only had to sound the metronome.

Today, inferior rank politicians have been conditioned to salivate when a financial grant is offered by superior rank politicians. The only problem with these grants of largess is that they always come with caveats, and usually require matching funds. These restrictions are a deliberate – and successful – effort to frustrate all efforts to manage government expenditures.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Philosophy, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Taxes

Michigan Political Math: $ 1.2 Billion = $ 1.08 Billion

by 10x25MM • February 23, 2015 • 11 Comments

Mass Transit Skims $ 120 Million from Proposal 2015-01 Road Work Funds

Ever hear of the Michigan Comprehensive Transportation Fund? Ten cents of every Michigan fuel tax dollar gets diverted to this mass transportation slush fund. It is only just behind the sales tax as a diversion of your current fuel tax dollars from Michigan’s roads.

All motor vehicle fuel taxes collected in the State of Michigan are first deposited into the Michigan Transportation Fund. Then MCL 247.660 (1)(f) (Public Act 51 of 1951) dictates that 10% of the funds deposited in the Michigan Transportation Fund be immediately transferred to the Comprehensive Transportation Fund. The amended version of MCL 247.660 you are being offered in Proposal 2015-01 has the very same section (1)(f), making the same 10% immediate diversion.

So the $ 1.2 billion that Proposal 2015-01 supporters are promising you for road work is actually only $ 1.08 billion. Kirk T. Steudle, P.E. gets a whole new stash to maintain and expand his stable of rotting train cars, $ 120 million that cannot be spent on the roads by law. $ 120 million that gets skimmed from the $ 1.2 billion you are being promised for the roads. And no, it is not skimmed from the $ 800 million that Proposal 2015-01 dedicates to the Democratic base.

Now you now know how Michigan political math works in the age of Common Core. Pay $ 2 billion for roads, get $ 1 billion in road work.

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2015 MIGOP State Convention, Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Opinion, Philosophy, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Now it’s $51,000,000 to $70,000,000 for a “Better View of the Capitol”?

by Corinthian Scales • February 18, 2015 • 13 Comments

via WXYZ

Hmmm, now where have we seen these money grab pay-to-play schemes before? Oh! That’s right, Wayne County. And that worked out just swell, yes?

I’ve long said that Ross Jones, is the only reporter in Michigan, worth following. Unfortunately, there’s a new Senate Marshal in Lansing (heavy on the marsh part), and he goes by the nickname of, Sen. Arlan Randy Ficano.

With obscene waste above nonchalantly endorsed by Boji’s Engler era chatterbox, and the $54B budget Snyder/Calley presented, are folks beginning to understand why his SOTS “Vote Yes” propaganda completely ignored by “Chief election Officer” Ruth Johnson, is little more than a Republican Majority instituted Jizya tax?

I, for one, sure as Hell hope so.

Ps. for those who may be unaware, the same folks involved with the Boji building shenanigans are also behind another $88,000,000 unnecessary project in, Lansing.

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Cronyism, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Taxes

AgitProp in the 21st Century

by 10x25MM • January 26, 2015 • 12 Comments

Mercenary Research in the Service of Greed

News stories on the Michigan road tax proposal are replete with compelling, eye popping factoids about the costs poor roads impose on Michigan drivers. These factoids are so compelling that our colorless Governor cites them to sway voters in the upcoming sales tax proposal debate. Some examples:

An inadequate transportation system costs Michigan residents a total of $7.7 billion every year
Driving on rough roads costs Michigan motorists a total of $2.3 billion annually in extra vehicle operating costs
Driving on rough roads costs the average Detroit urban area motorist $536 annually in extra vehicle operating costs
Driving on rough roads costs the average Michigan motorist $357 annually in extra vehicle operating costs

You are expected to conclude that a 16.67% sales tax increase is a just trifle to escape these ghastly financial burdens. These factoids are always attributed to “TRIP, a national nonprofit transportation research organization”. Sounds like an independent, credible source – right? The adjectives ‘nonprofit’ and ‘research’ give you a high level of confidence in their pronouncements? Perhaps you should dig a little deeper than our conniving politicians and their lazy media scribes. The TRIP report they are mining for these factoids is: MI_Transportation_By_The_Numbers_TRIP_Report_Jan_2014

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