Connecting the Dots in Michigan...

The “Gang” at the signing of the Gas Tax laws…

The Game Within the Game…

Connecting the dots in Michigan…

Anyone paying attention to what has been going on in Lansing for the past decade or so may be thinking the same thing: Our State government is out of control…and totally unaccountable to the people they are supposed to represent…

After Jennifer Granholm promised to “blow us away”, she did…laying the foundation for government cronyism by establishing the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, basically a slush fund which the government uses to pay back friends and donors with State contracts…The absolute best example of this would be the new Senate building, sold by a former MEDC Commissioner to the State for three times its appraised value…

Now comes Senate Bill 97, designed to expand this practice right down to the Township level…This bill (http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2017-2018/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2017-SIB-0097.pdf) authorizes any government authority to designate taxing authority to any private business or group that develops infrastructure for health care, transportation, or ‘other’ development purposes…It also includes the use and enforcement of ‘eminent domain’…Think about that for a minute…

A contractor awarded a State contract to build a medical clinic, for example, would have the power to tax and condemn private property for this use…The bill specifically mentions health care and transportation…Wait a minute!!!…Where have I heard the word ‘transportation’ before…OH, YES!!!…The Gas Tax!!!…The tax that’s supposed to fix Michigan roads…in the year 2020…Fact is, only an estimated 40% of the gas tax money is dedicated to the roads, the other 60% is to be spent on “other transportation purposes”…Read the law, that means 60% of our road tax will be spent on bike paths and lanes, hiking trails, bus and rail routes, etc…All this AFTER the 4 to 1 defeat of Prop-1, from which the gas tax laws were taken and passed anyway…

So, in order to do these things in spite of citizen opposition, the legislators and Governor had to protect themselves from the people…This was done in 2012 when the legislature and Governor got together to change the Recall laws in Michigan, making it virtually impossible for us to ‘fire’ any of them…That was right after the Governor and Randy Richardville were threatened with recall if they did not pass and sign the Right to Work law..They then proceeded to ensure such a tactic would not be used again…See the law (http://legislature.mi.gov/%28S%28y2csokrgp4ogk5ieksd5p1uq%29%29/documents/2011-2012/billcurrentversion/House/PDF/2012-HCVBS-6060-17846.PDF)…also an explanation of what it does to the process…(http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/12/legislatures_changes_to_recall.html)…

So now, totally isolated from the wrath of the people, they operate with absolute impunity to tax and spend as they see fit…With the primary elections pretty much ‘owned’ by the two major parties, the only way these folks can lose their jobs is if they’re term limited and there is no other office to run for available…That explains this bill, and others, like the gas tax…In order to pay for hiking/bike trails from downstate to the Bridge, and a railroad from Traverse City to Ann Arbor, (an estimated $10 billion boondoggle) the State just HAS to raise more money…What we’re not spending to resurrect Detroit will have to be raised elsewhere for these and other projects, such as renovating the new Senate office building…

Enough really is ENOUGH!!!

Governor Snyder’s budgets have ballooned from $43 billion in 2011 to $56 billion this year, and yet it’s NOT enough…Rejecting the State income tax reduction is just another dose of salt in the taxpayers’ wounds…Now they want any form of government in Michigan to ‘farm out’ property taxes to private groups and give them eminent domain authority in the process…This has to stop, we have to enforce our State Constitution as it was written, and hold those who disregard it accountable through the media, and in the primary elections, and if possible, through the courts…

It is for these reasons Drain the Swamp Michigan has been formed…We advocate FOR the people of Michigan and AGAINST those in government that would blatantly thwart the will of the people…

Find us at www.DTSMI.org, on FaceBook at Drain the Swamp Michigan, Twitter at #DTSMI, or e-mail us at info@DTSMI.org…Help us put out radio, TV, internet and print ads to point out to the general public what our government is doing to us, and not for us…

Tom Backers
President,
Drain the Swamp Michigan

You Betcha! (13)Nuh Uh.(1)