Tag Archives: Rick Snyder

Politics

The results are in…

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Well…this one may be long and convoluted but I really wanted to get to the Michigan budget crisis now that there are real numbers to be put with the plans that were presented by Gov. Snyder…..I’m not going to bore you with listing specifics because those numbers are readily available elsewhere and I just don’t want to swamp you with minutiae. So, let’s get to it….business gets their 1.8 billion tax break….and let’s be clear right away…no study has shown that tax breaks, in the absence of a rise in demand, result in an increase in jobs. With the retained profits of companies already a their highest point in history, why would you think that giving them more profits would result in hiring of more workers? It just doesn’t work that way and yet the faith-based economics of the repubs continue to throw money at business that just ends up padding the wallets of those at the top. The right way to do it would be to ensure there is an increase in demand by tax incentives or higher wages for workers…folks, this is econ 101 stuff that everyone seems to know but the repubs and it exposes this governor’s plan as driven by ideology more than economics. Did you expect anything else from a governor whose only claim to fame was to take his golden parachute worth hundreds of millions while shipping all of the jobs at Gateway to China?

Now, let’s get to who is going to pay for these business tax cuts….the analysis out today, and it is in the right leaning Detroit News, is that the majority of the “shared sacrifice” comes from retirees and the working poor…those who are the least able to afford this huge tax increase…and, make no mistake, this is being done because the repubs always make people pay that have no power or influence…the tax effect for the wealthy here in Michigan would be an increase that is, on average, 77 dollars a year while that of the retirees an working poor would be in the thousands….this is morally reprehensible but true to form for these thieves. Next, let’s get to the the idea of the Michigan film tax credit, that Snyder has proposed be limited to 25 million dollars a year. Under the current plan, for every dollar of tax credit, Michigan sees 6 dollars of economic activity and has resulted in the only area of job growth in the state; diversifying our economy and starting many new businesses that actually employ people…not just giving more money to the rich. But, as we all know, the film industry is a little more liberal leaning than the general population and it is payback time here in Michigan….Snyder will do anything, just like the rest of the repubs, to crush the opposition even if it means putting people out of work and destroying one of the only bright spots in Michigan’s economy.

Okay, I’m running out of steam here but you can see from just these few instances that “shared sacrifice” means shared by the poor and working people, imposed by the rich, benefiting the rich, and everyone else can go to hell….geez…

Politics

Democracy died in Michigan yesterday…

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Well….I am so outraged by the actions of the repub controlled house here in Michigan yesterday that I can barely think straight….democracy of, by and for the people died here with the passage of the emergency financial bill that would let appointed boards fire elected officials across the state. Yep, you heard it….this new set of six bills would allow non-elected boards, appointed by the governor to fire mayors, school boards, city managers and a whole host of other elected officials if the governor decides they are not toeing his cost cutting line. These thugs have nothing on the commissars of the old Soviet Union who regularly removed politicians that got out of the lock step of communism….these are the people that were elected on the guise of getting government out of the way? Well..with this legislation they can get people out of the way that don’t agree with them and yours and my votes no longer count here….where the hell is the outrage people? Where are you tea party…you who rode to election on the pages of the constitution just to tear it up once elected…if the previous governor had proposed anything of this sort and a democratic controlled legislature passed these bills, you repubs would have been out in the street with your pitchforks and torches screaming at the top of your lungs that socialism had taken over. It has here in Michigan….but more than that, it is totalitarianism; no different than any of the states in the middle east that are now in flames….and our Mubarak or Gadhafi is named Rick Snyder….

Politics

Michigan, it’s a scam….

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Well…I have a couple of predictions on the new budget proposals that have been put forth by the “CEO of Michigan”, and the idea that to keep our state solvent, we all need to “share the sacrifice” in lessening of services, higher taxes on individuals, and lowered expectations. Of course, the right wing press and the Chamber have come out salivating that one of their own is now governor and the proposals reflect their input…my question is: where was the people’s input? When did these folks talk to anyone but business? The answer is, they didn’t because they just don’t give a damn about you and me. This is just another example of the “long con” that the repubs are working on the people of Michigan and the rest of the US that purports to have the best interests of the people in mind, but any thought of the middle class is just a smoke screen to allow business to steal the rest of the country that they and their rich buddies don’t already own. For example, as I said yesterday, the proposed budget here in Michigan gives business a 1.8 billion tax break while raising taxes on individuals that same amount, another huge transfer of wealth from the workers to the rich, but that’s not the worst part of it. The new budget and the governor also say that they are going to phase out tax credits to retain and lure businesses to Michigan. But you and I both know that is a lie….the first time a business bitches about losing these credits, the repubs are going to fall all over themselves trying to give them more, more, more; so business taxes will continue to fall to zero while we’ll all pay for it. The repubs do nothing but lie, lie, lie, why would anyone believe them now?

This is an organized scam where business and the repubs have mapped it all out over a few year span…play on the patriotism of the people of Michigan to get them to buy into the “shared sacrifice” and then pay off business with larger and larger tax breaks and higher and higher profits so these repub legislators will have their next jobs assured after term limits force them to stop stealing from the people here….geez…

Politics

The hypocrisy disease has spread to Michigan…

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Well…I hope you got the chance to read some of the news coming out of Michigan today…Gov Rick Snyder unveiled one of the primary ways he proposes to balance the budget here…and guess whose backs that one is going to be carried on? While proposing the repubs cut taxes on corporations here, his new proposal raises taxes on every retired person in Michigan by raising taxes on pensions, IRA’s, and Social Security. Nope, I’m not making this up folks, the tax cuts for the rich party, who blew a gasket when Granholm proposed higher taxes as a part of the deficit solution, now propose that people that worked their whole lives to get their meager pensions subsidize business by paying more taxes. And, that is exactly what this is, you and I and the rest of us workers are being asked to build better roads, utilities, and other infrastructure for business to take advantage of while they get to retain more of the highest profits in the history of the world as they continue to send jobs overseas and ask for more, and more, and more, concessions from you and I. Where is the outcry from the right who constantly spew that taxes are too high and who sabotaged the Granholm administration for 8 years ensuring we’d end up with an untenable financial position?

I hope this bunch of hypocrites are seen for what they truly are, lying shills for business who will be taken care of by business when they leave…..to make millions from the companies they have just rewarded…geez…

Politics

Lying is alive and well here in Michigan…

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Well….I had hope that with a new governor who ran on the premise that he was going to be the “CEO” of Michigan and was going to tell the truth, we were going to get something different than the standard issue repub. That hope is now gone with the issuance of his financial road map for Michigan’s future and the blatant skewing of statistics that is being used to attack the unionized public sector workers here. I don’t think these guys are going to be happy until everyone here in Michigan is working for minimum wage and then they’ll take that away. So, let’s get to the lie…and it is a whopper….to prove that the public sector workers are the biggest part of the budget problem here, they compared these full time workers with some benefits to the population as a whole that includes part time and under employed workers and then shouted from the rooftops that “see, these people are overpaid by almost 20%” compared to the general population. No effort to normalize by age, education, or even to using similar private sector jobs.

But, as you know, these are the same, tired old tactics that the repubs always use…and now Snyder is trying to walk back from the comments, just like they always do….say something really outrageous and then the merely unreasonable appears to be a compromise while they stand up and say how terrible the other side is because the repubs have offered to move on the issue. Liars all….

Politics

Manny, Manny, Manny….

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Well….I just don’t get it…don’t these morons on the right think we have memory? Let’s get right to it again…over the past few years, the repubs have repeated, and repeated, and repeated that they think the federal government is too large and intrusive…led by ole Manny Lopez here who has said many times that he thinks it would be better if the state was just left to go it’s own way and to hell with the federal government…and any time that Governor Granholm went to Washington to try to get help for the state, it was a an extension of the welfare state mentality. But, today, in the Detroit News, Manny goes on that it is a wonderful thing that our current governor went to Washington to ask for money for the state going so far as to say that the previous Democratic governor never did that; a statement that is breathtakingly disingenuous. He then goes on to applaud the current governor for going 5 times to business leaders to get their advice, stating that is something that governor Granholm never did. Gee, I wonder why Manny? Could it be because governor Snyder is one of them….and puts their welfare above that of the workers of the state and just rolls over to whatever they want since they bought the election for him? C’mon Manny…at least try to be a journalist….oh, that’s right, you’re not….my mistake…geez…

Politics

New thoughts…

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Well…have been thinking about some things for a while but I don’t think any of them warrant a post of their own…or maybe they do, I don’t know…we’ll see as I go along. One of the things I’ve bitched about over the past few months is that the repubs, with their actions on taxes, financial regulation, and healthcare appear to be putting their own political interests ahead of those of you and me and the rest of the country. I have to admit that I’ve fallen into the same trap talking about the new repub administration here in Michigan…wanting it to fail to highlight the fact that the repubs have no new ideas…that they’ve never seen a tax cut they didn’t like and no matter that almost all economists think that this nonsense has helped put the nation in the financial bind it’s in.

What I am going to do is to wait and give governor Snyder and his team a chance…I don’t care who it is that gets our great state moving again; but it needs to get moving again….there needs to be good jobs for everyone who wants one…there needs to be good roads and great cities where the quality of life increases daily and people can stop worrying….

But, what I will continue to do is point out daily when the scale tips too far toward business and tax cuts at the expense of workers trying to raise families and live a good life….I hope it doesn’t have to happen much…

Politics

Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy…

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Well…if you’ve read any of these, you’ve see the well documented hypocrisy that runs through the repubs in the federal government on almost any issue, freedom, equality, taxes…you name it and they have been hypocrites…I think it’s in their DNA and that bad batch of DNA and it’s resultant hypocrisy has now made it’s way into our state of Michigan. Following politics here over the last 8 years, you have undoubtedly seen the consistent repub opposition to raising taxes of any kind..even when the budget deficit hit almost 2 billion dollars..even to mention that it would be fiscally responsible to do so always came with a loud cry from the repubs that socialism was taking over the state and comrade Granholm was leading the charge.

But now, when the repub governor elect mentions that there would have to be tax increases along with spending cuts to balance the budget, the repubs are praising him as a pragmatic leader who is making the hard choices to get the state moving again. If these choices are so good now, where were the repubs when the very same things were proposed last year and the year before? If there is one thing I can’t stand it’s politicians who put their party ahead of the citizens of our state…and stand there with a smile as the hypocrisy drips from them…but I think most of them are too dumb to see it…or just don’t care…

Politics

Promise me Ving and Rick….

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Well…short lunch, huh? Hasn’t it been nice to not hear political commercials since the primary is over? But, as you and I both know, it’s just the lull before the storm and we will be inudated before long. That is why I want to make this proposal to both candidates…let’s stop the attack ads and replace them with policy ones that will tell us what you are going to do to get our state moving again, to get more good paying jobs, and to get both sides of the political spectrum talking to one another again instead of shouting at each other. I think it was a good sign when Rick Snyder (a Republican) said he would personally reach across the aisle to the Dems to solve the problems of the state…but Rick, if you start talking tax cuts as your foundation for your economic policy, I will urge everyone to stop listening to you since the Bush tax cuts did not help spur growth, they were actually a drag on the economy and don’t work resulting in 40% of the structural deficit that we now face. And, Ving, I see your attack ads have already started and I am disappointed that you haven’t tried to build on the economic successes of the Dems over the last two years…you have the thriving auto companies, the reform in health care, and re regulation of the financial companies to talk about…let’s hear how you are going to fix our economy; not that Rick sent jobs overseas. Let’s commit ourselves to reasonableness and show the country what adults can do when they act like adults. One last comment…the tea party lost out to the moderates here…is there hope at last?