The "big" budget crisis in Michigan is not at all what it appears. It's capitalize on hard times, take maximum partisan advantage. There's a concerted effort across many states to achieve certain long-sought goals of the far right: Union Busting, elimination of public employee benefits & pensions, cut & shift the tax burden to ordinary people, cut welfare and unemployment, and unbridled attacks on public schools & more. Michigan has had budget deficits in the range of this one before, but never has it been mishandled as it is now! Michigan is being cut down, to achieve certain selfish objectives.
There's "big" trouble alright, it's a "big manufactured" crisis; hype piggybacked on the national crisis brought on by George W. Bush and cohorts-who singlehandedly brought down to near ruin this nation financially. TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS were ruthlessly harvested from working folk. And today much of THE LOOT sits on the sidelines UNAVAILABLE navailable to small businesses who desperately need it.
To do the kind of "blitz" legislation that is found in the current rush to pass House Bill 4215 (which literally disenfranchises communities governments and schools, puts in place DICTATORIAL CONTROL and throws out the vote of the people) and passes it on to the governor has another purpose. It's dirty politics: Revenge and Reprisals.
When the full scope of the Draconian "Cuts only" budget are announced by Rick Snyder, many of the Tea Party supporters want to know that there is in place (passage of H.B. 4215) A STRONG MECHANISM TO PICK UP THE PIECES WHEN DOZENS OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS & LOCAL UNITS OF GOVERNMENT " WHICH WILL GO UNDER DUE TO SNYDER'S DRASTIC & UNPRECEDENTED CUTS having their direct debt-creating effect: A 33% cut in revenue sharing, with a harsh punishment factor to undercut pensions and benefits in units affected.
Raising taxes, if only for a short period, to get out of the state's crisis will look more than golden compared to the slaughter house/meat axe Snyder is about to apply across our state.
In the enumeration of the communities mentioned in the details of H.B. 4215 (now being steamrolled through the legislature on party-line votes) one finds these targeted "financial failures" are mainly minority/Black communities, some would say "who cares?" That's as it stands today. However, under the proposed legislation's sweeping new powers vested in Snyder Regime's complete control, by way of managers and "firms" appointed under Andy Dillon, could be bring down many other locations-both rural and urban. The axe will fall on many shocked and unsuspecting units.
Time to have more input concerning H.B. 4215 is desperately needed. The rush is the "bums rush" to mickey the public out of the entire process and achieve a Quickie: A huge partisan victory for those who ultimately favor "bankruptcy" for states.
How historically dangerous are these Know-Nothings; servants to Grover Norquist? And really who is Citizen Norquist that he should have command of our America?
Original Post.
Showing posts with label Michigan Budget Crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michigan Budget Crisis. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Monday, November 16, 2009
You Go Girl - "Don’t pit working families against school children in budget battle..."
Comments on Amber Arellano piece "Don’t pit working families against school children in budget battle" in the Detroit News November 16, 2009.
Amber Arellano has struck a firm mile marker in the budget ballyhoo:
Today's Michigan Republican legislator is largely a "Gault" guy or gal. From their actions the very thought of altruism is an ugly perversion. These are market fundamentalists; elected they believe to protect and promote business, first, last and always. In their minds business is the first and highest order of their legislative responsibility.
These hardhearted folk are not the free individuals, the stand alone heroes that Gault would inspire. They are cowering under the taxnut crazy quilt which forces them, by sworn covenant with the tax haters "not to raise taxes" not now, not never.
These individuals, fancying themselves "rugged individuals" and towers of moral principle, are in a practical political sense civically insane.
Of course there is a time and place to oppose certain taxes, given very well defined and vigorously defensible logic. But to hold to "no compromise" on taxes is akin to a tantrum prone infant in a fit of piqué . So to make a fool's promise and be forced by party discipline and those greatly feared national forces to which the "no taxes" pledge was made, then to doggedly keep that promise, means compromise is out. No compromise, no politics, no hope of consensus, no good outcomes. So it comes down to the Republicans versus the poor and the disadvantaged.
GOP gridlock. Mike Bishop would like to freeze the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as a method of raising revenue. If he does so he will put a vicious hit on the least able to pay. What must this man be thinking?
Arellano continues:
Republicans see the core city Detroit only from the freeway, they repeat the outstate myths which disassociate Detroit from "their" Michigan. Like Big John and Sisco (WIND AM, far right radio in Chicago) joked today, "Just fence in Detroit as a maximum prison." That's a totally specious and brutal way to dismiss our state's obligation and part in Detroit's plight, but it's real sentiment similarly shared by a boat load of outstate tax and government haters.
Enter the "where's-the-peanut" in the ageless shell game. It's true that, if GOP'ers are not going to raise revenues, then cuts, and sharp cuts at least, are going to be made. The trick for Bishop and company is to hold out on "no new revenue" and/or accuse the opposition of inflicting the cuts, and put the blame for the hurt on the other party.. Bishop wants cuts (not Granholm's cuts, but cuts under his control and at his discretion).
There are plenty of other fat cows to cut before gutting poor folks' grocery budgets, writes Ms Arellano.
Bishop believes he has the luxury of putting the blame on Gov. Granholm and the Democratic Party, even though everyone knows it's not the Governor's intention to rely on the current "cuts" without gaining new revenue to put together a budget that is fair and balanced as far as possible.
Ms. Arellano Concludes:
These taxes would disproportionately burden women (how many men get pedicures, really?. More from Arellano:
Amber, you go girl!
Original Post.
Amber Arellano has struck a firm mile marker in the budget ballyhoo:
"Pitting poor working families against school children is about as low as you can get in politics, but that's exactly what Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop is doing. This is a sign of how far we have fallen in Michigan".The poor are not on the Republican radar (as they once were under Gov. Romney and Gov. Milliken,) as they should be.
Today's Michigan Republican legislator is largely a "Gault" guy or gal. From their actions the very thought of altruism is an ugly perversion. These are market fundamentalists; elected they believe to protect and promote business, first, last and always. In their minds business is the first and highest order of their legislative responsibility.
These hardhearted folk are not the free individuals, the stand alone heroes that Gault would inspire. They are cowering under the taxnut crazy quilt which forces them, by sworn covenant with the tax haters "not to raise taxes" not now, not never.
These individuals, fancying themselves "rugged individuals" and towers of moral principle, are in a practical political sense civically insane.
Of course there is a time and place to oppose certain taxes, given very well defined and vigorously defensible logic. But to hold to "no compromise" on taxes is akin to a tantrum prone infant in a fit of piqué . So to make a fool's promise and be forced by party discipline and those greatly feared national forces to which the "no taxes" pledge was made, then to doggedly keep that promise, means compromise is out. No compromise, no politics, no hope of consensus, no good outcomes. So it comes down to the Republicans versus the poor and the disadvantaged.
GOP gridlock. Mike Bishop would like to freeze the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as a method of raising revenue. If he does so he will put a vicious hit on the least able to pay. What must this man be thinking?
Arellano continues:
"The EITC is a tax break for working poor families. To understand how critical the EITC is to a working family today," writes Amber Arellan, Detroit News Columnist, "In recent years Michigan has become known as one of the worst states for working lower-income people. We heavily tax working poor folks, while letting Bloomfield Hills and Ann Arbor families (myself included) skate by in comparison. Until recently, Michigan had the nation's third-highest tax on a single parent of two children living in poverty."Pretty Boy Bishop has to do something. His hopes of future statewide office are fast fading. He calculates the poor don't vote, wouldn't vote for him anyway, and are poor for reasons of personal defect or slack habits, no doubt. If they were otherwise, his appeals to shelter them from the present economic harm would be entirely different.
Republicans see the core city Detroit only from the freeway, they repeat the outstate myths which disassociate Detroit from "their" Michigan. Like Big John and Sisco (WIND AM, far right radio in Chicago) joked today, "Just fence in Detroit as a maximum prison." That's a totally specious and brutal way to dismiss our state's obligation and part in Detroit's plight, but it's real sentiment similarly shared by a boat load of outstate tax and government haters.
Enter the "where's-the-peanut" in the ageless shell game. It's true that, if GOP'ers are not going to raise revenues, then cuts, and sharp cuts at least, are going to be made. The trick for Bishop and company is to hold out on "no new revenue" and/or accuse the opposition of inflicting the cuts, and put the blame for the hurt on the other party.. Bishop wants cuts (not Granholm's cuts, but cuts under his control and at his discretion).
"He complains constantly about how unfair Granholm's cuts are to schools, acting as if he is the one who is getting hurt by state budget cuts, when he is the one proposing to damage people. THIS IS NUTS". [emphasis added]
There are plenty of other fat cows to cut before gutting poor folks' grocery budgets, writes Ms Arellano.
Bishop believes he has the luxury of putting the blame on Gov. Granholm and the Democratic Party, even though everyone knows it's not the Governor's intention to rely on the current "cuts" without gaining new revenue to put together a budget that is fair and balanced as far as possible.
Ms. Arellano Concludes:
"So now when the going gets very tough, both sides want to do what's easiest: blame one another, whine like bratty children and work to undermine kids' classrooms and poor working families... Could these people get any lazier and more ridiculous? The budget crisis requires all of us to step up and make sacrifices"Her suggestion: "Michigan's tax system, stuck in the 1950s, needs to move to a modern sales tax base and graduated income tax, and tax services such as pedicures and dry cleaning.
These taxes would disproportionately burden women (how many men get pedicures, really?. More from Arellano:
"So let's go for some gender balance here. The beer tax has not been adjusted in decades. In comparison to other solutions, protecting the Earned Income Tax Credit makes a lot of sense."It's refreshing to read such insightful assessments and practical advice from the pages of the Detroit News.
"Overwhelming research shows when poor and working-class families get a tax break, they spend the money immediately -- on food, children's clothes, real needs -- unlike wealthier families. Thus, such tax breaks are highly effective economic stimuli."
Amber, you go girl!
Original Post.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
An Additional Dollar a Day...
Response to Nolan Finley in "House Dems won't face budget reality" Detroit News Blog on November 11, 2009.
Nolan:
What is the difference between your opinion and that of the standard Mackinac Center fare?
What would Michigan be like if the center had gotten 80% of all the things they lust after? (Most often, with your blessing, one might note.)
The MacCen sees this present economic hardship time as a precious opportunity to finish work they've been whittling at for decades. This "crisis" for them is a super "opportunity."
Just what would education quality and taxpayer responsibility for education be if MacCen got its every wish?
Those cardinal controling influences in the MacCen, who cheer for an end to MESSA (and its excellent Blue Cross health care packages for school employees),ask just what would other (Mackinac Center friendly) insurance companies provide?
Think inadequate. How long would it be before they used their influence and cunning to reduce the service provided to something, not equal to the private sector, what ever that means, but less than the best of private sector benefits. That new health plan sought by the MacCen wouldn't be more competitive or less expensive without reductions in services and coverages. And who, Nolan, has decent private sector health care and benefits, as of this Michigan moment? Don't look to the GM workers for a baseline, don't turn to the ubiquitous Wall-Mart for a adequate health care model.
The core of the Michigan GOP is held hostage to the tax-haters and groups like the brown-bagged-headed-unknowns, secret bundlers of cash used to bring national influence to bear on a rural district like that once held by former Rep. Joe Schwarz.
When the intrepid clod buster Jack Welborn wanted to stigmatize the "high spending" legislature he brought over to the capitol a giant cow with an enormous utter, then Welborn prattled on about his opponents sucking up for tax monies.
Then it was Leon Dorlet and his begged and borrowed pink hog, which lingered on Capitol square, hoping to chide and hector the legislature into refusing to raise revenue and taxes. Dorlet was just carrying swill for a well-known national organizer against taxes.
Then came the Beltway weasel, Grover Norquist, who smoozed on Mackinac Island with Sen. Nancy Cassis. "No new taxes, no new taxes." This year's entire proceedings in the Mackinac Island leadership sessions were sponsored, run by the no-taxes lobbies and the endless varieties of flat, fair, or no tax fanatics (including John Fund) who believe themselves the keepers of the holy grail. Starve the state's services into oblivion and all will be well.
A large number of the GOP legislature has given up their rights to outsiders, carpet baggers from DC, when they swear and take an oath never to raise new taxes. Thank God for term limits.
The hard-hearted, conjoined twins of no-tax legislation in the state senate are Mike Bishop and Alan Cropsey. What an odd couple, if ever. Both are ambitious and both have a shed full of axes they love to grind. Bishop loves embarrassing Gov. Granholm and Cropsey won't ever miss a swipe at the Michigan Education Association, ever since he threw in with the fearful home schoolers hoping to scotch maternity, creeping secularism, and of course, the teaching about evolution by holing up in the kitchen with course books designed to propagate the fanatic ideology and race relations teachings of Bob Jones University, Cropsey's alma mater.
So then, who's reality must a citizen chose between: . Democrats who are weakly trying to save the future for our kids against the entrenched GOP Senate, or the ranting GOP which sees no end of pleasure in tearing down Michigan and its children in their hour of need. They are holding out for the equivalent of a cup of less-than-Starbucks coffee a day.
You'd get the idea from Bishop and his clique that it would bankrupt our struggling personal budgets to give just an additional dollar a day (in miscellaneous taxes and closed loopholes) to save our public schools in this their hour of need.
Original Post.
Nolan:
What is the difference between your opinion and that of the standard Mackinac Center fare?
What would Michigan be like if the center had gotten 80% of all the things they lust after? (Most often, with your blessing, one might note.)
The MacCen sees this present economic hardship time as a precious opportunity to finish work they've been whittling at for decades. This "crisis" for them is a super "opportunity."
Just what would education quality and taxpayer responsibility for education be if MacCen got its every wish?
Those cardinal controling influences in the MacCen, who cheer for an end to MESSA (and its excellent Blue Cross health care packages for school employees),ask just what would other (Mackinac Center friendly) insurance companies provide?
Think inadequate. How long would it be before they used their influence and cunning to reduce the service provided to something, not equal to the private sector, what ever that means, but less than the best of private sector benefits. That new health plan sought by the MacCen wouldn't be more competitive or less expensive without reductions in services and coverages. And who, Nolan, has decent private sector health care and benefits, as of this Michigan moment? Don't look to the GM workers for a baseline, don't turn to the ubiquitous Wall-Mart for a adequate health care model.
The core of the Michigan GOP is held hostage to the tax-haters and groups like the brown-bagged-headed-unknowns, secret bundlers of cash used to bring national influence to bear on a rural district like that once held by former Rep. Joe Schwarz.
When the intrepid clod buster Jack Welborn wanted to stigmatize the "high spending" legislature he brought over to the capitol a giant cow with an enormous utter, then Welborn prattled on about his opponents sucking up for tax monies.
Then it was Leon Dorlet and his begged and borrowed pink hog, which lingered on Capitol square, hoping to chide and hector the legislature into refusing to raise revenue and taxes. Dorlet was just carrying swill for a well-known national organizer against taxes.
Then came the Beltway weasel, Grover Norquist, who smoozed on Mackinac Island with Sen. Nancy Cassis. "No new taxes, no new taxes." This year's entire proceedings in the Mackinac Island leadership sessions were sponsored, run by the no-taxes lobbies and the endless varieties of flat, fair, or no tax fanatics (including John Fund) who believe themselves the keepers of the holy grail. Starve the state's services into oblivion and all will be well.
A large number of the GOP legislature has given up their rights to outsiders, carpet baggers from DC, when they swear and take an oath never to raise new taxes. Thank God for term limits.
The hard-hearted, conjoined twins of no-tax legislation in the state senate are Mike Bishop and Alan Cropsey. What an odd couple, if ever. Both are ambitious and both have a shed full of axes they love to grind. Bishop loves embarrassing Gov. Granholm and Cropsey won't ever miss a swipe at the Michigan Education Association, ever since he threw in with the fearful home schoolers hoping to scotch maternity, creeping secularism, and of course, the teaching about evolution by holing up in the kitchen with course books designed to propagate the fanatic ideology and race relations teachings of Bob Jones University, Cropsey's alma mater.
So then, who's reality must a citizen chose between: . Democrats who are weakly trying to save the future for our kids against the entrenched GOP Senate, or the ranting GOP which sees no end of pleasure in tearing down Michigan and its children in their hour of need. They are holding out for the equivalent of a cup of less-than-Starbucks coffee a day.
You'd get the idea from Bishop and his clique that it would bankrupt our struggling personal budgets to give just an additional dollar a day (in miscellaneous taxes and closed loopholes) to save our public schools in this their hour of need.
Original Post.
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