Remember Republican Ed Gaffney?
He’s the one that was term limited then crossed over on his way out to vote for Michigan’s largest tax increase in the states history in 2007 with the Democrats. After that Governor Granholm gave him an appointment as head of the LCC at an annual salary of $90,000 plus per year. Payment made for services rendered! Well, he made a campaign donation to Senator Richardville in 2009 cumulative of over $3,200.00. All of our incumbent politicians are in bed together.
Richardville co-sponsors Bill to Authorize Unionization of home personal providers
Senate Bill 731 is to empower the state to unionize 42,000 individuals hired by elderly or disabled Medicaid recipients to provide personal care services in their homes. These providers are not employees of the state, so the bill uses the legal device of creating a shell government “employer” that would transfer some $6.6 million in Medicaid money annually to the SEIU union (considered the “union dues” for these workers). The bill would also recognize in statute a “Michigan Quality Community Care Council,” which would create the shell corporation “employer” through an “interlocal agreement” with three counties.
Note: A Mackinac Center lawsuit is pending regarding a similar arrangement imposed on home day care providers without the statutory authorization that this bill would provide.
Sponsors Jason Allen – (primary) Roger Kahn, Bruce Patterson, Raymond Basham, Valde Garcia, Tony Stamas, Judson Gilbert, Martha Scott, Dennis Olshove, Irma Clark-Coleman, Michael Switalski, Gilda Jacobs, Mark Jansen, Deborah Cherry, Randy Richardville, Patricia Birkholz, Gretchen Whitmer.
Analysis of Michigan Film Subsidies
Two Years, $117m – and No Film Job Growth
It has been two years since Michigan’s film subsidy program became law, which is sufficient for it to have gotten off the ground and had some measurable impact on the state’s economy. According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of September 2009 (the most recent month available*), there were fewer people employed by the film industry in Michigan than before the subsidy program began. The film subsidy program was signed into law on April 7, 2008. In that month there were 5,867 jobs in Michigan’s “motion picture and sound recording industries,” the industrial classification that most closely fits the target industry for the program. By last September these jobs had fallen to 5,290, a 9.8 percent decline. Yet another thanks to our Senator Richardville for his vote on this subsidy that is a huge waste of taxpayer money! Is this really the type of representation we here in Monroe and the State of Michigan expect and deserve? I think not!
Senate OKs State retirement proposal
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled State Senate approved a watered-down plan to encourage 46,000 state employees and teachers to retire to save the state money. Key changes include removing a pension sweetener and a provision that would cut vision and dental benefits for eligible employees who don’t retire. “I see no savings there. I see no reason to pursue it,” Griffin said of the Senate bills. “The point was to get some of the higher-priced people to take a retirement and now there is no reason to take it. (The pension sweetener) is gone and that was the only incentive to go. Who do they think is going to take it?” Senate Republicans say that passing the retirement plan is crucial because its savings are linked to a Senate budget that cuts state aid to schools by $118 per pupil. Without retirement reform, schools might face more cuts, Republicans say. Our Republican controlled Senate continues watered down legislation by trying to make cuts on the backs of our educators. Did we expect anything different from our representatives but meaningless legislation? But, they can’t seem to cut their own salary and benefits! Click here to see how your Senator voted. Senate Roll Call 181 – Michigan Votes Nice!
Black Holes and Plankton Research Get Stimulus Spending
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the federal stimulus program that Congress approved in 2009 to help jump-start the economy was supposed to be for shovel-ready construction jobs. Not here in Michigan! There was an $835,000 Michigan State University study on the ecology of plankton, a $440,000 University of Michigan study on galaxies with black holes and a $322,000 Eastern Michigan University study on languages of the Arctic. This raises a serious question about the stimulus program’s approach to solving Michigan’s economic woes. It just puts money into the pockets of well-paid academics who have almost total job security, It does not put unemployed people to work.
State Employee Pay Grows 25 Percent Above Inflation
The average state employee compensation package costs approximately $93,039. Inflation-adjusted wages and benefits have increased 25 percent since fiscal 1999. The figures include the value of all benefits from state-paid retirement contributions to dry cleaning allowances.
Cash for Appliances Program Starts
The federal cash-for-clunkers program is so passe. Now the government is playing rebates-for-refrigerators and money-for-washing-machines. Last summer’s federal program fueled vehicle sales and jump-started the sputtering auto industry by enticing customers to trade in their gas guzzlers. Now retailers are hoping for a similar boost from another government program that will offer rebates of up to $200 for energy-efficient appliances.
“Green” Energy Sources are Costly
Is green the new black? That’s what many Washington lawmakers would like us to think. What Obama won’t tell us is that these “green” energy sources are costly—not just in dollars, but in existing American jobs. Do we really want to emulate the European countries that have already gone that route? “Spain already has a clean-energy economy, with thousands of wind turbines and solar panels covering the landscape. It also has 19 percent unemployment, nearly twice the U.S. level,”
Big Government in Pictures
Federal spending is unsustainable, yet government continues to spend money faster than it can tax it from you and me. As a result, America is facing record deficits. Will the American sheeple keep voting the same one’s back in expecting a different result as to fix the problems they created?
Bailout Has Been Good for Wall Street, Not Main Street
The federal government’s $700 billion bailout program has helped big banks but hasn’t done much for the little guy, a key official said Tuesday. While the Troubled Asset Relief Program, as the plan is called, is “getting Wall Street back on its feet, it is not meeting its goal of getting Main Street back on its feet,” TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky told the Senate Finance Committee.
U.S. Debt to Hit $20 Trillion in Decade
America’s fiscal picture is even worse than it looks. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just projected that over 10 years, cumulative deficits will reach $9.7 trillion and federal debt 90 percent of gross domestic product. The financial outlook for the United States is frightening. The CBO projects the size of the federal debt to increase by nearly 250 percent over 10 years, from $7.5 trillion to a whopping $20 trillion.
Arizona Governor Signs Tough Immigration Law
PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer ignored criticism from President Barack Obama on Friday and signed into law a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.
33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True
Conspiracy Theories of the most shocking are modern conspiracy theories that turned out true after thorough investigation by our society. Some through congressional hearings, others through investigative journalism. Many of these, however, were just admitted to by those involved. These are just 33 of them.
The Cow and the Ice Cream, an explanation of how Obama Won The Election
From a teacher in the Nashville area
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds. They want ice cream. The other 48 percent know
they’re going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess. Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone that they have not first taken away from someone else.
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds. They want ice cream. The other 48 percent know
they’re going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess. Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone that they have not first taken away from someone else.
Banks Blowing Up the Economy
I read two interesting thoughts last weekend. The first is from legendary 18th-century economic god Adam Smith — father of free-market thinking — who wrote this on the topic of regulating banks. Exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments, of the most free as well as of the most despotical. The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed. Some say banks are making lots of money and paying themselves accordingly, but that’s their right. That’s capitalism. We encourage it. We cherish it. But as Adam Smith mentioned more than 200 years ago, it isn’t capitalism if the misbehavior of a few bankers “endanger the security of the whole society.” And that’s exactly what happened in 2008. It wasn’t capitalism. It was banks blowing up the economy. And a few of us are praying it’ll soon end.
Goldman Sachs fined with defrauding investors tied to subprime mortgages
Some analysts were busily questioning the motives of the Securities and Exchange Commission, after the agency leveled the charges Friday morning. Today’s SEC announcement and conference call (which did not allow analysts or investors to ask questions) was a well-timed, and perhaps not coincidental, effort to sway some on-the-fence Republicans to support a tougher financials bill that the White House has been lobbying for Barclays Capital’s.
Obama “Consumer Protection Czar” Linked to Goldman Sachs Mortgage Scandal
Harry Reid has threatened to start forcing the Democratic financial overhaul bill through the Senate early next week. The bill would create yet another new bureaucracy, the “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” with the power to impose new government regulation on millions of financial transactions. President Obama’s rumored pick to run the CFPA is a Treasury official with a disturbing history of ties to shady lending, bank bailouts, and massive donations from subprime mortgage billionaires.
Obama Suggests Value-Added Tax May Be an Option
So much for the people making less than $250,000 getting taxed! President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.
Enough with the value-added tax (VAT) talk already
Some liberals in Congress want to pay for their massive new spending with a value-added tax, a sort of national sales tax on the price of goods at each stage of production. While popular in Europe, such a tax is a bad idea for the United States. And a significant number of lawmakers and even White House officials seem to agree.
Power of the Free Market – The Pencil
Milton Friedman uses a pencil to explain how the operation of the free market promotes harmony and world peace.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state
Thomas Jefferson
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