Redstate

By RightMichigan.com Posted in Breaking News | Economy | Granholm | job loss | Michigan | tax hike | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Frankly it's getting difficult to keep track of all of the rotten economic news here in Michigan and I'm about sick and tired of it.  If it isn't Democrat tax hikes it's the House trying to cover the State with layers and layers of bureaucratic red tape and if it isn't red tape then it's job losses and if it isn't job losses there's a poverty rate or a foreclosure rate on the rise.  It's enough to make a guy more than a little frustrated.

And today is no different.  

We've got word from Crain's Detroit that another five-hundred jobs are headed for the border.  Not the international border.  This has nothing to do with NAFTA, CAFTA or the SHAFTA (though, apparently that wouldn't stop the Governor from endorsing the queen of outsourcing for President even though her entire campaign in 2006 was based on bashing the policy).  It has to do with North Carolina beating the snot out of us.

That's where the jobs are headed.  North Carolina.  

ACN, the American Communications Network, insists that the move has nothing to do with Michigan.  It's all because of how great the Tarheel State is and the fact that their business down there is booming.  Meaning the move has everything to do with Michigan.  In a two-state battle Michigan lost.  Not that it helped being forced to fight with both hands behind our back thanks to Andy Dillon and his House Democrats ramming through a record breaking tax hike a couple months ago, basically telling any company considering an exodus that now's the perfect time.

And now 350 folks in Farmington Hills and 150 at a call center in Marquette are paying the price.  But it had nothing to do with Michigan's current economic policies.

Now go ahead and grab the Pepto because you're going to need it. It's tough enough when you've got a State government making it impossible for businesses to survive, let alone grow, but it's a whole different level of difficult when local agencies that are supposed to be helping the least among us pay the bills wind up shattering previous records for those who need their help while getting caught up in a whirlwind of corruption.

The Detroit News reports this morning on a Detroit City agency set-up to give "hardship tax breaks" to the city's poor.  The way the program works is folks struggling to make ends meet and with less than $5,000 in total assets can apply and receive a break on their property taxes.  A complete break.  A wash.  

It can literally save the poorest in the city over a thousand dollars a year.  Money they desperately need to pay for food, clothing, heat in the winter.  You know, extravagancies like that.  

Last year the agency received 3,500 applications.  This year?  5,200.  5,200 who say they just plain can't pay their property taxes.

So it's a good thing this agency is out there to help out, right?  Yeah, about those tax breaks.  We are talking Detroit here and that means a handful of members of the oversight committee have recently been fired or resigned amidst scandals.  Last year, for example, several dead folks received tax breaks, drug dealers parents who own and drive multiple fancy cars have gotten off scott free and individuals who happens to own a summer home or two seems to sneak through every once in a while.

And since committee members have been getting fired and resigning it's more than a little obvious that these... uh... mistakes... weren't just accounting errors.  Gotta love Wayne County politics and the culture of corruption.  Oh, but the Democrats, they're not ethically challenged at all.  Nope, pure as the driven snow.

Finally, I mentioned red tape at the top.  Worth highlighting the news out of this morning's Ivory Tower that the House Democrat's asinine full-on ban on smoking in bars and restaurants has just been blown out of the water.  Which is good news.  

Senate Republicans sent the bill to a committee chaired by Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester Hills, who said it is not a priority. Spokesman Matt Marsden said that although Bishop recognizes the dangers of second-hand smoke, "the timing could not be worse given Michigan's economic woes."

The bad news is there are still some really really (really) stupid people out there getting their names in the paper.  Maybe stupid's the wrong word.  Maybe they're just dense.  Or misquoted.  Or stupid.

Diane Goldstein of West Bloomfield, who is antismoking, said it's hard to find no-smoking restaurants, but business would grow with a ban.

"I don't understand why restaurants can't say, 'Come in, eat for an hour, then go home and smoke,' " she said.

First, may I just say that I am antismoking too.  Filthy habit.  But... restaurants CAN say that, Ms. Goldstein.  They can.  Many do.  But there's a difference between "CAN" and "do it or we'll use the coercive physical force of the government to shut you down, ruin your life, destroy your business and see that you never get licensed again."

You're arguing for the latter.  Whether you know it or not.