Redstate

Posted at 9:09am on Jun. 21, 2008 MI Morning Commentary: MI Unemployment National News...McCain Proposed Energy Independence...Nuclear Power

By saul anuzis

136 Days until Election Day

June 21, 2008

MORNING UPDATE:

MICHIGAN'S UNEMPLOYMENT MAKING NEWS...Governor Granholm said "in five
years, you'll be blown away," but many Michigan families are being
blown away now as the state reported the highest monthly jobless rate
(8.5 percent) in 16 years. In addition, 23,000 more people have lost
their jobs since October when Granholm and the Democrats pushed through
the largest tax increase in state history. 
Obama is promising more of the same for America.

If you like what Jennifer Granholm has done to Michigan, you'll love
what Barack Obama will do to Michigan.  It didn't work here...won't
work nationally.

ELLY PETERSON...had a nice tribute and obituary written about her in the NY Times.  I only met Elly a few times when I first got involved in politics.

McCAIN PROPOSES ENERGY INDEPENDENCE...NUCLEAR POWER...America wants
peace and prosperity. We need to become less dependent on foreign oil
and have more domestic sources of power. Cheap, reliable and affordable
energy will change the world. More below.

CARD CHECK...Protect workers' right to a secret ballot. The vast
majority (around 81%) of Americans believe that American workers have a
right to have a secret ballot election before they are forced to join a
union. Last year the House Democrats passed a bill that would strip
American workers of the secret ballot. A new bill should be introduced
reaffirming that right, and it should be brought up again and again
until marginal Democrats are forced to vote with the American people
against the union power structure.  And this, coming from a Teamster.

GINGRICH...3 WAYS TO LOWER GAS PRICES...a practical, realistic approach to lowering the price of gas...NOW!

SLATECARD...AN EASY WAY TO CONTRIBUTE TO OUR FRIENDS...Slatecard
was designed to allow easy, online way to contribute and support our
candidates for federal office. Please take a minute to check it
out...and hopefully help.

FUNDRAISER...2008 Max M. Fisher National Republican Leadership Award
Dinner...Please join President George W. Bush and the Michigan
Republicans as we honor the life of Max M. Fisher at the Max M. Fisher
National Republican Leadership Dinner on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at
Laurel Manor in Livonia. Click here to reserve your tickets now!

Posted in Archived | Energy | Granholm | McCain | Michigan | Nuclear | Unemplyment — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:59am on Jun. 6, 2008 Private sector to tap trash - Union talks trash - Granholm's endorsement turns to trash

By RightMichigan.com

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

Hey, look mom, renewable energy!  And from trash!  The Grand Rapids Press reports this morning on a big win-win for Kent County residents and the private sector as a deal has been struck to tap the county landfill for it's methane gas.  

Posted in Breaking News | Clinton | Granholm | Michigan | Obama | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:35am on Apr. 30, 2008 Lemonade and electric cattle prods

By RightMichigan.com

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

Yesterday "in the sphere" I linked to a column over at Life with Mr. O about the utter inanity of Michigan's current crop of child protection laws.  In a State and under a system where Ricky Holland and Isaac Lethbridge were sent to homes where they met tragic and violent ends without a single head rolling at DHS it's more than a little frustrating that the "system" went out of it's way to strip the Ratte family of their 7 year old son because Mr. Ratte accidentally purchased him an alcohol laced lemonade from a Comerica Park concession stand adorned with this sign...

Posted in Ahmed | Breaking News | Cherry | DHS | Granholm | Michigan | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:36am on Mar. 26, 2008 THIS is why Michigan might actually be in play... talk about being your own worst enemy!

By RightMichigan.com

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

Another day in Michigan and another round of wretched headlines for Democrats locally. Which is good and bad. With folks like the Hip Hop Mayor down in the D all of the negative coverage comes back and bites us all in the backside. But when you’ve got Democrats tripping over themselves to batter eachother like we continue to see in the Presidential Primary race? Well that’s just plain a beautiful thing. It’s one thing when a member of the opposing party levels a charge but when one of your own people comes with both guns blazing? Look out.

Posted in Breaking News | Clinton | Granholm | Kwame Kilpatrick | Michigan | Obama | POTUS — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:26am on Mar. 25, 2008 MI MORNING UPDATE: Granholm and Dem cronies at it again!, Goldthorpe announces candidacy, Iraq, Michigan Fair Tax

By saul anuzis

225 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:
State budget battles start…Governor Granholm and the Democrats want to spend money we don’t have…again. Does someone see a pattern?

The Governor and her Democrat cronies are proposing to “borrow” if needed, and once again put Michigan taxpayers at risk. NO reforms, NO cuts, NO living within ones’ means??? Taxpayers…are you listening? Why are we losing jobs? Why are people leaving our state? Why are college graduates (our future) looking elsewhere for work?

Posted in Bart Stupak | Granholm | Jack Hoogendyk | michigan Fair tax | Michigan Republican Party | Republicans | Saul Anuzis — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:08pm on Mar. 6, 2008 BREAKING: Michigan Gov and LG busted by Feds for failure to pay taxes after passing largest tax hike in State history!!!

By RightMichigan.com

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

So after all that talk about the importance of new revenues the woman didn't even pay her own taxes?  Shocking details are emerging today that indicate Michigan's most prominent tax-hike advocates, Governor Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry, are in trouble with the federal government for, get this... refusing to pay their taxes!  The kind of trouble you don't get in for a minor offense.  The kind of trouble that only comes after repeated notifications from the federal government.

Posted in Breaking News | Cherry | federal government | Governor | Granholm | IRS | liberal hypocrisy | Michigan | taxes | Treasury — Comments (29) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:36am on Feb. 13, 2008 Even when you give them more cash the Granholm administration can't produce results!

By RightMichigan.com

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

And just when it looked like they had an excuse to hang their hats on.  This has been a rough week for Governor Jennifer Granholm's bureaucracy as it pertains to at-risk children in foster homes and under State supervision.  The legislature heard testimony yesterday that a desperately needed (and pricey) computer system update that could save lives, already bought and paid for by the taxpayers, is way behind schedule.

Posted in Breaking News | Corruption | DHS | foster care | Granholm | Michigan — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:02pm on Jan. 15, 2008 A Skeptical View of the Democrats' Stimulus Ideas

Rep. Mike Rogers Sounds Alarm on Tax-and-Spend Policies

By Bluey

With all eyes on Michigan for today’s Republican primary, I interviewed one of the Wolverine State’s congressman, Rep. Mike Rogers, about Michigan’s economic struggles, the likelihood of a presidential executive order on earmarks and what he expects for the upcoming year on Capitol Hill.

Despite the exciting activity taking place across his state today, Rogers is in Washington for the start of a new session of Congress. Without a favorite in the GOP race for president, he’s remaining focused on policy debates on Capitol Hill, perhaps none bigger than the economic stimulus package being discussed by President Bush and congressional Democrats.

Rogers knows firsthand what it’s like to live through a poor economy. His state has suffered more than any other under the leadership of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose tax-and-spend plan to revive the state’s economy backfired miserably and has left Michigan with a 7.4% unemployment rate.

Now that all eyes have turned to the national economy, Rogers said it’s not surprising to see Sen. Hillary Clinton put forward a plan that would do more harm than good. Clinton’s massive proposal would cost a whopping $70 billion and serve mostly as a short-term handout to the neediest families. According to the Republican National Committee, which maintains a “Spend-O-Meter” for Clinton’s proposals, her latest plan would bring the total to $848.6 billion in new spending during just one term in office.

Continued on the jump ...

Posted in Congress | Economic Stimulus | Granholm | Michigan — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:35am on Jan. 7, 2008 MI Governor hits a new low: Granholm playing political games with Human Services

By RightMichigan.com

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

Some interesting details began to emerge over the weekend regarding the sudden three-hundred-plus million dollar budget surplus the State miraculously discovered after closing the books on 2007.  When all was said and done there was about $350 million sitting in the bank that the good folks in Lansing hadn't expected to be there and before they got a chance to figure out the where and the how and the what-now a creeping, insidious spin started to permeate the press almost instantly.

While people like House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche suggested immediately that something was amiss the administration began talking to the press and "reminding" them that with projected deficits facing the State in 2008 this money was almost like a Christmas miracle.  They shouldn't question it, they should just note that this will help balance the books in the coming year.  It's a subtle move.  Just don't address the "where" and the "how" and talk about the money in "conservative" terms.  Talk about how it will help avoid future tax increases.  Because no one likes tax hikes in an election year.

All of a sudden no one remembers to ask where it came from or what the appropriate response really is (did I hear someone say "refund").  Heck, some folks in the press even lose their minds and start printing flat out lies.  Take the big headline story from the Associated Press over the weekend:

Faced with a $1.75 billion shortfall, lawmakers and Granholm increased revenue by $1.3 billion by raising the state income tax on Oct. 1 and placing a surcharge on the new Michigan Business Tax that took effect Jan. 1. They also trimmed or restricted spending by more than $400 million.

Some House Republicans say the surplus shows the government wasn't as desperate for new revenue as it claimed during last year's budget negotiations.

"Normally finishing financially in the black is a job well done, but I can't look at it that way when the wallets of hardworking families of Michigan were just squeezed because the state said it needed more money or else," GOP Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer of Kewadin said in a release last week.

Representative Elsenheimer brings up a good point.  And the article is presenting the "conservative" angle, so what's the problem?  Where's the inaccuracy or the bias?  Go back to that first paragraph.  Not only was it a $1.4 billion tax hike complete with a $900 million compliance cost (making it a $2.3 billion tax hike on businesses) that's not the sentence that'll drive you crazy.  "They also trimmed or restricted spending by more than $400 million."

Patently false.  Unequivocally untrue.  The FY2007-2008 budget was the biggest budget in the history of the State of Michigan.  Spending increased over FY2006-2007.  There was no trimming.  There was only restricting if you go with the strictest definition of the word and assume that the fact they didn't spend a hundred billion dollars buying every Michigan child a pony represents some sort of fiscal restraint.  

But the article has done it's job.  It's muddied the waters.  It's protecting the entrenched Democrat big government interests in Lansing (as the MSM is want to do) and put on a nice coat of camouflage by talking to Republicans to make the piece look bipartisan.  And still the question remains... where exactly did this extra cash come from?

For the answers we'll go to this morning's lead editorial in the Detroit News:

Half the surplus in the General Fund is the result of unexpectedly strong revenues in the last couple of months of the budget year. The other half is the result of what are known as "lapses," or unspent appropriations that are returned to the treasury. Three-quarters of this amount came from the Departments of Health and Human Services as the result of reductions in their spending in the last quarter of the budget year, according to an analysis by the state Senate Fiscal Agency published late last month.

It should be remembered that these departments, along with the State Police, were embarrassed when it was revealed that they had overspent their appropriations for the 2006 fiscal year by about $50 million and state lawmakers were not informed until after the gubernatorial election.

Posted in Breaking News | Budget | Ethics | Granholm | Michigan | tax hike | taxes | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »