NEWS

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Gary McDowell in Gaylord

Gary McDowell, the Democrat running against our Congressman, Republican Dan Benishek, would like to meet you, Monday, May 21st, noon, at BJs Restaurant in Gaylord.

Fish, farmed in a garage, in Detroit

From 5/15/12 Bridge Magazine article by Nancy Derringer

Gary Wozniak regards his domain with the enthusiasm of an evangelist. Where most people would look at these wide expanses of Detroit blight and see dark despair, he sees nothing but gleaming possibilities.

“This is the center of the farm,” he said, gazing over the corner of Warren and Grandy on Detroit’s near east side at a vacant lot waving with overgrown grass on a windy spring day. Not long ago, it was where Northeastern High School stood. Today, it’s ground zero in an agreement Wozniak hopes to make with Detroit Public Schools and the city to convert it to one of the city’s most ambitious urban agriculture projects — one that will eventually encompass everything from organic fruits and vegetables to an indoor tilapia farm in an abandoned municipal garage.

Yep, you read it. Fish, farmed in a garage, in Detorit.

Earned income tax credit reduction hurts low income households and small rural businesses

From 5/15/12 MLive article by the Associated Press

A new [Michigan League for Human Services] report says Michigan's low-income working families will pay an estimated $244 million more in state income taxes next year because of reductions in the state's earned income tax credit.

League President Gilda Jacobs says the smaller credit "may well put out of business" stores such as independent grocers, small auto repair shops and secondhand stores that cater to low-income working families in rural communities.

About 800,000 Michigan households claim the credit.

Our Michigan House representative, Republican Greg MacMaster, sponsored HB 4769, a bill that bans adoption of Sharia laws in Michigan

From 5/10/12 MLive article by the Associated Press

Several groups have expressed concern, including the Michigan Catholic Conference.

The Catholic Conference said it strongly opposes the bill because it would likely affect the application of Catholic canon law, the judicial structure governing the church.

"Any measure that could have the impact of interfering with the internal life of the Catholic Church shall be viewed as an attack on religious liberty itself and must be opposed," Conference President and Chief Executive Paul Long said in a statement. "It is the hope of the Michigan Catholic Conference that discussions pertaining to this legislation will foster a deeper awareness of and appreciation for religious liberty and the contributions religious communities make to the common good of society."

The bill could not only adversely affect Michigan Muslims, but also followers of other religions, including Judaism and Christianity, for whom courts routinely order reasonable accommodations for the observance of religious laws," the statement said.

Our Congressman, Republican Dan Benishek M.D., votes to slash food and health care spending and increase defense spending.

From 5/10/12 Foodorama blog

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed H.R. 5652, the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The measure slashes $35.8 billion from nutrition programs.

"H.R. 5652 would impose deep budget cuts that cost jobs and hurt middle class and vulnerable Americans – especially seniors, veterans, and children," the White House said.

The measure was designed to reduce the budget deficit, while also overriding deep cuts to the Pentagon’s budget included in last summer's debt deal, which are mandated to begin in 2013 because of the failure of the so-called Supercommittee to agree to a deficit-reduction plan. But the GOP focused solely on cutting social services programs. The vote was 218-99. 16 Republicans opposed it, as did 100% of the Democrats who voted.

In the bill, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka Food Stamps) eligibility is tightened; the Social Services Block Grant, which funds Meals on Wheels, is ended; the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund under the 2010 healthcare law is ended; the Federal Medicaid match to states is reduced, and there are new stricter eligibility standards for Medicaid required. The bill leaves pending mandatory cuts in place, including cuts to Medicare. It overrides $72 billion in cuts to the Pentagon and on defense spending mandated by sequestration, but adds $315 billion total in new cuts.

Lansing politicians out of touch with Michigan business' need for college graduates

From 5/10/12 Bridge Magazine article by Phil Power

The progressive group Business Leaders for Michigan just held a leadership summit devoted to the topic of learning and our state’s economic future. The theme was “Higher Education: A Growth Engine for the New Michigan” and it drew a lot of high-powered, knowledgeable people to the Lansing Center Monday afternoon.

They came from various places and backgrounds, but all agreed we need to see higher education as the engine of innovation, of talent and of our economic future.

The tragedy is that — as is all too often the case — the reality is out of synch with how the politicians are operating in Lansing, where petty political considerations all too often trump everything else.

Republican filibuster is blocking resolution of huge student loan interest rate increase problem

From 5/9/12 Senator Carol Levin e-mail to constituents

Senate Republicans are preventing the Senate from even debating legislation to fix the looming increase in student loan interest rates. It's just not right.

On July 1, the interest rate on student loans is going to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. It's going to double unless we act. That will cost 7.4 million college students and their families money that many families do not have to spare. So the need to act is urgent.

Instead, in what has come to be a damaging ritual here in the Senate, Republicans have filibustered the motion to proceed to legislation to prevent the increase in student loan interest rates. Republicans have voted against even allowing the United States Senate to begin to debate a bill.

Republicans say they, too, want to prevent this increase in student loan interest rates. They differ with us, they say, on how to pay for this. Republicans say the only way they will support legislation to prevent this rate increase is with cuts from a fund that helps to prevent infectious and chronic diseases.

Democrats are offering a different alternative. We recognize that the tax code is riddled with loopholes and special breaks that allow some individuals and some corporations to avoid paying taxes. In this case, what's identified is a tax break that allows some professional service providers, such as lawyers, to avoid paying their payroll taxes by organizing their businesses as so-called "S corporations," and then paying themselves in the form of dividends instead of salaries. The Government Accountability Office recently examined this issue and found widespread problems, costing taxpayers and the Treasury billions of dollars each year in uncollected revenues.

What our bill would do is require that professional services providers with incomes above $250,000 a year pay payroll taxes on the income that they derive from these S corporations. We would use the revenues from closing that loophole for those with incomes above $250,000 to prevent the interest rate hike that is going to hit middle-class families and, at the same time, and we would be able to do so while also we avoid increasing the deficit or slashing important programs.

Our Republican colleagues have accused us, to quote one of them, of raising taxes on "the people that are doing some of the very serious job creation in this country." Well, not long ago, Republicans were saying something different about this loophole. For starters, they actually called it a loophole. That's what former Vice President Cheney called it, during his 2004 vice presidential debate - a "special loophole." He accused his debate opponent of dodging $600,000 in payroll taxes using this loophole. Likewise, a Republican candidate for Senate not long ago called this "a deceptive tax scheme to get around the IRS." There were no Republican cries then about raising taxes on job creators.

The fact of the matter is this loophole ought to be closed, no matter who is taking advantage of it. And closing it, at least for those with incomes above $250,000, in order to avoid another blow in a long series of blows to middle-income Americans just makes sense. It is fundamentally fair.

Hundreds of thousands of students in Michigan depend on federal student loans to help afford college. They and their families know that college is not getting any cheaper. They don't need a doubled interest rate on top of tuition increases. For many, an affordable loan is the difference between staying in school or giving up the dream of a college education. We should not let this loophole stand in the way of those dreams.

Today, I urged our Republican colleagues to end their filibuster of this vital bill. If Republicans think they have a better way, they should let us debate their alternatives and let us vote. They should end their filibuster of this critically needed legislation today.

Sincerely,
 
Carl Levin

Students who take remedial courses in college rarely graduate

From 5/8/12 Bridge Magazine article by Ron French

In more than 100 school districts across the state, more than half the graduates enrolling in public colleges take remedial courses – in essence repeating lessons that should have been learned in high school.

Those remedial classes may cost students, schools and taxpayers more than $100 million a year, and often don’t lead to a degree; many of the 23,000 students taking remedial courses each year drop out before they ever take an actual college-credit course, and few graduate.

Percent of Michigan high school students who took remedial courses in college during the 08-09 school year

23.7% = Public Schools of Petoskey
24.4% = Alpena Public Schools
28.3% = Gaylord Community Schools
34.5% = Johannesburg-Lewiston Area Schools
35.6% = statewide average
36.4% = Vanderbilt Area Schools
39.2% = Crawford AuSable Schools
43.9% = Traverse City Area Public Schools
56.3% = Wolverine Community Schools

Some Michigan economists think personal property tax reduction will also reduce jobs

From 5/6/12 MLive article by Rick Haglund

An eight-bill package that eventually would do away with the state’s personal property tax seems destined to become law.

But several economists I spoke with said the economic impact of the measure likely will be modest.

The reason: Most who will benefit from it are small business owners who “will not change their employment and business activity significantly regardless of taxes,” said Tim Bartik, senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo.

And ending the tax could result in fewer jobs, especially at larger manufacturing firms that are the most prominent proponents of axing the levy.

Here’s why: The big story in manufacturing in the past 60 years or so has been an astounding increase in productivity. It takes just 177 manufacturing workers today to perform the same amount of work that required 1,000 workers in 1950, according to data complied by Chicago Federal Reserve Bank economist William Strauss.

The reason is that manufacturers are investing heavily in robots, computers and other equipment that displace humans.

A study done for the Michigan Manufacturing Association on the personal property tax put it this way:

“Due to increasing market pressures, firms throughout the nation and in Michigan are starting to shift their expenses toward investment in capital and away from investment in labor,” said the study by the Anderson Economic Group.

So, by eliminating taxes on that equipment, state policymakers might actually be helping manufacturers reduce payrolls rather than add to them.

Michigan legislators feed at Moroun family trough

From 4/26/12 Bridge Magazine article by Phil Power

The Detroit International Bridge Company, which owns the Ambassador Bridge, wants to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot, one that would require a statewide vote for the New International Trade Crossing bridge to go forward.

There’s little mystery as to what this is really all about.  The bridge company is entirely owned by one family — Manuel “Matty” Moroun, his wife Nora and their son, Matthew Moroun.

For years, the family has fiercely fought to protect its monopoly.

The Legislature, however, has refused to vote on a new bridge.

Michigan’s notoriously weak campaign finance reporting laws have never posed much of a barrier to various interests — including the Morouns — scattering millions of “contributions” into willing legislative hands. Indeed, some skeptics have suggested lawmakers would be perfectly happy if the Snyder administration found a way to get the new bridge under way without legislative approval, since that would avoid the risk of voting against the hand that feeds them.

Greg MacMaster's (our Republican representative in Lansing)  fifth largest campaign contribution ($500) in 2010 was from Matty Mouron.

Kalamazoo County school superintendents and board presidents think Michigan lawmakers' K-12 goals are privitization and vouchers

From 4/25/12 Mlive article by Julie Mack

KALAMAZOO, MI -- For more than a decade, John Engler has been seen as Enemy No. 1 in some circles of Michigan educators.

But the K-12 community at a gathering Tuesday of Kalamazoo County school superintendents and school board presidents, ruefully said that Snyder makes Engler seems like a demanding, but benevolent uncle.

"At least Engler kept the funding going," said Tim Vagts, superintendent of Galesburg-Augusta Community Schools. "Snyder is choking us out. He talks about colloboration, but he's not collaborating at all.

"He's driving an agenda, and it's not an agenda that's friendly to children," Vagts said. "He has no interest in helping kids. And people need to wake up that, to what is happening."

One of the biggest issues cited Tuesday was Snyder's use of the School Aid Fund to help subsidize the state's public universities.

That move meant that K-12 schools saw a funding decrease last year instead of an increase. The current per-pupil foundation allowance of $6,846 is lower than what it was in 2005-06, and Snyder has proposed keeping it at that level for fiscal 2013 and 2014.

"It was a cut (to K-12 funding) in a year when the State Aid Fund had a surplus," said Virgil "Skip" Knowles, board president of Vicksburg Community Schools.

He and others said that when Proposal A was enacted in 1994 under Engler, it was understood that revenues into the School Aid Fund would be dedicated to K-12 schools -- a point, they say, has been acknowledged since by Engler and other Republicans involved in writing Proposal A.

"They haven't kept the promise, and that's a failure of government," Knowles said. "That's a huge failure."

The state also has lifted the cap on charter schools, which likely will lead to enrollment -- and revenue -- declines in traditional public schools, and has pushed "best practices" such as outsourcing of non-instructional services, which educators say has contributed to problems in the state's retirement system for public school employees.

"I feel like we're getting set up for failure," said Dale Pominville, board president of the Parchment School District.

Some in the room suggested there is "another agenda" at work -- that some Republicans in Lansing are seeking to weaken traditional public schools to the point that the public will be more receptive to school vouchers and the privatization of public education.

"I think they want to eliminate public schools," said Susan Reichert, Climax-Scotts board president. "I think they want to get give kids computers and let them sit at home and do their work there. .... They're not looking at students as people, but as dollar signs and how much they cost."

Jill Adamski, board president of Gull Lake Community Schools, acknowledged the point.

"I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist. I don't want to think that they want us to fail and just privatize everything," Adamski said. But based on the actions of Snyder and GOP lawmakers in the past year, "you can make a good argument for that."

Michigan public school retirees' pension and health care are underfunded because state hasn't contributed to fund since 1991, jobs have been outsourced and charter schools don't pay into the fund.

From 4/24/12 Bridge Magazine article by Nancy Derringer

Critics point to the decision made by Gov. John Engler in 1991 to end the state’s contribution to the MPSERS health-care fund, which had been prefunded. Switching to a pay-as-you-go basis helped set the stage for the current shortfall, as health-care costs have exploded in recent decades.

“What hasn’t happened is, the state hasn’t been pre-paying into that system, the health-care side, which is the majority of that $45 billion,” said Doug Pratt, director of public affairs for the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

Pratt added that the state has made the situation worse by encouraging such initiatives as charter schools, privatization and outsourcing, which reduce the number of school employees in the system.

“Let’s say you have a school custodian, works 20 years, accrued benefits and was paying into them. With the push to outsource those jobs, that person’s job is no longer paying in, but that accrued liability is still there. No one is paying for that,” said Pratt, who suggested requiring charter operators and others taking such contracts to pay into the MPSERS system.

The primary purpose of negative advertising is to turn moderate voters into non-voters

This is a very interesting op-ed article and worth the effort to click the link below and read the entire piece and reader comments.

From 4/20/12 The Washington Post op-ed article by Steven Pearlstein

Contrary to what many believe, the central effect of negative advertising isn’t to move voters from supporting another candidate to backing yours. The main effect is not even to move undecided voters into your column. No, the real effect of negative advertising is to energize and solidify support among your ideological base while turning everyone else off to the other candidate, the campaign and the entire electoral process. Negative advertising isn’t about changing minds; it’s about altering the composition of the voter pool on Election Day by turning moderate voters into non-voters.

Government created Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association raises car insurance rates in secret

From 4/20/12 MLive op-ed article by Tim Skubick

What in the heck were lawmakers thinking in 1978 when they created an agency that can tax all of us without a shred of sunshine on the process? Or were they smoking something at the time?

You'll find this difficult to fathom but lawmakers created the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association and then told it do everything pretty much in secret, minus its mandated yearly financial statement.

The beloved MCCA, as it's known in these parts, has one objective: Raise enough money to cover automobile injury claims that exceed $500,000.

It gets the money by imposing a surcharge on your car insurance which, according to one lawmaker, has only increased by 2,489 percent since 2000.

Only 2,489 percent?!? Where's the Tea Party when we need them?

Nobody in the press corps has ever covered one of these meetings because the cabal is exempt from the Open Meetings Act.

Age of U.S. Supreme Court Justices by the end of the next presidential term

From http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

84    3/15/1933    Ruth Bader Ginsburg
81    3/11/1936    Antonin Scalia
81    7/23/1936    Anthony M Kennedy
78    8/15/1938    Stephen G Breyer
69    6/23/1948    Clarence Thomas
67      4/1/1950    Samuel Anthony Alito
63    6/25/1954    Sonia Sotomayor
62    1/27/1955    John G Roberts
57    4/28/1960    Elena Kagan

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