367 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
The cause of Freedom and our cause for conservative values is a marathon…we need to get up every morning and do our part…whatever it is! Freedom was the original idea and Freedom isn’t free.
Republicans will AGAIN try to push for real reforms and address the structural spending problems Michigan has. The Governor and majority House Democrats have refused to address ANY major structural reforms… which has the Democrats talking about additional tax increases, raising the sales tax rate, tax shifts…more revenues!
Will the Governor do her job and step up with reform options? NOT more taxes???
The status quo is unacceptable.
Michigan has a spending problem…NOT a tax problem…well that too…they are too high!
See the latest budget numbers, see how the budget has grown, and check out state employees:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/budget-numbersg.html
Taxes will never catch up with politician’s propensity to spend! Politics as usual is a luxury we can no longer afford.
The Free Press hits it right on the head…
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/free-press-lays.html
This is why the recall movement is growing…look at all the Democrat tax hikers under a citizen’s tax revolt. Four less Democrats and no more new taxes! Is your Representative on the list?
Here is an ad you HAVE to watch…Edward’s ad about Hillary:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/powerful-edward.html
“Slick Willie” Hillary Clinton…Long on Rhetoric…Short on Answers:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/hillary-long-on.html
The folks at Michigan Liberal wrote up a nice summary on “how a recall works”. You can see it posted here:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/how-to-run-a-re.html
I presented a short commentary on this weekend’s CBS Michigan Matters about who we are and where we stand as a party. Read it here:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/my-commentary-o.html
Michigan College Republicans are proposing a new “reform” constitution to guarantee every club, every member a fair shot at their conventions and leadership…nicely done:
See the College Republican “reform” constitution here;
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/college-republi.html
As we debate tax options, one option for Michigan worth considering that would have “most” people in Michigan pay less than 7.5% sales tax after rebate would be the MI Fair Tax. A family of four with an income less than $28,000 is at the 0% rate! Here is a quick PowerPoint presentation on line that gives a good summary:
http://www.mifairtax.org/resrcs/MI%20Presentation.pps
See the Michigan Fair Tax main homepage…they have some good information:
http://www.mifairtax.org/index.html
Margaret Thatcher’s philosophy was that “first you win the argument then you win the vote”. You have to stand for something to win the argument.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
- Recall efforts start & grow….see UPDATE “Tax Hiker Portraits” by RightMichigan:
Robert Dean: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/2/105439/416
Steve Bieda: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/3/10332/0059
Mike Simpson: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/4/92924/1118
Marc Corriveau: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/8/93248/2721
Terry Brown: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/10/101539/45
Mary Valentine: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/9/6253/0133
Kate Ebli: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/11/55455/873
Marty Griffin: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/15/94238/961
Kathy Angerer: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/16/14040/296
Aldo Vagnozzi: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/17/103640/75
John Espinoza: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/30/93255/658
Joel Sheltrown: http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2007/10/31/103434/30
How does a recall work: http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/how-to-run-a-re.html
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1194160678193940.xml&coll=6
The service tax: repeal and replace
Grand Rapids Press
Sunday, November 04, 2007
The service tax created by state lawmakers as part of this year's budget deal does a decided dis-service to Michigan. The tax is arbitrary, anti-growth and creates an ungainly new accounting structure businesses would have to pay through the nose to implement -- just the kind of lousy policy you'd expect from the slapdash, ham-handed process lawmakers used to create it. Major legislative decisions should not be made over the coffee pot by fuzzy-brained politicians just hours from a government shut-down. Yet that's exactly how this tax came to be.
http://www.mlive.com/news/flintjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1194150235120740.xml&coll=5
Services tax fix
Business groups offer responsible solution
THE FLINT JOURNAL
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Pragmatic business leaders are offering Lansing a way to dump a crazy new state services tax while retaining essential revenue. Lawmakers of both parties should jump at this deal. As explained by the president of the Michigan Manufacturers Association in a column at the bottom of this page, a surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax enacted earlier this year is far preferable to a new 6 percent sales tax on dozens of services. While much has been written about the tariff's oddball and unfair features - for instance, taxing skiers but not golfers - the real damage is to businesses that buy services from other companies. The state's multinational corporations are enormous purchasers of such help, and taxing those transactions would be so onerous that one large employer is delaying a major investment until this levy is repealed.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION03/711050349/1031
UAW gives Big Three chance at reinvention
Now management must complete their transformation to become fully competitive.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Daniel Howes
Whoever said Detroit's automakers and the United Auto Workers couldn't shed decades of dysfunction, distrust and denial to craft collective bargaining agreements that could potentially transform the American auto industry might want to think again. In just a few short months, bargainers from all three companies and President Ron Gettelfinger's UAW have embraced the harrowing reality of their unsustainable business model. The results are two ratified contracts and one tentative agreement at Ford, reached early Saturday, that could be truly transformational for Detroit, its image, its stature on Wall Street and even its cars and trucks.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION03/711050311/1007/OPINION
Chrysler's cuts reflect auto reality
Executives are cutting to try to make money, not 'strip and flip' automaker
Monday, November 5, 2007
Paul W. Smith
We are running out of shoes. Actually, we've run out of shoes. There are no more "other shoe(s)" to drop. No more surprises; just expectations. The new guys at Chrysler LLC have spoken. It's a new language around here, but we better learn it (fast) and then we better listen. Maybe it could be argued that the parent company of the new Chrysler doesn't know a lot about the car business, but you better believe it knows a lotabout making money. And it knows, ultimately, that's why it is in business, whatever business it is in. In the "good old days," a car company would look at the problems they face: over-capacity; diminishing sales and market share; once great, but now tired models; or mistakes no one wants to take the hit for.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION01/711050309/1007/OPINION
Bring Detroit students proven school alternative
Detroit News
Monday, November 5, 2007
An explosive, new grassroots interest in charter school creation is building in Michigan -- a hopeful trend amid the mostly troubling education news this year. From Detroit to Lansing, educators, religious leaders and others have been meeting with charter school operators; working on obtaining buildings and studying best school practices to create high quality charter schools in poor neighborhoods. On Thursday and Friday, Michael Feinberg, co-founder of the highly successful Houston-based KIPP academies, met with budding charter operators in between presentations at the 10th annual Michigan Charter Schools Conference in Detroit. (KIPP stands for Knowledge is Power Program.)
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION03/711050308/1007/OPINION
No excuses: One leader's successful urban school revolution
Monday, November 5, 2007
Amber Arellano
They call them "yes, but" areas. "Yes but" cities make excuses for why their students fail. Michael Feinberg came to Detroit late last week to call us on our "yes, buts." We in the Motor City have a particularly bad case. "There are probably at least five areas in the country that think they're in the running for the most screwed up place in the country," Feinberg told a Detroit audience on Thursday. Metro Detroit is one of them, and we need to get over it. And Feinberg is proving it's possible. His schools, called KIPP, are overcoming every imaginable "yes, but" in urban education. More than 80 percent of KIPP's 14,000-plus students are low-income and more than 90 percent are African-American or Latino.
http://www.livingstondaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071104/OPINION01/711040332
In Lansing, they should all be fired
Rich Perlberg
November 4, 2007
Toward the end of the movie "The American President," the lobbyist played by Annette Bening is fired. The reason? Failure to achieve the main objectives of her job. Now, she had some good explanations for her performance, not the least of which involved a romantic relationship with the president of the United States. But she was hired with a specific goal in mind. She failed to accomplish it. She was fired. That's Hollywood. In Lansing, such incompetence is rewarded with some of the highest state government paychecks in the nation. The elected men and women in Lansing — from the entire Legislature on up to the governor — should be fired. They have utterly failed at their most basic and essential task, which is adopting a budget with available resources that adequately meets the state constitution's main objectives.
http://www.mlive.com/columns/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-1/119417502739990.xml&coll=4
No government bailout for unreal mortgage market
Bay City Times
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Greed is not good. It got the world into the unfolding crisis that started with loans made to U.S. home buyers that they could not afford. As average Jills and Joes built enormous McMansions in former cornfields and even people just scraping by were able to buy houses, it was hard not to ask: This is nuts, how can these people afford these places? Turns out, many couldn't. But everyone got greedy, from homeowners who believed predatory lenders who sold them loans that would balloon them into insolvency in a few years, to Wall Street whizzes who cobbled together ticking time bombs based on risky loans as the next neat investment vehicle. Yes, it got a lot of people into homes who otherwise might have remained renters or in more-affordable mortgages.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-39/1194160919193940.xml&coll=6
Stay-in-school bill is held back
Sunday, November 04, 2007
By Dave Murray
The Grand Rapids Press
Educators who say age 16 is too young for students to legally walk away from school are pushing the state Legislature to boost the dropout age to 18. But a bill raising Michigan's compulsory education age is languishing in the Senate's Education Committee, and staff for chairman Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, say they are not optimistic the legislation can go anywhere this session. "The bill is absolutely a concern to us but, like a great many things these days, it comes down to money," said Darin Ackerman, Kuipers' chief of staff. "You can't just raise the age and not provide the kinds of alternative programs these students will need."
http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=9274
MSP Forensics Lab should remain open
Mining Gazette
November 3, 2007
The State of Michigan’s 2008 budget does not include funding for the MSP Forensics Lab in Marquette. As a result, the facility’s closure is planned for sometime next year. That’s a really bad idea, in our estimation. As is often the case, the state once again balanced a budget on the backs of U.P. residents. The Marquette lab is one of two to close. The other is located in Sterling Heights.The impact is hardly the same for both regions as the nearest remaining lab to Sterling Heights is 39 miles away in Northville. With the departure of the Marquette lab, the nearest MSP forensic facility is in downstate Grayling, some 250 miles from Marquette and 350 miles from Houghton.
http://info.detnews.com/redesign/blogs/dcblog/index.cfm?blogid=327
More on the turtles
Posted by Deb Price
Fri, Nov 2, 2007 at 4:50 PM
Remember the turtles? Well, U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, certainly hasn't forgotten them. A quick reminder that he is upset that while 7.5 percent of Michigan people have no jobs, the turtles are watching a $318,000 fence going up along US 31 in Muskegon County to protect them from becoming road kill. This week, Hoekstra introduced legislation to give states with jobless rates of at least 25 percent above the national average some wiggle room in how they spend federal transportation dollars.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who got in a testy exchange last week with Hoekstra, said the feds required her to spend that $318,000 on transportation "enhancement" projects, such as the turtle fence.
http://www.livingstondaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/NEWS01/711050303/1002
Hunting, fishing fees could rise soon
By Dan Meisler
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS
November 5, 2007
Local schools will get some extra money compared to more wealthy districts, but hunters and fishers may have to pay more for state licenses under the new state budget approved last week. All five school districts in the county are at the bottom of the per-pupil funding spectrum, and so will get "equity payments" to bring them closer to the top. Along with the $48-per-pupil increase all districts will receive, local schools will see additional payments of between $45 and $48 per student.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION01/711050333/1085/opinion
Deer hunt: Making hunting more accessible will pay off for state
A Lansing State Journal editorial
Published November 5, 2007
Ten days from the start of the firearm hunting season for deer, non-hunters and hunters alike may want to consider some figures: 1 in 86. Those are the odds of a specific vehicle in Michigan colliding with a deer here, according to State Farm Insurance. Michigan, in fact, is No. 2 in the nation for vehicle-deer collisions. Such accidents injured nearly 1,700 humans in 2006 and killed 12, not to mention the huge costs in vehicle damage. Something needs to be done, starting with changes in Michigan's deer hunting rules to make hunting more accessible and a better check on the state's burgeoning herd of whitetails.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-39/1194160503193940.xml&coll=6
Will alcohol sales stir on-the-rocks economy?
Sunday, November 04, 2007
By Ben Beversluis
The Grand Rapids Press
HUDSONVILLE -- The words must gall as downtown Hudsonville fights to stay vital. "Come see us in Grandville," says the sign in the dusty window of a closed Chrysler dealership. Nearby, a few hundred feet off Chicago Drive, Larry Gemmen runs the store started 52 years ago by his father. His traffic has slowed, and he has watched neighbors disappear -- two car lots, two restaurants, a department store and a flooring shop.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/04/giuliani-poised-to-launch_n_71053.html
Giuliani Poised To Launch His Own Version Of The "Southern Strategy"
Thomas B. Edsall
November 4, 2007
Strategists for Rudy Giuliani are quietly preparing a significantly race-based campaign strategy to strengthen support among socially conservative white voters, in the South as well as in the North. The former Mayor carries the burden of three marriages and a Brooklyn accent, but he has more race cards to play than any of his opponents, and his success in the fight for the nomination - according to close observers of the campaign -- may depend on how aggressively he plays his hand. The themes the campaign are lining up for renewed emphasis are those reflecting Giuliani's confrontational stance towards black New Yorkers and their white liberal allies, as well as his record of siding decisively with the police against minorities who launched protests alleging police brutality during the years he was mayor from 1994-2001.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/04/447207.aspx
ROMNEY AT MICHIGAN FOOTBALL GAME
Posted: Sunday, November 04, 2007
From NBC/NJ’s Erin McPike
WEEKEND ROMNEY NOTEBOOK
EAST LANSING, MI, Nov. 3 -- Romney is trying hard to shake the perception that he's stiff or robotic: He was the only presidential candidate to show up at the widely attended Michigan State/University of Michigan football game Saturday in the now semi-early primary state. Before heading into the game, he braved the alcohol-guzzling and face-painted rowdy tailgate scene. And at one point while taking pictures with students in the College Republicans' tent, the non-drinking candidate joked out loud, "I think alcohol has something to do with this crowd." But that didn't shake him -- he got some practice at both the Iowa/Iowa State game in mid-September and the mid-October snowmobile grass drags in New Hampshire, where the buzz was that he managed to seek out some of the drunkest people there.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1680168,00.html
Mitt Romney's Defining Moment
Friday, Nov. 02, 2007
By KAREN TUMULTY
The official story of how health-care reform was conceived in Massachusetts could hardly have been less inspiring--or promising. In the earliest days after Mitt Romney's election in 2002, goes the tale, the new Governor of Massachusetts sat down in his office with his old friend Tom Stemberg, founder of the Staples office-supply chain. "There are lots of things you can do to make this state better," Stemberg told him. "But if you really want to make a difference in the long term, you should fix the health-care system." Romney did not exactly jump at the prospect. It would cost billions of dollars; he was already facing a budget deficit and had promised not to raise taxes.
Clinton 'broadly supports' states' efforts to license illegals
November 4, 2007
CLINTON, Iowa (CNN) — Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, Sunday sought to further clarify her position on New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer’s controversial plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, a position which she said she’s already made clear on “a number of occasions.” The issue was brought front and center at Tuesday night’s Democratic debate. At the time Clinton said the plan “makes a lot of sense" but stopped short of endorsing it. Former Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, claimed her answer was inconsistent and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has since said that her answer to that question and others “left us wondering.” Asked by reporters Sunday why it’s taken so long for clarification Clinton admitted she “wasn’t as clear as [she] should have been” but added, “I broadly support what governors like Elliot Spitzer are trying to do.”
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/POLITICS/711050337/1022
Clinton denies hiding her role in '90s health care debate
Mike Glover / Associated Press
Monday, November 5, 2007
CLINTON, Iowa -- Hillary Rodham Clinton rejected charges Sunday she's being secretive about her role as first lady in trying to overhaul the nation's health care system. "There's been some misunderstanding and some misrepresentation about what the facts are," said Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Reporters asked Clinton about a series of charges that have been made about her since last Tuesday's Democratic debate. She shrugged off the attacks.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION03/711050303/1007/OPINION
Obama's mistake raises questions on gay commitment
Monday, November 5, 2007
Deb Price
Sad, disappointed and more than a little hurt. That's how many Americans who are both black and gay sound when they talk about Barack Obama. What's upsetting them is that the Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, despite stellar gay-rights positions, sat back and allowed a gospel concert for his presidential campaign to essentially spiral into an anti-gay revival. How? As part of wooing black evangelicals in high-stakes South Carolina, his campaign gave star-billing at an event to Grammy-winning gospel singer and preacher Donnie McClurkin, a self-identified "ex-gay" claiming to have been saved from "perversion."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/OPINION03/711050307/1007/OPINION
Congress must put check on president's war powers
Monday, November 5, 2007
George Will
Americans are wondering, with the lassitude of uninvolved spectators, whether the president will initiate a war with Iran. Some Democratic presidential candidates worry, or purport to, that he might claim an authorization for war in a Senate resolution labeling an Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit a terrorist organization. Some Democratic representatives oppose the president's request for $88 million to equip B-2 stealth bombers to carry huge "bunker-buster" bombs, hoping to thereby impede a presidential decision to attack Iran's hardened nuclear facilities. While legislators try to leash a president by tinkering with a weapon, a sufficient leash -- the Constitution -- is being ignored by them.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-farmbill5nov05,0,1090112.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
A chance to end farm subsidies
Another disgraceful corporate welfare bill could come to the Senate floor today.
LA Times
November 5, 2007
It's good to be a farmer. With money rolling in as many subsidized crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans command unusually high prices, and with net farm income expected to hit a record this year, the government continues to throw cash at commodity growers. And despite the fact that a large coalition of corporate interests, environmentalists, nutritionists, economists and international anti-poverty groups has been loudly urging an end to this form of corporate welfare, Congress has so far turned a deaf ear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04view.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Beyond Those Health Care Numbers
November 4, 2007
By N. GREGORY MANKIW
WITH the health care system at the center of the political debate, a lot of scary claims are being thrown around. The dangerous ones are not those that are false; watchdogs in the news media are quick to debunk them. Rather, the dangerous ones are those that are true but don’t mean what people think they mean. Here are three of the true but misleading statements about health care that politicians and pundits love to use to frighten the public:
STATEMENT 1 The United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than Canada, which has national health insurance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/washington/05diplo.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
U.S. Is Likely to Continue Aid to Pakistan
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID ROHDE
November 5, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 — The Bush administration signaled Sunday that it would probably keep billions of dollars flowing to Pakistan’s military, despite the detention of human rights advocates and leaders of the political opposition by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s president. In carefully calibrated public statements and blunter private acknowledgments about the limits of American leverage over General Musharraf, the man President Bush has called one of his most critical allies, the officials argued that it would be counterproductive to let Pakistan’s political turmoil interfere with their best hope of ousting Al Qaeda’s central leadership and the Taliban from the country’s mountainous tribal areas.
