Politically and Morally Incapable of Maintaining our Civilization

Michigan urgently needs infrastructure investment. At least a billion dollars worth. That's where Governor Snyder and I agree. And if we don't do it now, it's going to cost us WAY more than that to play catch-up.

And now comes the task of paying for it. Snyder's idea is to dramatically increase vehicle registration fees by $120 per year.

$120 more per year to drive my car. That's a spicy meatball.

But hell...

As annoyed as I am that they'd give 1.6 billion in tax cuts to midsized and large businesses in Michigan at a time when Michigan is in desperate need for infrastructure investment, I would cheer our leaders for doing the responsible thing. I may be annoyed that the dude driving the Hummer and the dude driving the 1994 Honda Civic beater are paying the same vehicle registration fee....but whatever. We need these roads. I'd cheer our reps for actually RAISING the revenue needed to do the right thing and maintain our foundational infrastructure.

But I strongly suspect they won't. They're already fleeing from the notion of raising revenue. I've come to believe Michigan's congressional Republicans are politically and morally incapable of doing what needs to be done to maintain even the most basic foundations of our civilization: our roads. Our bridges...

Even the matter of bridges, the matter of building stronger more expedient trade routes with our largest international trade partner, is a contested one. The Maroun family owns the one bridge between Detroit and Canada and they're not giving up their effective monopoly without a fight. They've got most Michigan congressional republicans in their pockets....forget about the 10,000 jobs constructing a second bridge would create, forget about a new bridge connecting to an actual highway, forget about the fact that CANADA is going to pay for it, forget that business leaders, our governor, most citizens, pundits, editorial boards, cities, and three year olds and their stuffed walruses are in favor of the bridge...

Michigan congressmen like Senator Goeff Hansen are bought and in the pocket of the family who owns the Ambassador Bridge. They will sell out Michigan's future and nearly 10 million people just to keep a relationship with a rich family that doesn't even live here.

Michigan's Republican congress simply doesn't have the political or moral capacity to carry our state forward...to maintain even the basics of civilization.

I hate politics

Before talking about mercury in the Great Lakes, let's talk about politics.

I hate it.

I hate politics.

I hate that I feel briefly good when going on a rant about X or Y, but then feel terrible later because I really, in my heart of hearts, don't feel that those who disagree with me are villains. They're my neighbors. They're my friends. They're people who I genuinely like...and though we have different views of this nation I'm guilty of preferring to bury the hatchet than to get everything I want.

Sure, there are ideological loyalists. I ain't that. I'd rather have meaningful friendships, at the end of the day, with kind people with similar interests than have friendships with people who merely agree with me.

There's too much politically polarized demonization. Looking on our friends and neighbors with suspicion because they want this or that. Communists. Nazis. Fasciests. Words meant to shove one another into a frame from which they can never again re-enter polite society.

That's no good.

I don't have the heart to be an ideological purist, or a partisan. I simply don't believe that people are evil. I don't believe people who disagree with me are evil. Or bad. Or even immoral. Or even misguided. Wrong. MAYBE wrong. I maybe believe they're wrong.

But out to destroy all that is good in civilization?

No.

Do I get frustrated? Sure I do. I see people demonize the folks at Occupy Wall Street, I hear them referred to as Nazis. As idiotic hippies. As anarchists. Anything, everything, meant to diminutize and dismiss.

Did I play that game with the TEA party? You bet I did. Bunch of geriatric malcontents, screaming for the government to keep their filthy government hands out of their Medicare and VA benefits.

But they were angry, weren't they? Mad about something. Mad about feeling like they don't have a voice. Atroturf or not, SOMETHING resonated with enough Americans to get them out on the streets and into town halls to protest. Some sense of decay. Some sense of loss. Some sense of fear. Some very real human experience.

I'm tired of the hating and demonizing. I'm not cut out for it, really. I can't sustain it. The best I can sustain is the occasional outburst of frustration.

Long term.....maybe not so much.

What the hell am I talking about? I don't know. It's late. I'm probably delirious from sleep deprivation. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be eviscerating the bad guys old school.

I think I was going to talk about mercury in the Great Lakes. Maybe next time.

Michigan Legislators Strip Food Assistance from a 13 Year Old Girl

Some acquaintances of mine have recently started taking care of a 13 year old girl.

Great kid. Wonderful with my kids and their kids. She was abandoned over the past two years. Neither of her parents, who were split up, wanted her. The grandmother also avoids having anything to do with her. I'm not sure whatever happened to the parents. But I know that the girl fell into the foster home system.

She had food assistance, to help her out and the family that was taking care of her.

Had.

HAD food assistance.

A new law, passed by the Republican congress and signed by the Republican governor, stripped the 13 year old girl of food assistance. The law takes into account more assets when determining eligibility.

And guess what? The 13 year old girl has a modest trust fund which she can't touch until she's 18. So her food assistance was stripped.

Michigan has determined food assistance eligibility based only on income for roughly a decade. A new policy will include a review of certain financial assets starting Oct 1. The requirements will affect new applicants right away and existing recipients when their cases come up for review, which typically happens once every six months.

Those with assets of more than $5,000 in bank accounts or some types of property would no longer be eligible for food assistance. Other assets that would count against the cap include vehicles with market values of more than $15,000 and second homes, depending on how much is owed on the properties.

Michigan Republicans Raise Taxes on Low Wage Earners By $1000 per Year

I suppose I should be talking about this since it's on my beat, though Wizardkitten has an excellent diary about the Republican tax raises in Muskegon.

As it turns out, our Conservative representatives gleefully stripped downtown Muskegonites of the tax free Renaissance zone. The tax free Renaissance zone was set up to help a LITERALLY demolished city center lure people and businesses downtown to have a city center again. For some reason a tax free Renaissance zone was far too libertarian for our Tea Party congress so they...

...oh who am I kidding?

They stripped the tax free zone because there were mostly just poor poeple living there, and who gives a crap about them, right? Am I right?

Of course I'm right.

The Ren zone was mostly populated by low wage earners. If you're making 25,000 in downtown Muskegon, guess what? The Michigan Republicans raised your taxes by $1000 per year!

Classy.

You'd think our State Senator Goeff Hansen would have given a crap...but he still gleefully rubber stamped the bill.

GLEEFULLY.

As did our State representative Holly Hughs.

Gleefully.

They GLEEFULLY signed that bill. With gusto.

The very same bill that stripped young families of the state Child Tax Credit.

Folks are asking me all the time now, like they've JUST heard about it, "Is it true that we're losing the child tax credit this year?

I'm happy to tell them who punched their young family in the gut. Happy to tell them that Goeff Hansen and Holly Hughs JOYFULLY rubber stamped the bill that is raising their taxes by HUNDREDS and in some cases a THOUSAND dollars.

Middle class taxes: raised
Child tax credits for young families: scrapped
Food assistance: slashed
Help for the poorest citizens: retroactively slashed
Pensions: Taxed
Schools, police, fire departments: slashed

All to splash MORE and MORE and MORE money on the folks who don't seem to be hiring anybody right now. But I'm sure they're paying out some mad cash to Hansen and Hughs.

It can't be more direct. We're robbing regular Americans to give to the rich.

Michigan Republicans Poised to Slash Up to 57% of City Revenues

First off...I have no love for the personal property tax on businesses. In some cases, it can be a hardship on very small mom and pop businesses, while it's merely a niussance to larger businesses.

That said, the state of Michigan's new diabolical scheme to eliminate the tax is the worst kind of dogmatic irresponsibility...as in, it's the kind that's going to bring ruin on many of our more industrial centers in Michigan. As in, finished. Done. Deadsville. Bankrupt. As if our cities need another boot to the head. Many of the more industrial cities get at least half of their revenue from personal property tax. Here's an image from the Michgian Municipal League website of what some cities stand to lose in city revenue if this tax cut goes through:



River Rouge could lose 57% of its revenue. Evart, Michigan could lose 35%. And so on. This would KILL a lot of cities.

Okay, but what's the personal property tax?

It's a tax on equipment a businesses owns.

For some things, it makes sense to tax these things since there's a society cost. For example, some equipment makes loud, horrible noises. Other equipment makes tons of dust. Some creates pollutants that need to be cleaned.

For other things, it's kind of irritating...for example when it applies to furniture. For example, my wife has display cases in her store, and she pays a tax on each one that's IN her store. There's no societal cost, it's just a tax on a business owning furniture.

Okay. Whatever. That's what personal property tax is.

Now...if you think about this tax, you can start to see how a town with factories would probably have a lot more revenue from personal property tax than, say, a suburb or a town that is mostly homes and few businesses.

In some well-off residential communities such as the Grosse Pointes, personal property tax accounts for 2 percent or less of property tax revenues. In River Rouge, a Downriver industrial city of 8,000 residents in Wayne County, personal property makes up more than half of property tax revenues, according to data compiled by the Michigan Municipal League.

"I basically would have no other choice but to declare bankruptcy," if the tax was repealed and not replaced, said River Rouge Mayor Michael Bowdler.
"You're punishing communities that have been corporation friendly, versus the bedroom communities that don't have to put up with the noise and the dust and everything else."


From The Detroit News

This is the sort of tax cut that's going to hit industrial centers MUCH harder than rich suburbs. That, of course, fits the pattern of our Republican leadership. Spare those with the money, kneecap those without.

And while I have no particular love for the personal property tax, my love for my state is greater than my irritation that a small time mom and pop store has to pay a tax on owning a chair or a computer.

The Michigan Municipal League is fighting back against this new proposed tax cut with its Replace Don't Erase campaign. If our legislators are hell bent on removing this tax...they NEED TO have the political gonads to stand up to their slash, burn, and salt the earth tax cut zealots funding their campaigns and come up with REPLACEMENT REVENUE for Michigan cities. We can't cut anymore.

Republicans sure do love to raise taxes on regular Americans

And as usual we see a Republican party not just willing to raise taxes on regular Americans, but EXCITED and PASSIONATE about doing it. Republicans can't wait to raise taxes on regular Americans.

The same folks who dug their heels in on rescinding the Bush Tax Cut on millionaires and billionaires are NOW DEMANDING that the payroll tax holiday for regular American workers be rescinded...they're blocking Obama's attempts to renew the payroll tax holiday for Americans receiving paychecks, which reduces the amount Americans pay in payroll taxes...

...the cynical game going on here is, Obama cut Americans' taxes and the Republicans in DC sure would LOVE to see those tax cuts go away on Obama's watch. But hey, if throwing hard working Americans under the bus in a hard economy is what it takes to win....you can be certain the current Republican leadership is willing to do it.

That goes for the State as well as the Federal level. While Michigan's Republican leadership slashed taxes for large corporations they paid for those tax cuts by removing child tax credits for young families, the earned income tax credit for low wage WORKERS, the homestead tax credit for people who actually live in their homes and then started taxing pensions on older, retired Michiganders...

...Even as the Republican Party was screaming foul on removing tax credits for private jet owners they were taking a hammer to tax credits for families with children.

There's simply no middle class tax hike Republicans can say no to lately.