Category Archives: Fiscal

Obama is side stepping spending his campaign money. He has your money to campaign with. Obama is promising Iowa farmers $150 million at a campaign speech today in Iowa. Per his speech… Link

“But the folks suffering from this drought can’t wait for Congress to do its job. So in the meantime, I’ve made sure my Administration is doing everything we can to provide relief to those who need it. Last week, we announced $30 million to help farmers and ranchers, get more water to livestock, and rehabilitate land affected by the drought. Today, we’re announcing that the federal government will help livestock producers by purchasing over $150 million worth of meat and fish now, while prices are low, and freeze it for later.”

Who needs to do all that campaign fundraising when you have a $150 million of tax payers money to throw around?

(December 1, 2011) The Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) announces a profit in liquor sales of $164.25 million that was transferred to the General Fund for fiscal year 2011, which is up $7.1 million from last year.
The Commission has retained its role as the wholesaler of spirits – purchasing these products from suppliers and selling them to retailers. The wholesaling operation involved the sale of over 6.88 million cases of spirits in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010 for gross sales of $940.2 million, preliminary numbers indicate an increase of gross sales of about $978.5 million for fiscal year 2011. All spirit products are marked up 65% on the price paid by the Commission. All licensees receive a 17% discount off this marked-up price. The net income to the Commission from the sale of spirits in fiscal year ending 2010 was $139.77 million.

“We expect at least modest growth into fiscal year 2012,” said Andy Deloney, Chairman of the MLCC. “The future looks strong as we continue to approve new products weekly. Currently, there are just over 5,600 products available for sale from Authorized Distribution Agents (ADAs) designated by the Commission. These ADAs, who have contracts with the various suppliers of spirits, are responsible for transmitting these orders to the Commission, receiving and warehousing the merchandise shipped into the state and delivering product to retailers.”

The video below by the Michigan Senate Democrats makes a claim that the Michigan Business Tax is still in effect. I emailed Senator Bert Johnson and asked for some evidence to backup his claim. I told him that such a claim was important to conservatives too. I told him that this wasn’t an attempt at a ‘gotcha moment’.  I truly wanted to know the facts so I could show the rest of you.

Below you will see the video where the claims are made and below the video is a link to a PDF of the evidence I was sent from the office of Senator Bert Johnson. I’m not going to offer any comment on the information, because I want it to stand or fall on its own.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1yWu9yP3dpY#!]

Link to evidence.

NorCalSocialism.org just sent out the following Tweet...

We’re excited to announce our Fall Marxism Conference, November 5th at Berkeley! http://ow.ly/6QSJB #OccupySF#OccupyOakland #DSOT

Notice their linkage to the Occupy Wall Street protests.  The link on Tweet goes to a conference they’re hosting on the advantages of Marxism over Capitalism.  The page boldly says…

Millions of people have come to the understanding that capitalism is no longer working. And millions of people around the world—from Athens to Cairo to San Francisco—are fighting back.

Marxism provides a revolutionary understanding and strategy for ridding society of exploitation and oppression once and for all.

We want more than just resistance, we want to win. Join us!

This needs no further comment.

Michigan State Representative Jeff Farrington is sick of the emphasis on our body mass index.

In a Facebook status update today, Farrington called for a focus on jobs and specifically jobs created by a new bridge.  According to him the costs of building a bridge won’t be passed on to Michigan.

Here is his update.

Enough about tracking BMI or telling campers they can’t smoke-let’s focus on job growth. The Anderson Economic Group provided a study about the NITC (2nd bridge). Not a one sided analysis. Some points: The obiligation to repay borrowed funds or revenue shortfalls does not involve MI taxpayers. Also, the NITC addresses congestion problems that the Ambassador Bridge does not. 3rd; we leverage $2.2B in Fed funds that will be allocated to other states if MI doesn’t match them.

If Farrington is correct, then I have to agree with him.  We will work off that body fat once we get to work. I understand our governor has good intentions by addressing our health.  Regardless, it’s time to get to work. Maybe the bridge is a step in the right direction.  Any substantive emphasis on jobs will contribute to the comprehensive health of our state.

HB 4724 requires Bridge Card recipients to pay for a replacement card if they lose it. The bill passed 100-9 through the Michigan House.

They are trying to reduce fraud. People have been known to give their Bridge Card to someone else in exchange for money. As of now taxpayers are stuck paying for the replacement cards.

Talk about ironic, Goldman Sachs received $10 billion in bailout money, but now they are threatening to downgrade the credit rating of the USA government. This was just blurbed via Fox News.  More details later.

I just read an informative article about how the film incentives bring millions of dollars in to the state, creating jobs and economic growth.  Snyder is proposing a major cut to the film incentive going from $60 million to $25 million.

Is this investment worth it?  Would we have more investment in this state if we just cut tax incentives, cut the business tax and made things equal for everyone?

The current soundbite from our side is that ‘we’re broke’.  We can’t afford to be handing out any money!  So even though this is a cut of $35 million, it’s still $25 million we may not be able to afford.

I would hope Snyder and the Michigan legislature would cut this program all the way.  Let’s have tax equality for all businesses and not special handouts for some.

Link

We expected significant budget balancing and or cuts by the RNC when we handed them back power the last two elections.  Their leadership promised they weren’t the same old RNC we saw during the Bush years.  Were their promises true?

I’m giving rough, ballpark estimates here.  Please get the general intent of my point here instead of trying to strain out a gnat.

The projected Obama budget was to have around $1.5 trillion in deficit spending.  $100 billion was proposed by the RNC leadership in budget cuts for this year.

So basically the Obama budget has around $1.5 trillion in deficit spending and the RNC has around $1.4 trillion.

How in the world is the RNC budget significantly different than the Obama budget?  The RNC is still giving us a budget with over $1 trillion in deficit spending!

I’m open to being proven wrong.  So if my general ballpark numbers aren’t even close, please fill me.  But if my ballpark numbers are correct, I hope we give the RNC as much hell as we’ve given Obama.