Democratic candidates are ready to keep us moving out of the Bush recession ditch

DETROIT- It was a great weekend at the Michigan Democratic Party Convention this weekend, and the party faithful left energized and ready to elect the people that will help the state and country continue the move forward out of the Bush ditch.

Like at all conventions, all of the various constituency caucuses heard from the candidates, and there were so many great quotes and speeches that I eventually put my notebook down and just cheered with everybody else. We heard from many of the candidates at the Environmental and Energy Caucus, like Natalie Mosher, running in the 11th District against “Mad” Thad McCotter. He only won with 51 percent of the vote in 2008, but he outspent his opponent 33-1.

“My opponent, Thad McCotter, has an absolutely abysmal record on the environment,” she said.

Saturday also marked the anniversary Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic Washington, D.C. speech of August 28, 1963 that became famous as his "I have a dream speech." Many, myself included, took part in the massive commemorate march to celebrate the historic Walk to Freedom March that took place in Detroit in 1963 and to advocate for a number of progressive causes, like jobs, health care and worker’s dignity. Dr. Fred Johnson, a former Marine Corps office and candidate for the 2nd Congressional District, took offense at Glen Beck’s teabagger rally on that day.

“We have Glenn Beck in Washington, D.C. thumbing his nose, basically, at Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream speech’,” he said. “They have lies and fear; we have ideas and hope.”

Since it was the energy caucus, one man had a good theory on why Michigan is always the first state to feel a recession and the last to come out of it. He said in 2000 gas was $1.39 a gallon and 13.5 million domestic autos were sold. In 2008 gas was $4 a gallon and only 9.5 million cars were sold. Michigan imports 100 percent of its oil and coal and a majority of the natural gas.

In the Michigan Legislature, former State Rep. Kathleen Law, D-Gibraltar, is running a very active campaign for the Senate in the 7th District against a teabagger.

“It’s a big district, but I’m ready,” Law said. “We bought out all of the stamps at the Rockwood Post office; it’s a small post office, but I’m still proud of that.”

Like most teabggers, her opponent has some extreme views that are out of the mainstream, such as ending Medicare and Social Security.

“I don’t know what’s more frightening,” Law said. “That he wants to end those popular programs, or that he doesn’t know the Michigan Senate does not vote on it.”

Pam Jackson is also running for the Senate in the 15th District, and she is running against a candidate who also has some extreme ideas that will stall the hard fought gains Michigan has gained in recent months.

“We have to take back the Senate; his idea is he wants no tax incentives for new business,” Jackson said. “That would mean that the Ford Wixom plant would not be converted to a new use.”

Sen. Deb Cherry, D-Burton, who is term-limited, knows first hand how much good policy the Senate Republicans block, and even though she can’t run for reelection, she felt it was important to speak because the environment is so important.

“If we want to protect the Great lakes and make sure there is no drilling, we need to elect Democrats,” she said.

Amen.

Senate Republicans give Michigan’s unemployed the finger

LANSING -- The Michigan Senate Republicans joined their U.S. Senate colleagues in giving Michigan’s thousands of unemployed workers looking for work in the Bush recession the middle finger when they refused to even allow a vote on a resolution urging U.S. Senate Republicans to lift their filibuster on a bill that will allow a six-month extension of unemployment benefits and Medicaid funding.

“Today, we are about to break for a couple of weeks for the 4th of July holiday, but because of the Republican Senators and the United States Senate's failure to act on the unemployment extension and the FMAP extension, we are facing some critical issues here in the state of Michigan,“ said Senate Minority Leader Mike Prusi, D-Ishpeming. “If we do not get that extension passed in Washington, D.C., by next week, 97,000 families in Michigan will lose their unemployment benefits.”

The Senate Republicans referred Senate Resolution 172 to the Committee on Government Operations where bills go to die. Democrats moved to discharge the committee from further consideration, but Republicans moved to postpone the motion temporarily.

Republicans have used the lame excuse that the bill will increase the federal budget deficit, but the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the deficit was because of the Bush tax cuts for the rich that Congress did not pay for and the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of allowing the unemployed an extension is just a tiny fraction of this year’s budget deficit.

“I think that is rather disingenuous when this same crowd of Republicans in six of the eight years of the Bush Administration turned a $236 billion surplus into a $1.4 trillion deficit,” Prusi said. “Now all of the sudden, they want to cut the deficit; they want to cut taxes; they want to cut regulations; they want to cut red tape; and the first thing they go after is cutting millions of Americans out of unemployment benefits and cutting millions of Americans off the Medicaid rolls.”

The Senate was on various recesses on and off on Thursday, waiting for bills to come over from the House because the Legislature breaks for most of the summer. Senate Republicans then moved that further consideration of the resolution be postponed for the day, meaning the summer, but Democrats asked for a vote on that postponement.

As predicted, every single Republican voted to stiff Michigan’s unemployed.

“Those are your constituents and my constituents that week by week will fall off the unemployment rolls; lose the support that keeps their families whole, puts food on their table, pays their rent, and allows them to live a modicum of a decent life here in the state of Michigan,” Prusi said. “They are playing pure partisan politics with the lives of our constituents, and I find it reprehensible that we will not even stand up.”

Republicans quickly moved to adjourn, despite objections from Democrats, and Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing - one of the Senate Republican’s most vocal critics - and Sen. Deb Cherry, D-Burton, were on the board to speak.

I hope Republicans have to go back to parades and picnics and look Michigan’s unemployed constituents in the eye and tell them tax cuts for the rich are more important for their very economic survival.

Senate Republicans fiddle while Michigan smolders

LANSING -- If anyone wants to know why bipartisanship and cooperation are hard to come by in Lansing just needs to take a look at the action on Wednesday of the Senate Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop in unilaterally rejecting appointments Gov. Jennifer Granholm made to six university boards for terms that begin the day she leaves office with no hearings.

Granholm made the bipartisan appointments on April 7, and she followed previous precedent set by former Republican Gov. John Engler in making the same type of appointments. In fact, at least one of the 14 people on the list, Doug Roberts, was one of those appointed by Engler. None of Engler’s appointees ever had to go through the advise and consent process.

Granholm laid the blame squarely where it belongs.

“Senator Bishop rejected qualified appointees to serve our state universities, making them nothing more than partisan political pawns,” Granholm said in a statement. “He chose to ignore the advice of an attorney in his own caucus and rejected sitting board members like Doug Roberts, who Republicans have confirmed in the past, just to make a partisan point.”

Republicans tried this last Thursday, but Democrats used a parliamentary procedure to thwart them. Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, made a motion to adjourn and Lt. Governor John Cherry Jr., the Senate's presiding officer, granted it - in accordance with Senate rules - over the objection of Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt.

Republicans were a little more prepared yesterday. They took a recess for an hour until Cherry left the chamber, and they then reconvened with Sen. Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, in the chair and took up the issue.

While the budget waits and people are unemployed, Republicans killed an hour until the Lt. Gov. had to go to another appointment and left the chamber. That is just sad. They again proved that petty politics and keeping power is more important than anything else.

“In addition, it shows that we are having another unproductive and self-serving day in the State Senate,” said Sen. Deb Cherry, D-Burton, “After focusing a full session day on this last week, Senate Republican leadership continues to focus on this political issue instead of addressing the bills to create jobs and help Michigan workers.”

Cherry them brought a motion consider each of the 14 appointees separately. That failed along party lines. Last Thursday, the same motion almost passed, and two Republicans sided with the Democrats while another Republican did not vote because they supported some of the 14 appointees. The effort failed 18-19. Ironically, Richardville voted with the Democrats. He must have gotten a good talking to and went along with the party line.

Only Sen. Bruce Patterson, R-Canton, voted with the Democrats for a second time. Patterson - one of only three attorneys in the Senate - said summarily rejecting the appointments appears to go against the Constitution. He is a stickler for the constitution, and he spent the weekend researching the issue, as well as discovering that Governors as far back as Republican Gov. William Miliken has used the same procedure that was rejected yesterday.

“Here we are taking action en masse, even rejecting people we’ve approved in the past,” Patterson said. “When we look at Article VIII, Section 6, it talks about the boards of control and how they are to be constituted,” Patterson. “But, again, that’s just picky,picky, picky little details.”

Senate Minority Leader Mike Prusi, D-Ishpeming, challenged anyone to "look me in the eye" and say the appointees were getting fair and equitable treatment.

“The Michigan Senate has not rejected university appointments without hearing in recent history,” Prusi said. “Over the last 20 years, no gubernatorial appointee—and that includes Governors of both political parties who have made appointments to the boards of control—has been rejected without at least giving them a hearing.”

Do as I say not as I do

LANSING -- If you were in the Senate gallery for the last two sessions of the Michigan Senate on Aug. 27 and Wednesday, you got to see another example of Senate Republicans calling out Democrats for something they routinely do.

At the end of each session, usually, Senators are allowed to make a statement on any subject they want. Sen. Glenn Anderson, D-Westland, chose to reply to an accusation Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, made against him on the last session day on Aug. 27. But Majority Floor Leader Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, objected and stopped Anderson from talking about Cassis.

He then made a motion to deny Anderson’s constitutional right to have his remarks printed in the Senate Journal. After a brief recess to dig into the Senate rule book, Anderson was denied that right by a vote of 18-16, along party lines.

“Our rules say that we are not to speak inappropriately or to question another Senator’s motives,” Cropsey said.

The chain of events was set off when Senate Democrats tried to discharge House Bill 4922 from committee that expands the tax credits that can be given to new projects that create jobs under the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA), like the energy park planned for the closed Ford Wixom plant, on Aug. 27. The discharge was defeated, mostly along party lines.

Cassis, chair of the Finance Committee, saw that as an opportunity to move her bills, Senate Bills 773-774, that would require the Michigan Economic Development Authority (MEDC) to make stricter reporting on the MEGA tax credits. She introduced them just the day before, and then she accused the Senate Democrats of breaking a deal they had never heard about.

“Earlier in our session today, my good Democratic colleagues attempted to break a deal and discharge House Bill No. 4922 which sits in the Senate Finance Committee,” Cassis said on Aug. 27 on the Senate floor during statements. “Interestingly, this bill came over to the Senate as a House Democrat bill simply expanding MEGA credits without any accountability.”

Most Senate Democrats had seen her bills just that day.

“There may have been some agreement between MEGA and the Senator, there has been no agreement between any of us and the Senator that we attempted to break any deal.” said Sen. Deb Cherry, D-Burton. “While I may understand her deal which she has made with somebody else, I resent the fact that I’m being told that I broke my word when my word was never a part of this.”

Cassis also launched an unprovoked attack against Anderson during the same statement, but he had already left the Senate floor and was not able to respond until two weeks later on Wednesday. No one challenged Cassis, and her attack was allowed to be printed in the journal.

“So I have one important question for the good Senator representing Livonia, who supported the discharge today,” Cassis said on Aug. 27. “Senator, where were you when Quicken Loans got almost $50 million in MEGA credits to locate in Livonia and then leave this fair city for Detroit and gain another $42 million in credits.
“Where was your voice then,” she said. “Why didn’t you stand up for your hometown Livonia, losing jobs, losing important revenue? It took a Senator from across 8 Mile Road, a neighbor from Novi, to do so.”

Quicken loans, the nation's largest online retail mortgage lender with a model spanning the entire country, was looking to expand, and they already had locations in Cleveland and Arizona they could expanded to. In fact, co-founder Dan Gilbert is the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and he could have moved the headquarters there.

Wednesday was Anderson’s first opportunity to respond to Cassis’s attack.

“The Senator from Novi used the opportunity to launch another diatribe on how members from our side had broken a deal that no one seems to know anything about,” Anderson said. “Everyone here knows what that is really all about: a feeble attempt to divert attention from using her position as the chair of the Finance Committee to block action on legislation that will bring thousands of jobs to the state in order to get a bill moved that has her name on it.”

Senate Republicans continue budget-busting moves to curry favor with voters

LANSING – Michigan Senate Republicans continue to give the store away with no regard for the state of the current budget in a thinly disguised move to curry favor with voters when they campaign for election in 2010.

This time they introduced Senate Joint Resolution H Tuesday that would amend the state Constitution to ban a property's taxable value from increasing any year its assessed value decreases. According to the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency, it would cost state and local governments $253 million in revenues and local schools $75 million. This is money used for police, fire, keeping streets cleared of ice and snow and many other things.

“This is coming from the party that says that we care about law enforcement,” said Sen. Gretchen Whiter, D-East Lansing. “Well, we can’t enact sentencing reform because we don’t want to look soft on crime. Do you know what makes up the largest portion of municipalities’ budgets? Police—public safety.”

Some homeowners have complained that their property taxes are increasing while the value of their home is falling. However, under Proposal A passed in 1994 when property values were rising so fast that many senior citizens could no longer afford to stay in their homes because of the increasing property taxes, property tax increases were capped at the rate of inflation or 5 percent, which ever is less. Proposal A represented a very large cut in the property taxes of homeowners, and continues to protect homeowners from exorbitant increases. Unfortunately, while property values might decline, inflation has continued, so taxes have continued to rise at that rate, currently about 3 percent.

Clearly, proposal A contains important provisions to protect property owners from excessive increases in taxes when property values are increasing. Similar protections do not exist, however, to ensure property taxes do not increase when values are declining.

Senator Deb Cherry, D-Flint, said the resolution perpetuates inequity because Proposal A has held taxes down for people who have owned the home for years, but when the home is sold the taxable value pops up to meet the assessed value, and those people who buy the home are paying a higher tax than people who have owned a home for many years.

“Senate Joint Resolution H offers tax benefits to property owners who are already seeing reduced taxation compared to their neighbors due to Proposal A,” she said. “Senate Joint Resolution H seeks to disrupt the natural economic market and create an artificial barrier to change.”

For a Constitutional Amendment to be approved, it requires a two-thirds vote, which is 25 votes. It failed on a 23-11, but three Senators were absent and the Republicans moved to reconsider the vote at another date.

This budget-busting and showy move that was introduced solely so that Republicans can get on the stump and say they are tax-cutters comes on the heels of a similar move last week by Senate Republicans to bust the budget to make themselves look good.

They approved a bill that would amend the Michigan Business Tax (MBT) to make it easier to receive a tax credit against the MBT, and it increased the income limits affecting eligibility of CEOs who can get the credit from $180,000 a year to $210,000. The bill could reduce state revenues by $47 million. They also approved two more bills that will cost the state $80.6 million and at least $144 million in lost tax revenue, including another $106 million from the School Aid Fund.

Senate Republicans vote for CEOs; snub working families

LANSING -- Senate Republicans voted to increase CEO pay Thursday, but they voted against working families trying to save their homes from foreclosure. They also blew an almost $1 billon hole in the state budget that is already facing a more than $1 billon deficit.

The Senate approved Senate bill 69 by a vote of 23-14, with all the Republicans voting for it. The bill would amend the Michigan Business Tax (MBT) to make it easier to receive a tax credit against the MBT, and it increased the income limits affecting eligibility of CEOs who can get the credit from $180,000 a year to $210,000. It also decreased the number of jobs a company would have to create to be eligible for the credit from 20 jobs to eight.

Democrats said they supported the bill, with the exception of the CEO increase. Sen. Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods, said she could not support the increase in CEO pay when everyone else is taking a pay cut.

“I am a huge fan of standing up for and supporting small businesses in my district, but I really want to take a closer look at what that $210,000 salary really represents,“ she said. “It is more than four times the annual average wage for police officers and five times what our firefighters make in this state.”

That drew a ridiculous charge from the sponsor of the bill, Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, that the Democrats were engaging in “class warfare,” and businesses are closing because of the tax.

“I’m not trying to create class warfare by any means; I’m just saying the $180,000 cap is enough,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs introduced an amendment to keep the cap at $180,000, but that was defeated along party lines. Sen. Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit, introduced an amendment that tied barred passage of SB 69 to a recently approved House Bill that placed a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. That only failed by one vote. But CEO compensation was the big stickler.

“I don’t believe that a business is going to go out of business if we don’t raise this credit another $20,000,” said Sen. Deb Cherry, D-Flint. “I believe that it is the wrong time to be sending a message that CEOs should be paid more.”

With the state facing a budget deficit of more than $1 billion, Senate Republicans continue to increase that deficit with tax breaks, but they refuse and protest any proposed spending cuts. This bill could reduce state revenues by $47 million.

Michael Switalksi, D-Roseville, said it was bad tax policy and a mistake.

“Now people trying to keep their businesses open don’t usually do that by giving themselves a $70,000 raise,” he said. “I don’t really mind people making almost a quarter-million dollars, but I don’t think we need to give them a tax break.”

The Senate also approved SB 191 that will amend the Income Tax Act to increase the household income ceiling for the homestead property tax credit by $10,000; increase the total credit that a taxpayer may claim from $1,200 to $1,300; and allow an additional $50 credit for senior citizens and totally and permanently disabled taxpayers. It will also cost the general fund an estimated $80.6 million. Despite that figure, only Switalksi voted against it.

“We’re asked to provide additional tax relief to people this time with incomes from $73,650 to $83,650,” he said. “I just ask my colleagues, are these the people who are hurting out there?”

The Senate also approved SB 201 that would exempt the purchase of a new car from paying the general 6 percent sales tax on the difference between the new car and a trade in. This has been tried in other states, but both Switalksi and the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency said it has not improved auto sales. It also extended it to boats, campers, heavy earth-moving equipment and snowmobiles. But it will blow a bigger hole in the budget, and the state will lose at least $144 million in lost tax revenue. The School Aid Fund revenue would decline $106.3 million and revenue sharing payments to local governments would decline an estimated $24.2 million.

“People are not buying cars because they are scared about their jobs and can’t get loans,“ Switalksi said. “Falling sales have nothing to do with the sales tax on a car.”

The Senate Republicans continue to deepen the budget deficit. These three bills alone threaten to blow a $1 billon hole in the budget. The Senate Republicans blew another $166 million hole in the budget when they eliminated the MBT with no replacement. They are cutting income, but they are not cutting spending; so in effect they are spending like drunken sailors. As a former drunken sailor, I know what that‘s like.

These decisions are nothing but politics, so Republicans can campaign as tax-cutters. The House will have to be the adults and make the tough decisions and balance the budget. But when you consider that a quarter of the Senate Republican caucus is running for statewide office in 2010.