The middle class will make their voices heard in Lansing this week

It will be a busy place in Lansing for the next couple of days as people from all over the state are stepping up to voice their concerns over Republican policies that are taking the state back years, taking away their right to vote for their leaders and busts unions.

A group of community activists are organizing “A Storm the Capitol” rally beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Corner of Michigan Ave., and Capitol Ave. in Downtown Lansing. The Facebook page for the rally says it will run until 6 p.m. Wednesday, and it says many people are staying the night for an all-night vigil until the doors of the Capitol open in the morning.

The House is expected to take up the main bill in the anti-union and anti-Democratic Emergency Financial Managers (EFM) package of bills on Tuesday because the Senate approved a different version of House Bill 4214 last week. Many people want to voice their displeasure with that anti-freedom bill.

But those patriots will not be alone on Tuesday. The AARP is holding a “It’s Not Fair Rally” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday on the Capitol steps and lawn to protest the Governor's plan to tax pensions. The AFL-CIO and Michigan League for Human Services will also be on hand on Tuesday to stand up for Michigan’s poor, middle class and elderly. They don’t have a lobbying firm.

One of the 40 anti-union and anti-middle class bills introduced so far in this legislative session will be considered, and the House Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on HB 4287 that will do away with the prevailing wage law. The hearing will start at 10:30 a.m. in 519 House Office Building, 121 N. Capitol. The meeting is open to the public.

On Wednesday beginning at noon on the Capitol steps the Michigan AFL-CIO affiliate unions and Working Michigan are holding a rally to stand up for Michigan’s middle class.

At 9 a.m. Wednesday in Room 519 of the House Office Building, 121 N. Capitol, the House Education Committee will take up HB 4306, a bill that forces local school boards to privatize services. All committee hearings are open to the public.

As always, a small contingent of teabaggers armed with video cameras will be there to try and provoke a confrontation. At a recent three-hour rally, a teabagger Republican and Grand Traverse County Commissioner managed to get 31 seconds of a confrontation on tape where a guy gave the teabagger the finger, which he promptly posted to a rightwing blog. They are trying, and failing, to paint these peaceful and energized working people as violent union “thugs,” so I expect them to be more and more desperate as public opinion continues to swing to the side of union workers.

Be careful, and the best thing to do is just walk away.

Racist show-me-your-papers’ law is bad for Michigan’s economy

You had to know this was coming with the crazy bills being introduced by Republicans all over the country, and an extremist rightwing Republican here in Michigan is set to introduce a racist show-me-your-papers’ law like they did in Arizona last year.

State Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, is apparently concerned about the huge illegal immigration problem here in Michigan, and this despite the fact that the Republicans are planning to cut revenue sharing to local governments, meaning they will be laying off more police officers, they get to take on a job of the federal government. Apparently, we are simply overrun with Canadians coming from across the border.

The law gives “local police officers authority to investigate, detain and arrest people for perceived immigration violations without the benefit of proper training, exacerbating the problem of racial profiling and raising concerns about the prolonged detention of citizens and legal residents,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). One main reason for the law in Arizona was voter about voter suppression, and Arizona has a history of minority voter suppression.

It’s unclear what Agema’s motivation is, other than to gain favor with the rightwing base, but what it will do is discourage job growth and burden police departments.

The Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) just released a report that says immigration is good for the economy and discriminatory bills like Agema’s hurt job growth.

Many immigrants are job creators. Immigrants are responsible for 33 percent of all high-tech startups, making Michigan third among all states in producing new high-tech business opportunities, according to the MLHS. In fact, in 2006, 22 percent of the international patent applications from Michigan listed a foreign-born resident as one of their key inventors, ranking Michigan 8th in the nation.

Because of that job creation, the purchasing power of immigrants is also on the rise. In 2009, the purchasing power of Michigan Asians and Latinos combined, totaled $17.5 billion, an increase of over 300 percent by each population since 1990.

The Republicans budget has huge cuts to higher education, even though experts agree that education is the key to Michigan’s recovery. During the 2008-2009 year, foreign students contributed $592 million to the local economy in tuition, fees, and living expenses. Forty four percent of all engineering master’s degrees and 62 percent of engineering doctorates are awarded to foreign-born students in the state.

Michigan’s economy could be negatively impacted by the passage of Agema’s Arizona-style immigration bill. Why live in a state where you could be pulled over for driving while brown?

A glimpse of Republican rule

We got a glimpse of what things will look like in Michigan and nationally for the next two years, at least, last week when extremist teabagger Republican Senator-elect Joe Hune, R-Hamburg, announced that the first thing he will do when he takes office next month is make something that’s already illegal illegal.

No one should be surprised at this from a man who thinks the United Nations is coming for U.S. handguns, but in his mad dash to the extreme right Hune told the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus that the first bill he will introduce will cut off the benefits to illegal immigrants in Michigan.

My fellow bloggers over at Michigan Liberal and Blogging for Michigan have done an excellent job of illustrating how insane this is, but it continues to amaze me how extreme Hune has become since he won the seats by two votes in 2002. It also illustrates how ill-equipped Republicans are to acutely govern.

The national economy is finally recovering from the Bush recession, the worst and longest since the Great Depression, with no help from the Republicans, but it’s still a fragile and slow recovery. Republicans have made it clear that they have no intention of working to improve the economy.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY., said recently that his top priority is not the economy, the job recovery or the budget, but to defeat President Obama.

We can expect a similar taxpayer financed witch-hunt that was launched against President Clinton that ground government to a near halt. We really couldn’t afford it then, but we can afford it even less now.

Hune claims that “there are more than 100,000 illegal aliens in Michigan, and that all are potentially collecting taxpayer-funded benefits, including health-care services and welfare.” I have no idea where he got that from, other than pulling it out of his ass, but if they are receiving benefits they are doing it illegally already.

Michigan has a very small illegal immigration population, but Hune thinks his bill will close the $1.6 billon structural budget deficit. The Michigan League for Human Services issued a report that stated only 1.4 percent of the state's total population are undocumented immigrants. League spokeswoman Judy Putnam said “Hune's proposal sounds like "a solution in search of a problem."

"As a matter of course, we already bar undocumented immigrants from receiving benefits, and the state's pretty strict about enforcing it. I don't think there's any savings to be had on this one," Putnam told the Press & Argus.

Republican filibuster on unemployment lifeline broken

Thousands of Michigan residents looking for work in the slow economic recovery from the Bush recession will still be able to stay in their homes, keep the lights on and feed their children after the Republican filibuster was broken on Tuesday in the U.S. Senate on extending unemployment benefits for those who have exhausted their 26 weeks of benefits.

“The filibuster-breaking vote came moments after Democrat Carte Goodwin was sworn in to succeed West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, who died last month at 92. Goodwin was the crucial 60th senator needed to defeat the Republican filibuster. The Senate gallery was packed with Goodwin supporters, who broke into applause as he cast his "aye" vote,” according the Associated Press.

Every single Republican voted to stiff working people, with the exception of sane Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Republicans have used the excuse to stiff workers and try to stall the economic recovery that it will increase the budget deficit, and that they insisted any benefits be financed by cuts to programs elsewhere in budget because it will increase the budget surplus.

“Many Republicans have voted in the past for deficit-financed benefits extension — including as recently as March and twice in 2008, during the Bush administration. But now they are casting themselves as standing against out-of-control budget deficits, a stand that's popular with their core conservative supporters and the tea party activists whose support they're courting in hopes of retaking control of Congress,” according the AP.

It’s just funny that now they are crying about a deficit when it’s being used to help working people actually survive in the mess they created instead of for tax cuts for the richest 1 percent, a useless war and a bailout to Wall Street. It was the Bush tax cuts that helped turn a budget surplus into a huge deficit and sent the country to the edge of a complete economic collapse.

But we were hearing from many prominent Republicans how the unemployed are lazy and actually think people would rather collect unemployment small amount they get from unemployment than work. This was also a move to make the President look bad and stall the economic recovery.

Republicans are hoping voters have a short memory in November.

The Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) announced that by this past Saturday Michigan would have 104,000 workers with lapsed unemployment benefits. Michigan was losing $200 million a month because of the loss of benefits. MLHS said unemployment benefits are one of the most effective economic stimulants available because jobless workers use them to pay bills and keep the dollars circulating.

The middle class and poor pay more in taxes than the richest 1 percent in Michigan

It will come as no surprise to most people that the middle class in Michigan pays the most in federal and state taxes, and the richest 1 percent pays the least.

That was conformed by a recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy called “Who Pays? A distributional analysis of tax systems in all 50 states.” The report says middle income families – those making $15,000 to $32,000 annual pay and on average $23,300 annually – pay 9.9 percent in taxes. The top 1 percent of earners – those earning above $365,000 a year – pay just 6.4 percent.

Even the poorest in the state – those making less than $15,000 annually and on average $8,700 a year – pay 8.9 percent in taxes. To illustrate how regressive and unfair the sales tax is in Michigan, the poorest in the state pay the highest percentage of taxes of any income bracket in sales tax, and that tax is the highest percentage of any tax at 7.2 parent.

That’s why some groups like the Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) is urging the sales tax to be extended to services, which are used more frequently by higher-income households.

The MLHS is also advocating a move to a graduated income tax to make the tax structure fairer. Michigan is only one of seven states with a flat income tax. The League is also advocating a review of Michigan’s overly generous tax exempts for pensions and to close loopholes on tax expenditures that no longer serve a useful public purpose as a way to balance the state budget and make the tax structure fairer.

Report says Michigan’s unemployment insurance system is outdated and discriminatory

Michigan’s unemployment insurance system is outdated and unable to adequately meet the needs of unemployed working families, and it is discriminatory against women and low wage workers, according to a recent report by the Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS).

The MLHS released the report, “Michigan Needs to Modernize its Unemployment Insurance System,” on June 11 as other states were passing legislation to accept funds from the federal government’s Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act (UIMA), part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that would both stimulate the economy and help unemployed workers simply survive.

The report says only half of Michigan’s 14 percent unemployed are collecting benefits, and the low number is the result of the outdated system operating under rules that were designed for the 1930’s New Deal program.

Senate Republicans left $140 million in federal funds on the table when they voted against American workers and against discharging House Bills 4785 and 4786 from the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee last week. The bills, approved by the House on May 6, would provide unemployment benefits to individuals who are only available for and seeking part-time work and those in an approved job training program who have exhausted their regular benefits. It will pump $140 million in federal funds into Michigan which is suffering with double-digit unemployment.

Among the highlights of the MLHS report are that a minimum wage worker in Michigan must work nearly four times as many hours to gain UI monetary eligibility as a higher-wage worker. The full-time working requirement for UI disproportionately burdens female workers in the state. For every $1 of UI benefits spent by workers and families, there is an estimated $2.15 in economic growth. That makes Senate Republicans decision to stiff Michigan workers even more appalling.

The report also found part-time workers make up one-sixth of the nation’s workforce, but they are restricted from collecting UI in states like Michigan. This requirement disproportionately burdens female workers in the state who represent 68 percent of part-time workers nationwide. The requirement makes child care and parenting responsibilities a mess. Also, workers are often unable to find full-time work simply because no one wants to hire full time workers because it’s cheaper to hire two people who each work 20 hours instead of one and pay that one person benefits.

Michigan Senate Democrats recently launched a website calling for action on this plan that eleven other states have already approved to receive the funding allocated to them. The site encourages visitors to sign a petition and contact Republican Senators to demand support for the legislation.

Low-birth-weight babies and infant mortality becoming problems in Michigan

LANSING -- Fewer Michigan teens are binge drinking and smoking, but more children are overweight and exercising too little.

That's the finding of the 2007 Kids Count in Michigan report, which warns that unless the state acts more decisively in the next few years, it will fail to meet many national standards for healthy children, families and neighborhoods.

Jane Zehnder-Merrell, senior research associate at the Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) and project director, recently presented the report's finding to the Michigan Legislature Children's Caucus. The report had both good and bad news for Michigan policymakers and children's advocates.

The report examines 18 wide-ranging health goals for children and teens that are set by the Healthy People (HP) 2010, a national initiative to advance health and well-being. The report points out Michigan is making progress, but it is not fast enough to meet the goals in many areas. Minority children and youth are further behind in meeting most of the targets.

Of the 18 objectives, Michigan met three indications. They are immunization of toddlers, teen pregnancies and physical fitness. Michigan is also making substantial improvements in lessening binge drinking and tobacco use, but it has not yet met the goals.

“The good news is we have met three of the indicators,” Zehnder-Merrell said. “This is an indication of what can be done when we address the issues.”

Michigan is performing even worse in four indicators: low-birth-weight babies, high school students being overweight, a lack of vigorous exercise, and confirmed victims of abuse and neglect. The state is also showing little or no progress in these four indicators: infant mortality, asthma, young child deaths and prenatal care.

“It goes to show the lack of support for young families,” Zehnder-Merrell said. “It behooves us to look at child health in Michigan.”

Infant mortality and low birth weight are major concerns in Michigan. The report points to the $4 billion in cuts to the state budget since 2000 as a reason for the problem. Michigan has also seen a 36 percent increase in child poverty between 2000 and 2005.

Zehnder-Merrell said the report should also be taken in the context of the United States’ position in child well-being among industrialized nations -- 21st.

The Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) is a statewide nonprofit organization consisting of more than 1,900 member organizations dedicated to education, research and advocacy for the benefit of low-income and other vulnerable citizens.