Say no to amateur government

Some people, at least I am, are questioning the logic of addressing the problem of a group of people unable to get a complex and difficult task accomplished within a timely deadline addressing that problem by cutting the time they are working.

That is the logic of Republican Senators Bruce Patterson, Jud Gilbert and Tom George, who introduced a Senate Joint Resolution in February that will amend the Constitution to limit the Legislature to meet not more than 90 consecutive days. As I am writing this, I am watching the Senate Committee on Government Operations and Reform, chaired by the chief obstructionist - Mike Bishop – hold a hearing on the concept of a part-time legislature. The resolution says simply that: it doesn’t set salary rates or talk about committees where most of the real work is done.

The budget fiasco and the quest to replace the Single Business Tax (SBT) demonstrate that term limits have stripped the Legislature of experience and trust. This will make that problem even worse. I’m not sure what problem this move is trying to address.

For full disclosure, I intern in a Michigan House office, but this also gives me a bird’s eye view of the process and the workload. Seeing the workload of the member I work for and seeing her rush from appointment to appointment it seems inconvincible that she would work less hours. The demands on her time are tremendous.

The budget crisis is driving this, but the money saved is just a drop in the bucket. I’m an advocate of good government and experience, and it seems to me this will give us lots of experience, but little else. Less professional people will run for office, and the majority of Legislators will be retirees, those who are self-employed or the independently rich. Are there 148 Dick Devos in Michigan? Experience is a good thing, but we will take a hit on diversity. That also brings up the issue of conflict of interest. Can a legislator sit on the judiciary committee and try cases, can a teacher sit on the Education Committee or can an insurance salesman sit on the Insurance Committee?

Newspaper reports say Michigan is only one of four states that have a full-time legislature, but the representative of the nonpartisan Legislative Service Bureau testifying says there are nine states with full-time legislatures. That number may be high as 11, depending on what criteria is used to define full-time.

A part-time legislature also seems to violate the separation of powers. The legislative, executive and judicial are supposed to be equal branches of government. Why is no one advocating the other two branches go part-time? The Legislature is supposed to serve as an oversight protection on the executive branch, but how can a part-time legislature do that when it barely does it now?

As government, technology and everything else gets more complex everyday since we went to a professional Legislature around 1969, the power has shifted to lobbyists who are the subject matter experts. It seems to me that will only get worse with this scheme.

This will have to go on the ballot, and with the current mood of the voters, it’s a no-brainer that it will pass. It’s a mistake. This is the first of many meetings, and Bishop says he will support the concept if it does away with term limits. I support a professional legislature and lengthening term limits so that term limits gives us a high level of expertise that eliminates lawmakers from always looking to the next office but does not entrench them in office. This does not address the budget crisis or make government better, what it does is punish Legislators.

Positive news from conference depresses GOP

If the Pistons loss in double overtime that put them on the brink of elimination didn’t place enough of a pall over the entire state, Michigan Republicans are even more depressed to hear the news coming out of the annual Detroit Regional Chamber Conference on Mackinac Island.

Subscription only Gongwers reports “A solid majority of business executives polled by the Detroit Regional Chamber believe that Michigan's business climate will be stronger in five years.”

Sad, sad news for Michigan Republicans who are so quick and so enjoy pointing out the state’s high unemployment rate, the foreclosure rate and lowered bond rates. They, of course, ignore the fact they are primarily responsible for the bond rating, the person in the White House has lost 3 million jobs by refusing to enforce trade agreements - most of those jobs from the largest employer in the state - and the unemployment rate was at double digits under a Republican governor. That’s when I left the state to join the military, but despite the GOP constantly running my state down, I’m staying. Isn’t sad that the Republicans are pulling against Michigan and bashing it just to get back the political power they lost?

“The poll was done of 211 senior-level executives by John Bailey & Associates for the Chamber, and 74 percent believed the business climate would be improved in five years.

I think it’s patriotic to question and criticize the government, but this constant Michigan bashing is just ridiculous. It’s like telling your wife you love her, but she’s fat, ugly and lazy.

If Republicans didn't need any more bad news, Gongwers says a report released at the conference says Michigan's three largest universities outperform some of the best-known university research systems in other states.
The study looking at the university research corridor was commissioned from Pat Anderson of Anderson Economic Group. Mr. Anderson said the three universities spend a total of $6.5 billion, which amounts to 2 percent of the state's total economic activity, and together account for $1.3 billion in research and development funding.
The total quantified earnings of all the alumni of the three universities living in Michigan is more than $24 billion.
The study compared the total spent by the Michigan universities on research to universities in Massachusetts (Harvard, MIT and Tufts), North Carolina (University of North Carolina, Duke and North Carolina State) and Pennsylvania (Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State University), and Mr. Anderson said he was surprised to see that Michigan schools outspent the schools in those states.

Even more bad news for Republicans: Republican and Democratic leaders say they've reached a consensus on two tough items that have divided them in replacing the Single Business Tax.

Some Republicans even criticized Democrats for going to the conference; ignoring the fact that Republicans were there too. The biggest complainant was that the Democratic-controlled House did not hold session on Thursday to go to the conference in the face of the budget crises while the Republican-controlled Senate did. This, of course, ignored the fact that the House has held sessions on Monday where the Senate does not.

It also ignores the fact the Senate met for about 65 minutes on Thursday, and all but 10 minutes of that were spent listing to a Teddy Roosevelt look-alike give a speech he gave 100 years ago in the Senate chamber.

Howell veterans sets up web site to help wounded vets get recognition

After miles of red tape, appeals and hard work, Staff Sgt. Sean Knudsen of Howell finally received the Purple Heart he earned in battle in Iraq last month, and now he wants to help fellow wounded veterans get the recognition they have been denied.

He has set up a web site at http://www.mycounty.us/information.aspx?account=1247&ID=1247&sState=&sCounty=&sCity=&sZipcode=&sCategory=Knudsen&sType=Go&ssort=&sPage=0&Page=Results to help other veterans do that.

Knudsen said the goal of the web site is to help reach “veterans of the United States Armed Forces that have been wounded or injured by enemy action, met all DOD criteria for the Purple Heart Medal and were still denied the Purple Heart Medal.

“Not only is it disgraceful and unethical to deny wounded service members the honor and recognition they have earned, it is anti-American and against all principles that many have fought and died for throughout the history of this nation,” Knudsen said on the web site.

The rules for earning a Purple Heart are pretty straightforward and unambiguous. It says “the Purple Heart differs from all other decorations in that an individual is not "recommended" for the decoration; rather he or she is entitled to it upon meeting specific criteria.”

It makes you wonder if the denial is political. You may recall the so-called “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” that tried to smear the Democratic Presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, in 2004 for his service and questioned the three Purple Hearts he earned as a Navy Lieutenant while serving as the commanding officer of a swift boat in Vietnam. The smear vote vets slimed every single veteran who ever earned a medal, commendation and decoration. I wonder what they would have to say about this?

Staff Sgt. Sean Knudsen an also be reached via email at sknudsen@mycounty.us.

Thinly veiled anti-union smear campaign runs its course

Andy Warhol was correct when he said “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” and we can only hope Chet Zarko’s 15 minutes are about up.

The Oakland County rightwing extremist is connected with racist and extreme causes, and his latest rightwing cause is smearing the Howell Education Association (HEA), the union representing the district’s 475 teachers. You may recall that earlier this month Zarko submitted a Freedom Information Act (FOIA) request for emails from union leaders. After receiving emails he was not supposed to receive, he made the ridiculous claim that HEA leaders have "conducted a large amount of union business on public time by using public resources for union business, specifically, the email server. But when that attack failed after the district said the union has a “recognized right" to use the server he took another tack and used the emails to cherry-pick a few sentences to claim union leaders were mean to a few members.

Wow, what a crime.

He has now stumbled onto a bigger issue. Because the emails are private and contain subject matter that should not be disclosed under the law, and the emails constitute information or records subject to attorney-client privilege, as well as personal information about students, the HEA filed suit to stop the illegal release of the emails. On May 10 Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Stanley J. Latreille gave the HEA and Howell Public Schools officials up to two weeks to review thousands of email to identify which e-mails, written by union leaders on school computers, contain verbiage "regarding politicking" so that he can review them for relapse.

Yesterday, the rightwing Detroit News editorial page editorialized that the emails should be released. Any newspaper that has Nolan Finley as its Editorial Page Editor is suspect. It calls Zarko a “political consultant and activist,” but it failed to mention his extreme rightwing stance.

“Zarko says he was searching for information on whether there had been an abuse of taxpayer resources in Howell and several other school districts on political or other issues.”

Well, he has found nothing, and he is now using the emails to simply smear the union and HEA President Doug Norton, going so far as to falsely claims Norton “doesn't like the "United States system" of elections.” I’m not sure what the internal workings of the union by the elected union leader has to do with anything, but it proves Zarko’s true intention is simply an anti-union smear campaign. Zarko has also refused to tell us who is paying for this witch-hunt.

The editorial’s position is “Private student information or sensitive teacher personnel information should be off limits. But other than that, e-mails produced and sent on the district's computers should be open to review by the public.”

I also agree Norton when he told the News earlier this month that Zarko "has an ideological bent to attack unions,” and the facts have shown that to be the case.

As a journalist, I support transparency in government, and I think they should be released, even to a person with such low motives. Zarko has shown he will take whatever he gets and takes things out of context to attack the union anyway. There is nothing we can do to prevent that, so the larger principal of open government has to apply, even for such low and despicable intentions. Let him have his 15 minutes so he can find another district's union to attack.

Coulter Quote of the Week: Speaking for the GOP, more than half of U.S. citizens hate their country

This week’s Coulter quote of the week illustrates how the queen of hate is going to enrich the community and raise the political discourse in the country and community when she speaks for 30 grand at the Cleary University’s Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series in the fall.

It further illustrates how she speaks for Republicans, no matter how hard publicly the GOP tries to distance themselves from her.

Tuesday saw a perfect example how groups like Cleary are furthering and enforcing the false image of Howell and Livingston County as a racist, intolerant community that throws down the red carpet and money at bigots of all shapes and sizes, and how others are trying to do away with that image.

From the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, students from mostly white Howell High School and a predominantly black high school near Flint have begun an exchange program with the first meeting to discuss the controversial book "The Freedom Writers Diary." Students from Cathy Capy's 10th-grade accelerated English class met with students from Hamady High School this month, and the hope is to develop a permanent relationship between the schools.

"The students want to change the image that we're a racist community and that we're intolerant," said Capy, whose assignment of "The Freedom Writers Diary" started a dispute over the sexual content of the book earlier in the school year. "They said we can't change unless we know what we need to change. They're stepping out of their comfort zone."

Here are the weekly gems of poison:
"If you don't hate Clinton and the people who labored to keep him in office, you don't love your country."---George, 7/99

"I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn't."---TV Guide 8/97

Rogers votes with big oil against consumers

When you fill up your car’s gas tank in the next couple of weeks, I hope you remember Mike Rogers voted, again, with big oil companies in opposing a bill that would outlaw gasoline price gouging.

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) introduced HR 1252, the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act, that would provide penalties for those who take unfair advantage of consumers at the pump. The legislation would penalize individuals or companies for taking "unfair advantage" or charging "unconscionably excessive" prices for gasoline and other fuels.

The bill passed the House 284-141 last week and now goes to the Senate. The bill saw 56 Republicans joining all but one Democrat in supporting the bill, including two Michigan Republicans, but Rogers joined fellow Republicans Pete Hoekstra, Vern Ehlers, Dave Camp, Fred Upton, Tim Walberg and Joe Knollenberg in voting for big oil and against the consumer.

Gasoline is near the $4 a gallon mark, and gas prices in Michigan are the highest in the nation, yet Rogers thinks record and obscene profits by oil companies are not enough.

Even without the numbers in yet for the record gas prices, oil companies are raking it in. BP Amoco enjoyed a profit increase of 117 percent between 2002 and 2004. In 2002, BP Amoco netted a hefty $8.4 billion. In 2004, this ballooned to $17 billion. Shell raked in a hefty $10 billion dollar profit in 2002, which jumped to $18 billion by 2004. In 2002, Exxon Mobil’s profit was just a measly $11.5 billion, but by 2004 that more than doubled to $25 billion.

You will remember Bush’s energy policy, put together by oil men in secret, threw money at oil companies for research, new drilling, new refineries and it even allowed them to drill on federal land without paying any royalties.

We are told the high price is because of increased demand, but oil companies are not increasing new drilling and increasing supply. Why? Because that would increase supply and drive down prices. We are told we pay more for gasoline the farther away from a refinery we are. Ironically, the ones closest to Michigan, like in Toledo, shut down for maintenance just as demand is heaviest, driving the supply down and the price up. Oil companies do not want to build any new refineries because it will increase supply and drive the price down.

With all this stacked in the favor of oil companies, why not a small protection for consumers?

Budget deal does not mean crisis is over yet

After a rare and marathon session on Friday, House Democrats avoided a shutdown of state government and avoided cuts in health care, education by eliminating most of the $800 million deficit in the current budget that ends in three months with just spending cuts and other measures.

The deal on Senate Bill 436 ensures there are no cuts to the per pupil foundation grant,
Medicaid and it avoided a government shutdown. Despite a majority of Michigan residents supporting a tax increase to avoid further cuts that have given us less state employees since 1973, there will be no tax increase for this year’s budget that ends Sept. 30. However, there is still a $300 million deficit left to find to balance the budget. Apparently, that will be done with a mix of further reforms, one-time fixes and accounting changes. Lansing insiders say the basic structure of that plan is mostly agreed upon, but the exact details are still being worked out in sessions that begin tomorrow.

They will only have two session days to get it done because the annual lobbyist orgy called the Mackinac Policy Conference begins Wednesday.

The tax cuts that have taken place every year for the last 15 years has required numerous “one-time” fixes to balance the budget over the last 5-6 years as the state’s largest employer lost market share and put a huge dent in tax revenue coming in to state coffers. Wall Street has made it pretty clear it will again look unfavorably on any more one-time fixes, and it will further lower our credit rating that will cost the state more money to borrow money for future projects. However, the good news – or bad news depending on your point of view – is there cannot possibly be anymore one-time fixes left, and lawmakers will have to find a permanent, structural fix to the annul budget problems.

The other piece of good news is the cuts will only steal $50 million from the future instead of $300 million the Senate GOP initially approved taking from the 21st Century Jobs Fund. The 21st Century Jobs Fund – part of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation –was created with strong bipartisan support to stimulate and diversify our economy and create jobs. It has only been around a few months, and experts said it would take up to three years of investment to start creating jobs. This is not tax money, and it comes from the tobacco settlement money.

The crisis continues, and the Legislature has to balance next year’s budget that begins Oct. 1 that is expected to have a $1.8 billon shortfall, and a replacement of the Single Business Tax (SBT) that accounts for some $2 billon in revenue.

Clearly, we cannot cut ourselves out of this economic crisis, and tax cuts for the past 15 straight years has proven that. After House Democrats and the Governor compromised on spending cuts, it’s time for the Senate Republicans to compromise. The Senate GOP has said they will not block a vote on a tax investment; wow, really big of them. One thing that has been proposed is increasing the state income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.4 percent. That is expected to cost the average family less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day, about $1 a day.

It’s interesting to look at how the bill setting the deal, SB 436, was passed. It passed in the Senate 26-10 and the House voted 69-37 in favor.

Livingston County’s Legislative delegation voted 1-2 in favor. Sen. Valde Garcia voted for it, but the House delegation, Chris Ward and Joe Hune, voted no. Hune and Ward voted against their own party. House Republicans voted 35-14 for the bill, but Hune and Ward were not only in the overall minority but they were in the Republican minority. That vote needs some explanation.

Rogers threat stunt garners the attention he craves

With his party in the minority and Mike Rogers shuttled to the sidelines with the Democratic majority, he has found a new way to both continue his role as Bush’s biggest cheerleader and lackey by going after the biggest Republican target and getting the most recognition and attention he has ever had in his entire political life.

As you are aware, Rogers tried last week unsuccessfully to strike from an intelligence spending bill an item that would restore $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center, a facility in Rep. Jack Murtha's Pennsylvania district.
According to Rogers' account, the Pennsylvania Democrat – the chair of House Defense Appropriations Chairman - angrily told Rogers he should never seek earmarks of his own because "you're not going to get any, now or forever." Rogers took the unusual step and called on the full House to reprimand Murtha. Rogers introduced what is called a "privileged" resolution charging Murtha violated House ethics rules when he allegedly threatened to cut off "now and forever" any earmarks for Rogers' district. Luckily, the measure was killed.

For that ridiculous threat, Rogers made just about every newspaper in the country, he was allowed to make the weekly GOP radio address where he attacked Murtha and he was also talked about on my favorite radio show, “The Stephanie Miller Show.” The point they made is this is the way politics have been conducted for years, and he should stop being a whiny baby. I agree. One lawmaker had this to say about Rogers, “put on your long pants and grow up.” How is this an ethics violation? If you need an ethics violation you just need to hear the names Bob Nye, Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff.

I challenged people earlier in the week to show what “earmark” – his job – Rogers has brought back to the 8th Congressional District. I’m still waiting. People here in Livingston County complain that we are a donor county because we send more money to Washington, D.C. than we get back, but somehow Rogers has painted properly representing your district as an ethics violation. Isn’t bringing some of that money back to the district what we sent him there for? I guess that’s why he never does, but I thought that was his job?

Murtha did take the high road and apologized to Rogers, but, according to Rogers' spokesperson, he also took the low road and declined not to accept it, “Congressman Rogers does accept the apology, but he is truly hopeful that this whole episode will change the way Congress spends the American taxpayers' money." Please. If Rogers does not accept an apology and his “privileged" resolution is going nowhere, what does Rogers want? He wants to smear Murtha and score political points.

This is from Rogers radio address, “Last Friday, House Republicans discovered that a Member of Congress had hidden a wasteful earmark -- or pet pork project -- worth tens of millions of dollars into a bill designed to fund America's Intelligence operations. It comes down to a choice between spies catching terrorists or pork barrel spending in a Congressional District. We are a nation at war, and when we find wasteful spending, we must stop it. “

Really.

The “pet project" in question is the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown. The center “continues to play an important role in assessing the drug threat, identifying the patterns of distribution and gathering information from documents to help arrest drug traffickers,” Murtha said.

So let’s see if I got this right. Rogers is criticizing Murtha for trying to keep a facility open in his district that provides jobs and helps fight terror, and Rogers has done nothing for our biggest employer and simply watches as plat after plant closes and moves jobs overseas? Great job Mike.

Is it just me or does anyone else remember being bombarded a few years ago with public service commercials saying that by buying illegal drugs you were funding terrorists and terrorism?

Apparently Bush does. President Bush said that drug users aid terrorists who get their money from global trafficking in narcotics. "If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terrorism," he said. Mr. Bush offered a new argument in the fight against drugs while signing a bill to expand a federal anti-drug program over the next five years. The administration has linked the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan to heroin trafficking. The terrorist group, led by Osama bin Laden, is suspected in the Sept. 11 attacks on America.

Has that changed?