Government by the wealthy, for the wealthy I realize that this is going to come as a huge shock to many of you. Perhaps you’d like to sit down for this: The budget plan put forth by Paul Ryan will raise taxes on the middle class and give huge tax breaks to the super wealthy. That’s the plan that Mitt […]

Today’s GOP: redefining the meaning of ‘shared sacrifice’ daily The White House lost no time responding the the GOP’s new budget proposal. David Plouffe sent out an email titled “We did the math” and presented this infographic: Click for larger version The White House, WashingtonGood morning — Every day, you and your family make choices about how you spend your […]

It’s good to be the king Not only is Paul Ryan’s “Path to Poverty” budget going to give rich people tax breaks and cut benefits to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while maintaining current levels of military spending, it does something else, too. The GOP budget preserves massive subsidies to Big Oil companies while cutting investments in renewable energy. [I]t […]

It’s deja vu all over again Paul Ryan and his GOP pals released their latest budget proposal today. While it aims to eliminate the deficit by 2040. How do they hope to do this. No surprise: it cuts Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and Social Security, leaves military spending alone and cuts taxes on the wealthy. The New Ryan Plan leaves the […]

The GOP finally finds a good tax: on the poor As bad as things are right now in Michigan, they are about to get so much worse that I fear there is a genuine risk of the types of riots we haven’t seen since the 60s & 70s in my state. If you think we have too many failing schools […]

Out of touch and out to lunch Republican state Senator Jack Brandenburg has an idea with what to do with the budget surplus created by taxing seniors’ pensions, cutting funding to cities and stripping $1 billion from schools: lower Michigan’s income tax. I’m not kidding. A proposal at the state Capitol would cut the Michigan income tax rate to 3.9 […]

Funny thing, when you slash funding to schools by $1 billion and stop sending tax revenues back to the cash-strapped cities where they were collected, you end up with a pretty big surplus, despite the massive tax cuts given to businesses. How big? Just over a billion dollars big. The state is bringing in more money than expected. That’s according […]

Benton Harbor schools are a whisker away from getting a — you guessed it — an Emergency Manager. The State of Michigan will conduct a preliminary review of the “critical and alarming financial situation” at Benton Harbor Area Schools. This is the first step in a process that would determine if the school district needs a state-appointed emergency manager. It […]

Last night, President Obama spoke to the country about the looming crisis, imposed on the country by Republicans who have what appears to be a single interest in mind: protecting the interests of every single millionaire and billionaire in the USA from having to give up even one penny of their money. It should never have come to this but […]

It’s oh-so-much easier to get things done when you have both houses of the Legislature and the Governor’s office in your control. Today, Michigan Republicans showed just how much easier it is. Both the state House and Senate completed passage of the various packages of budgetary bills this week and, today, in a wham, bam, thank you, ma’am flurry of […]

By now you have probably heard about Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s takeover of Benton Harbor, Michigan‘s government via his Emergency Financial Manager. As I said in my previous piece on this, while I understand the utter shambles that Benton Harbor was in, I also understand that there are systemic reasons for that in addition to malfeasance and mismanagement. A population […]