"Because every dollar the government takes, that it doesn't absolutly needs, is theft."
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Some Detroit Leaders Providing Hope
Sadly, the word "Detroit" is synonymous with "dysfunction" thanks to the scandals of Monica Conyers and former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the ineptitude of the City Council. But let's not let those dark clouds obscure several bright lights emerging from the ranks of Detroit's political leaders.
Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is the brightest of those lights. Since being appointed in March, Mr. Bobb has tackled the seemingly hopeless disaster that is the Detroit Public School System with inspiring vigor.
In just a few months, Bobb has slashed a $430 million deficit nearly in half by eliminating bloated staffing and uncovering fraud. Bobb has cut 181 positions out of the 231 person curriculum department, terminated half of the district's assistant superintendents, and dumped eleven of the 21 "executive cabinet" members.
Bob hasn't just juggled numbers and laid off unnecessary personnel - he's aggressively tackled fraud and corruption. In the past two weeks, Bobb uncovered over 250 non-existent "ghost workers" on the payroll and suspended seven more employees accused of theft and embezzlement after investigations were initiated under his watch.
And Mr. Bobb isn't finished yet. He plans on privatizing the district's transportation services, is considering additional privatization, and will close 29 schools this fall.
Cold hearted? Only if one believes that a school district's primary job is to employ adults and coddle unions instead of putting resources into educating children. The kids and taxpayers of Detroit should hail Bobb as a hero.
And Mayor Bing should take notice. The Mayor started out on the right foot by rejecting the perk of the Manoogian Mansion, opting to rent out the building for the benefit of taxpayers. Bing then suggested that the City's grossly inefficient public lighting department be outsourced, only to back away when confronted by union intimidation. Let's hope the Mayor regains his nerve.
Bing need only to look to the Wayne County Building downtown for another example of strong, responsible fiscal leadership.
Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, facing a sizable deficit, isn't foisting a tax hike on suffering citizens like nearby Macomb County. Instead, he’s proposing a 20 percent budget cut - including the layoffs of about 500 county employees and consolidation of two departments. Ficano is also asking the county's employees to accept cuts in wages and benefits to avert 440 more layoffs. Ficano's crusade to put Wayne County’s financial house in order is good for Detroit.
With Mayor Bing joining Detroit's widely-respected City Clerk Janice Winfrey in City government, there's hope for ethical and stable leadership. Now, Mayor, please take on the City’s sacred cows. And Robert Bobb's professionalism, courage and leadership may finally result in a functional school district for the City.
Michigan's next governor should take notice and bring Mr. Bobb to Lansing.
Leon Drolet Director, MI Taxpayers Alliance www.mitaxpayers.org
"Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, HAD to get away..."
Dear Taxpayer,
Look out your window. What a nice day! Are you working today? There’s a far better chance that government workers are taking today off (paid) than the chance that you have the day off.
Next week our state legislators begin the first two weeks of their summer vacations before they reconvene in July - when they traditionally take a few more weeks off.
But state lawmakers aren’t the only ones enjoying generous paid vacations this year. State government employees and legislative staffers will also likely be spending much more time at the beach than you will.
I outta know – for over six years, I worked as a state House legislative staffer. When I was hired back in 1993, I was surprised to find out that I was provided one paid vacation day for every ten days that I worked. This 26 days of paid vacation for a first-year employee was on top of the 12 paid holiday days off (what do you do on your Presidents Day paid holiday?). Two months paid vacation compliments of the taxpayers? SA-WHEEET!
But wait, it got even better for government staffers. In election years, I got election day off, too. Plus, for every five years of service, I was given a bonus of two MORE paid days off. Very relaxing.
State lawmakers and staffers aren’t alone in receiving exceedingly generous taxpayer-paid benefits. Government workers, in general, enjoy far more generous vacation, holiday and personal day benefits than the average private-sector citizen receives. How much more? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that government workers earn $3.24 per hour in paid-leave benefits compared to the average Midwest private-sector employee who earns $1.80 in paid-leave per hour.
Even when the statistics are adjusted to compare full-time positions with full-time positions, the government worker enjoys a 33% advantage in paid-leave benefits.
Well, you’d better stop reading your email and get back to work. Your public “servants” need your taxes to provide for their extra summer fun!
Leon Drolet MI Taxpayers Alliance www.mitaxpayers.org
"Put not your trust in princes." The Bible Psalm 146 .3.
"I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live." Socrates
Friends,
A group of state lawmakers want to imprison citizens who lie to politicians for up to ten years, according to a recent Associated Press article.
A bi-partisan group of nine state House members have sponsored a bill that would make it a crime for a citizen to mislead a politician during legislative panels. The lead sponsors are Representatives Dudley Spade (D-Tipton) and Lee Gonzales (D-Flint).
The proposed law would impose felony penalties on a citizen who provides information to politicians in a committee meeting that the citizen "knows is materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent."
Rep. Spade explained his reason for introducing the legislation by saying, "The decisions we make are too large, too important, not to have them based on accurate information." Rep. Gonzales is quoted saying, "...no one should be misleading."
Of course, the proposed legislation does NOT criminalize lies told by politicians to citizens. Broken campaign promises would still be legal. The bill also allows any politician serving on the legislative panel to lie at will to citizens during committee hearings.
It's business as usual in Lansing. The government class wants you to do as they say, not as they do.
Leon Drolet Chairman, MI Taxpayers Alliance www.mitaxpayers.org
"Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." George Orwell
Rarely in recent memory has there been anything like yesterday's tea parties - spontaneous, awesome, grassroots events involving millions of everyday taxpaying citizens. So I went to bed last night looking forward to reading today's newspapers.
I couldn't find the print coverage in today's Detroit Free Press. I finally found the article buried on the last page of the business section, just after a weekly feature on business trivia. They also forgot to mention the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance - not that there's anything wrong with that...
OK, so I look at today's print Detroit News. The very short article is on page 5A (there is a nice, big photo). But right below the tea party article is a MUCH longer column titled, "Anger Boils Among Militia Members" about a barbeque attended by about 100 Michigan Militia members. They stacked the two articles on top of each other. The 100 Militia guys got WAY more ink than the estimated 20,000 taxpayer tea party participants.
Then I grab today's Macomb Daily to read their front-page story about the Saint Clair Shores tea party. The otherwise-fine article concludes with this sentence, "(The) rally had a heavily conservative tone, but protesters never became unruly."
What! How is it possible that 300 "conservatives" could hold a rally and not become violent? Can you imagine an article concluding with, "The global-warming rally had a liberal bent, but, somehow, never became violent."?
Unlike some, I actually DO care about the demise of the print media. I wish they would work harder at being trustworthy and relevant.
Two last stories to share: Some guy with a hand-held video camera approached the MI Taxpayers Alliance table at yesterday's Lansing tea party and started asking me why I was at the protest. I told him, but he started asking me lots of questions about social issues. He was very polite, but wouldn't quit trying to goad me into talking on camera about gays, minorities, abortion, etc. The poor infiltrator finally left, all frustrated that all I would talk about was Granholm's record on taxes, spending and jobs.
Lastly, go check out our little buddies' blog at MichiganLiberal.com. This past Tuesday, they advocated a leftist "takeover" of the taxpayer tea parties. They suggested:
"I think we should capitalize on all the media they are going to get by showing up at these events and showing them what REAL populist anger looks like. We can hijack their event to send our message.
All you have to do is go to their corporate funded website, find a protest in your area and show up tomorrow with signs that reflect the reality of the populist anger in America and especially Michigan right now. Remember to bring a videocamera if you have one!
Some suggestions for signs you should bring:
"I support President Obama!"
"Universal health care NOW" Etc...
How did their "real populist anger" look? They won't say. MILiberal is strangely silent today about their "hijack" effort. Their silence is deafening. Its quite funny.
Leon Drolet MI Taxpayers Alliance www.mitaxpayer.org
In case you haven't heard, citizens angry about Washington and Lansing's destructive taxing and spending orgies are converging on the Capitol Building in Lansing at noon on April 15th to protest. Its part of a national movement of citizens participating in taxpayer T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already!) parties.
The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance is proud to be one of six Michigan organizations sponsoring the Lansing protest.
You don't need a long, angry, harangue from me to get worked up about the explosion of spending and debt consuming Washington and imperiling our country's economic future. You've lived with six years of the Granholm Doctrine: take more of your money to stimulate government's growth. By now, either you've given up hope, or are pissed-off enough to fight back.
Will this T.E.A. Party signify the resurgence of taxpayer activism? How many citizens are paying attention enough to "do something about" their government's economics of destruction? Will the media and political class take notice? I hope this Lansing T.E.A. Party is the beginning of a sustained, growing movement of citizen resistance to our government's policies of financial suicide.
More info can be found here: michiganteaparty.blogspot.com. Will you be there, at the Capitol in Lansing at noon on tax day? I will be.
Leon Drolet MI Taxpayers Alliance www.mitaxpayers.org
Drinks are on you! You're paying to lobby against yourself!
When you think of Lansing lobbyists spending money on gifts, trips, meals and drinks for state lawmakers, who comes to mind? Big corporations like IBM, Toyota, Comerica Bank, Meijer, and Anheuser Busch? Big interest groups like the ACLU, Realtors, and the Life Insurance Association of Michigan?
Guess what? Your own government spends more to lobby itself than all the groups listed above. Believe it or not, the Office of the Governor uses your tax dollars to lobby state legislators - and spends more on lobbying than Chrysler Corporation, Compuware, or the Detroit Auto Dealers Association.
According to research by the MI Campaign Finance Network, last year the Governor's Office used $63,672 of your tax dollars to wine and dine other state politicians. Governor Granholm's administration didn't stop there; her Department of Education increased its' lobbying budget by 49% last year. The Department of Environmental Quality upped its' lobbying by 12%, and the Governor's MI Economic Development Corporation - a failure at expanding our state's economy - succeeded at expanding its' own lobbying budget by 106%. Even the MI Department of Treasury (the bureaucrats in charge of taking your income) used your money to lobby politicians - and increased its' lobby budget by 2% last year to $92,532.
What do these government departments use your tax dollars to lobby for? They lobby for even more of your tax dollars. Guess who's paying to lobby legislators for a graduated state income tax, higher fees, and more spending on bigger budgets? You are! The money taken from your paycheck is being used by the Governor and her bureaucrats to lobby for more money from your paycheck.
Your state government isn't the only government in MI using tax dollars to influence politicians. Every state university does it (MSU increased its lobby budget 25% last year), as do many community colleges (Macomb Community College's lobbying went up by 128%) and many local school districts (Oakland County's ISD upped its' lobby spending by 80%). Even the Detroit Public Library spent $44,939 (up 79%) to woo state politicians last year.
Next time Governor Granholm claims budgets in Lansing are cut to the bone, remember that her budgets' for lobbying politicians are going up. In fact, tonight is Tuesday - a day the state legislature is in session. When you sit down for dinner this evening, its quite possible that your taxes will be paying for state bureaucrats to lobby politicians' at fine restaurants in Lansing. You'll be paying for several dinners tonight - your family's and your government's. Guess who's having the finest cut of steak?
Enjoy your meal,
Leon Drolet MI Taxpayers Alliance www.mitaxpayers.org
Over 120 agitated MTA protesters and an additional 100 angry taxpayers greeted Paul Gieleghem, Chair of the Macomb County Board of Commissioners, at a 'town hall' meeting last night in Shelby Township. Commissioner Gieleghem scheduled the meeting to explain why most commissioners are seeking a 9% increase in the county property tax.
Gieleghem orchestrated several such town hall meetings to build support for the tax hike, holding most during the day so working taxpayers can't attend and stocking the meetings with county government employees and employee union officials. Last night was very different - the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance showed up.
And show up we did! The Macomb Daily reports that 80 protesters chanted outside prior to the meeting - but the reporter's estimate is way low. See the article here.
The meeting itself was attended by over 220 people, nearly all opposed the tax hike. Gieleghem argued that the only way to avoid hiking taxes was to cut services. He avoided the fact that the COST of services, not the services themselves, are the problem; most county employees are eligible to retire at age 50 and the county is the last employer on Earth to offer employees expensive 'defined benefit' retirement plans. Every other employer that offers retirement provides a 'defined contribution' plan or 401k.
Attached are two photos from the protest.
Great job Macomb County MTA members and friends. Last night, we were heard - the only things going up in Macomb are unemployment and taxes. And politicians are directly responsible for at least one of those problems!
One last thing. Not every Macomb Commissioner supports the tax hike. The few remaining Republicans left on the Board oppose the tax hike and Commissioners Don Brown (R-Washington Twp.), Keith Rengert (R-Richmond) and Jim Carabelli (R-Shelby Township) attended the protest and/or meeting.
