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Michigan Republicans celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week by voting to strip more school funding

By on May 8, 2013 in Education, GOPocrisy, Michigan Republicans, Taxes

Make yourself heard

As I reported yesterday, the Michigan House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted to eliminate the sales tax on aviation fuel. This bill is in addition to House Bill 4539 which if passed, will eliminate the sales tax on gasoline sales in our state. My piece said that this would take $770.1 million out of the School Aid Fund (SAF). However, that amount is only for the repeal of the gasoline tax. According to a statement by State Rep. Brandon Dillon, yesterday’s repeal of the aviation fuel tax will remove another $55 million . That means if both bills are passed, $825.1 million more will be taken from our kids’ schools. This represents over two-thirds of the $1.2 billion Governor Snyder has asked for for road repair.

Click through for more including details on how you can make your voice heard on this issue.


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UPDATED: Michigan Republicans aiming to carve another $770 million from schools to pay for road/bridge repairs

By on May 7, 2013 in Education, GOPocrisy, Michigan Republicans, Taxes

This is getting ridiculous

Michigan Republicans are getting ready to inflict further catastrophic damage on our state’s schools with the passage of a package of bills designed to pay for road and bridge repair, a major priority of Governor Rick Snyder. The bills say nothing about education or the School Aid Fund but the impact is there to the tune of more than $770.1 million.

Click through for all the gory details and information on how you can take action TODAY!


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Americans for Prosperity wants Gov Snyder to use cuts to education & state employees to fund road repairs

By on April 16, 2013 in Conservatives, Taxes

At least they’re not hiding it…

As the debate rages on where to get the millions of dollars in funding needed to repair Michigan’s crumbling roads and bridges, Americans for Prosperity have an answer: use cuts to education and state employee wages to pay for them.

Click through for details on the efforts of this corporate whore to get the poor and middle class to pay for public improvements that benefit corporations more than anyone else.


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It’s Tax Day in Michigan. Let’s take a moment to remember that Republicans raised taxes on over half of us.

By on April 15, 2013 in Michigan Republicans, Taxes

They are counting on us to be too stupid or distracted to care

If there is one thing that you could count on hearing in the stump speeches of Michigan Republicans during the 2010 midterm campaign it was that they were going to lower your taxes, by God. Smaller government funded by fewer taxes was their recipe for success.

Of course, they immediately got to work NOT lowering taxes and passed the Emergency Manager Law, started a campaign to destroy all unions that is well into its third year and have continued to attack women’s reproductive rights and freedoms with an anti-woman zeal not seen since the days of New England witch trials.

But today, April 15th — Tax Day — it’s worth taking a moment to pause and realize that not only did they not lower our taxes, for more than half of the people living, working and trying to get by in Michigan, they actually RAISED taxes.

Click through for much more.


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Multibillion dollar Meijer, Inc. finds another way to screw Michigan cities and kids

By on April 1, 2013 in Taxes

Sometimes you just have to ask “How much money and greed is enough?”

Meijer, Inc. is one of the largest privately-owned companies in the country. When he died, Frederick Meijer, the son of the founder of the company, was worth $5 billion. The stores pioneered the concept of “one-stop shopping”, a shopping center where you could buy everything from car batteries to fresh broccoli.

This past year, Meijer, Inc. has been challenging its tax assessments around the state, saving itself millions and millions of dollars, money that is coming, in large part, directly from the coffers of the municipalities and schools where their stores are located. The Lansing area seems particularly hard hit.

Click through for details.


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Snyder admin budget director claims biz tax cuts created jobs but can’t prove it & says they haven’t kicked in yet

By on February 16, 2013 in Michigan Republicans, Rick Snyder, Taxes

Um, maybe you guys should get your stories straight before you go on tv…

Michigan State Budget Director John Nixon appeared on Off the Record with Tim Skubick this week. Unfortunately for him, the wheels sort of fell of the car when the conversation turned to the impact of the Republicans nearly $2 billion in business tax cuts on job creation. Nixon first said, unequivocally, that the tax cuts have created jobs. Then he said he can’t prove it. And then he finished by saying, well, they really haven’t kicked in yet so it’s hard to say.

It gets hard to keep up with these guys sometimes.


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Catholic Church not content not to have to pay for employee health ins. that covers contraceptives

By on February 7, 2013 in Taxes

Now you’re going too far

After the Obama administration bent over backwards to accommodate the Catholic Church’s complaint that having to provide health insurance to their employees that covers birth control, the Church threw it aside claiming it wasn’t good enough. Why? In part because it doesn’t allow any employer that wants to to impose his or her religious views on their employees.

My rant after the jump.


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Busting the “Federal budget is just like a family budget” myth

By on January 6, 2013 in Taxes

Let’s get some perspective on this, shall we?

One of the most widely prevalent myths being perpetrated on the right is that the federal budget should be seen as just a much larger version of a family budget. “American families are forced to live within their budget every day,” we’re told. “The federal government should do the same.”

Laura Clawson at Daily Kos has a marvelous piece up this morning that shows just how fail that argument is, mainly because it leaves out some very inconvenient truths about what our federal government looks like.

Her piece is titled “You want to compare the U.S. budget to a family budget? Let’s be real about it.” It stems from a piece making the rounds on Facebook that said it’s easier to look at the federal budget if you lop off eight zeros and then look at it like a family budget.

Much more after the Eclectacliff.


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Time to let Congress know: Get rid of the Bush Tax Cuts for the very rich

By on December 28, 2012 in Republicans, Taxes

Those who benefit most should pay the most

Americans for Tax Fairness has a powerful new video out that spells out this ridiculous argument over the stupidly and incorrectly-named “fiscal cliff”. The video shows just how absurd the Republicans’ position and arguments are. They want a massive tax break for the upper 2% to continue and are holding a $2,200 per family tax break for the rest of us hostage in order to preserve it.

Have a look (after the Eclectablog Cliff.)


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Michigan state tax revenues up, cities not benefitting, laying off cops

By on December 18, 2012 in Michigan, Taxes

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

The state of Michigan’s tax revenues were up in November, beating estimates, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency (pdf). The increase in revenues was driven, in part, by higher taxes on Michiganders. As I wrote in my piece last spring, “The tax timebomb that explodes in Michigan in 2012 is MUCH worse than you thought”, the tax increase passed by the so-called “anti-tax” Republicans disproportionately impacts lower income residents.

Although the state coffers are looking pretty, the same cannot be said about our cities. Many of them are laying off police officers or getting rid of their police departments entirely.

More after the jump.


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