I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
It looks like that stimulus package that brought so much money into the state of Michigan for infrastructure projects is going to be a virtual wash in terms of actual spending. The Detroit News reports that nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars in transportation projects have had to be canceled because the state could not come up with the matching funds necessary to get them done:
The state took another hard shot Thursday when the Michigan Department of Transportation announced it has canceled more than 137 road and bridge projects — totaling $740 million — due to Michigan’s inability to match federal dollars. Michigan’s portion of the federal match for road construction will now go to other states…
Under the funding formula, the federal government pays for 80 percent of road projects and requires each state to come up with the remaining 20 percent. Michigan relies on fuel and registration taxes for its transportation funding, but those revenues have fallen steadily over the past several years because Michigan motorists are driving less and buying fewer new cars.
If Michigan can’t come up with its 20 percent, it loses the 80 percent match from the federal government.
So we’re getting $873 million from the federal government as part of the stimulus package to fund new transportation projects, but we have to give up $740 worth of projects already planned. That doesn’t leave much of a stimulus for the economy at all.
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