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.
There is a battle going on in Lansing about tax credits as critics wonder if they really do help to create jobs and economic growth and, if so, do they do those things well enough to make up for the loss in state revenue at a time when record deficits are forcing massive cuts in services. The public is mostly unaware of this battle, but longtime capitol reporter Tim Skubick notes on his blog that Gov. Granholm, a strong advocate of the use of tax credits to attract investment, may have found a trump card over one of the chief critics of their use.
Maybe it was an accident, but regardless, the other day she (Gov. Jennifer Granholm) blurted out that she had, almost on the hook, a buyer for the abandoned Ford Wixom Plant in Oakland County. The beast has sat there for the past two years.
But there was one hitch. She needed the legislature to cough up some extra tax credits to close the deal and as fate would have it, and here was the genius in letting the cat out of the bag, the Wixom plant is in the district of Sen. Nancy Cassis. She’s been on a crusade to hold up more tax credits until there is more proof that the money is working to create jobs.
So there was Ms. Cassis sitting on the governor’s bill while the governor daintily dangled 12,000 jobs in front of the aforementioned Oakland County senator who wants work for her constituents. By making it public, the governor is exerting tremendous pressure on Cassis to get off the dime and move the governor’s tax credit bill.
Skubick wonders if the governor has the guts to play hardball with Cassis, who is also seeking to water down the film tax credits that Granholm has fought so hard for, and hold the purchase of the Wixom plant over the senator’s head if she doesn’t back down on the other tax credit plans as well.
This is the kind of political maneuvering that the public is generally unaware of, but it’s really one of the keys to how things actually get done.
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