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.
LANSING — Jeff Wray makes a living with film. He teaches about it at Michigan State University, and his films have been shown on PBS. All that said, the film maker says if law makers need to ax the film 42 percent film incentive in order to fully fund education, they should do it.
“I think education should come first or near the top,” Wray said at a rally Monday night at the Capitol. “So if the film incentives, for me I think even as a film maker, have to go, then sure. That’s a no brainer.”
“Of course [film makers] want [the incentive],” Wray said.
That said, the incentive is working, Wray says.
“It is bringing in films and film makers. It is bringing money,” Wray said. “But that is long term. In defense of the film incentives, we are two years into it. It’s a long term investment.”
Wray says he is baffled by the insistence of Senate Republicans that the state budget be balanced only with budget cuts and no new revenue streams.
“I hate to sound to partisan here, but I think its a matter of a public good here that comes to mind. It seems to me that the Republicans say they want the public good but they don’t want to pay for it,” Wray said minutes after telling the rally of high school students and parents that the state needs to find new revenue. “Taxes is such a dirty word. You have to have taxes for roads, for highways, for schools, for libraries, that makes sense to me. I don’t understand what the problem is. No one wants to be heavily taxed, no one wants wasteful taxes but Michigan has been cut to the bone.”
Exhibit one in Wray’s mind of how diminished Michigan’s budget is? The slicing of education funding, particularly to East Lansing, which in the last budget round lost $2 million. Some of that could be replaced if the Democratic-controlled state House and the Republican-controlled state Senate can find money to plug some of the income gaps in state funding and override Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s line item veto of money to wealthier districts, such as East Lansing.
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