Free Republic

Handing over taxpayer dollars to assist Michigan International Speedway has become a tradition at the state capitol. The Senate version of the 2014 state police budget would appropriate $800,000 for traffic control at Michigan International Speedway (MIS). If that appropriation stays in the budget, it would bring the amount of budgeted taxpayer dollars used to help support MIS over the past five years to just shy of $20 million. Senate Bill 185 labels the appropriation as "Traffic Control Support." It is used to pay for the state police to handle traffic control around the speedway, particularly for a couple of...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Here are 173 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds http://tinyurl.com/173examplesHere are 173 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, government waste, and other misdeeds.In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections. Some of the things on this list are major events that should scare the daylights out...

The Miami Dolphins would consider building a brand new stadium in Palm Beach County, Fins CEO Mike Dee told reporters today. Dee, who’s still smarting from the team’s failure to get state dollars to renovate Sun Life Stadium, was asked directly about Palm Beach County — and said the team would consider moving north. “We’re open-minded to all long-term solutions,” Dee responded, according to The Miami Herald. “You can’t close the door on anything.

A proposal by the Miami Dolphins to use taxpayer money to help finance an upgrade of the NFL team's stadium failed on Friday to win broad support among Florida state lawmakers, dealing a potential blow to Miami's bid to host the 2016 Super Bowl. The Dolphins, owned by real estate tycoon Stephen Ross, lobbied the state legislature for months to back a bill to increase hotel taxes in Miami-Dade County to finance nearly half of a proposed $350 million renovation of the Sun Life Stadium, which is privately owned.

State government agencies have a long history of making bad decisions about which companies should get select tax breaks from Michigan. But that hasn't stopped them from making extravagant job predictions. That was routine during the eight years Jennifer Granholm was governor. And some still want to know how many jobs specific policies will create. MLive political commentator Tim Skubick chastised Gov. Snyder recently for not giving an estimate on how many jobs the right-to-work law would create in Michigan. In February 2012, Skubick also criticized Gov. Snyder for not predicting how many jobs would be created by the governor's...

John Austin, president of the Michigan State Board of Education, said he doesn't believe companies are calling Michigan because of the state's new right-to-work law. In an MLive column, Austin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, wrote: "And despite protestations to the contrary, I am not convinced the phones at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation have been ringing off the hook with new firms eager to come to Michigan since the law passed." In an email, Austin said he was referring to comments Gov. Rick Snyder made to The Detroit News in which the governor said: "The phone's already been ringing...

It has been federal for three years. It has brought chaos to the labor markets. It has cost people their livelihoods and it is more unpopular than ever. So why does “Obamacare” (officially known as the “Affordable Care Act”) remain so irresistible for so many of our fellow Americans? Because at its core Obamacare is not about health care, so much as it is about the redistribution of wealth, and for those who are on the receiving end of the redistribution the agenda is completely irresistible. When the federal government doles-out cash, it’s difficult to say “no.” That’s why many...

The US Army has been called in to help with the battle to salvage Royal Dutch Shell’s stricken Kulluk Arctic drilling rig, which has now been beached in environmentally delicate waters for nearly a week. The Kulluk, one of two rigs crucial to Shell’s controversial Arctic oil exploration plans, ran aground on New Year’s Eve as it was hit by a fierce storm while being towed to Seattle for maintenance. Two Chinook helicopters from the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade flew to the scene on Friday to help transport heavy equipment for the salvage operations. Three vessels are on site and...

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) wants answers from the US taxpayer supported Export-Import bank about a $2 billion loan to Brazil for offshore drilling. Vitter’s home state is suffering under a moratorium imposed by President Barack Obama. Vitter said Louisianians “are frustrated” and he wants to know “why permitting domestically is nearly stalled…” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had questions about ExIM—nine years ago when he asked Congress to reject the reauthorization of ExIm for “economic, constitutional and moral reasons.” Vitter sent a letter to Fred Hochberg, Ex-Im president, on March 17. Vitter asked Hochberg to identify all US companies that have...

Watch this new holiday-themed video that asks the following question: Why does the government force us to spend billions each year on corporate welfare?

Despite a spotty record on positive job returns, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. is offering up more tax deals to try and create jobs in the state. The MEDC's most recent beneficiary is General Motors Co., which announced recently it expects to create 1,500 jobs over the next several years at the company's Warren Tech Center. The MEDC is planning to amend an existing tax credit agreement to cover the project. However, GM's track record with job projections involving the MEDC has not been good. In five of the six deals going back to 1999, GM ended up with fewer...

TWO days after President Obama’s first debate against Mitt Romney, Stephanie Cutter, a deputy campaign manager for the Obama re-election effort, decided to tweak Mr. Romney for his attack on federal funding for PBS. On Twitter, Ms. Cutter, known for her dry sense of humor and sharp edge, circulated a photo of Big Bird outside an Obama rally with the hashtag #ProtectSesameStreetNotWallStreet to her 42,700-plus followers. The Big Bird attacks started to take on a life of their own. The following week, the Obama campaign introduced a tongue-in-cheek ad that compares Big Bird to Bernard L. Madoff and other corporate...

(Reuters) - Plans to save Big Bird, the fuzzy yellow character on U.S. public television's "Sesame Street," from possible extinction are taking shape in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the "Million Muppet March." The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election. Before the presidential debate between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3, two men who had never met each floated the Million Muppet March idea on social media. They immediately united to defend public broadcasting. Romney...

In the fall of 2010, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. — the state's "corporate welfare” arm — uploaded a video to YouTube highlighting the battery manufacturer A123 Systems. At the time, the company was promoted heavily by President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. Since then, A123 has shed money, laid off half its workforce, recalled products and seen its stock price plummet to about 26 cents this week from a previous high of $26. Now, just two years after the initial roll-out, A123 is...

When Mitt Romney blurted out his now notorious 47-percent lament, liberal gaffe-o-meters went ballistic, acting as though he were an American Ebenezer Scrooge who had just shoved Tiny Tim Cratchit into a ditch and then burned down a crutch factory. As several observers have noted, this amorphous statistic includes myriads of worthy beneficiaries indeed, such as veterans, social security recipients, the physically or mentally disabled, the deserving poor, and those utterly unable to take care of themselves in a society where the federal government has assumed tasks that once were the preserve of families, churches, voluntary organizations, and state or...

The Washington Post editorialized recently that President Barack Obama set a goal of 1 million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015. Just last year, the Obama administration’s Department of Energy produced a report that said, “The goal is achievable.” These projections turned out to be wildly incorrect. The DoE thought General Motors alone would make 120,000 Chevy Volts in 2012. Instead, there are about 21,000 Volts total on the road and GM just announced that it was shutting down parts of production for the vehicle because of low sales. And this despite massive state and federal...

“Government ’help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.” That is what Ayn Rand has to say about government involvement in the world of business, but the full extent of this practice is difficult to nail down. Tad DeHaven of the CATO Institute investigated the situation to determine exactly how deep the problem runs. Periodically, CATO analyzes the federal budget to ascertain exactly how much money our government shovels out to favored parties. Unfortunately, over the years both parties have...

The state of Michigan gave one company $1.65 million, with which zero jobs were created or retained after the business went bankrupt. This is one of several instances where projections fell short for a state fund designed to support select businesses. The money was given through the Michigan Strategic Fund, a state program that administers the 21st Century Investments program “to strengthen and diversify Michigan’s economy by investing in venture capital, private equity, and mezzanine funds as a method to create jobs and provide financial assistance for the creation of new businesses or industries.” To date, the direct investment category...

An audit of a state program awarding over $500 million in tax breaks found that the state could not evaluate the program’s effectiveness. A performance audit from the auditor general found that the Department of Treasury "did not have sufficient performance information available to evaluate the effectiveness of the Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Program." The Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Program allows municipalities to create Brownfield Redevelopment Authorities, which use Tax Increment Financing to redevelop properties deemed “contaminated, blighted or functionally obsolete.” Tax Increment Financing is used to subsidize redevelopment through expected future gains in tax revenue. The brownfield program is not the...

The Michigan Economic Development Corp. is the corporate welfare arm of state government. The state agency provides tax breaks and outright cash subsidies to select corporations and developers chosen by legislators and bureaucrats. The MEDC’s website contains press releases going back to 1998, when the agency was created by a Republican governor with bipartisan votes in the House and Senate (it replaced another agency, the “Michigan Jobs Commission”). There are a lot of them — several press releases a week in most years. Newspaper readers around the state have often seen these turned into “news” stories about particular corporations getting...

Only a third of expected private investment and a fifth of expected jobs have been delivered among six companies selected by the state of Michigan to receive special tax breaks. An additional company is in the process of being removed from the program. These tax breaks came as part of the state's Renaissance Zones program. Companies selected for the program have been exempt from the Michigan Business Tax, state education tax, personal and real property taxes, and local income taxes. "Renaissance Zones are selective abatements to areas and businesses that eliminate virtually all state and local taxes," said James Hohman,...

One test for economic conservatives is whether they are willing to oppose constituent business interests looking for government favoritism. On that score, two recent contrasting votes by Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida are instructive. The political habit of favoring big business is bipartisan, as the sugar and Ex-Im Bank votes show. If Republicans want the political credibility to reform middle-class entitlements, they had better be prepared to eliminate corporate welfare too. Kudos to Mr. DeMint for understanding this.

The Minnesota Vikings' new $975 million stadium is expected to bring construction jobs to parts of Minneapolis hit hardest by poverty and unemployment. Elected officials, business owners and civic leaders who backed the stadium are hoping it will be a boon to the jobless, including the 22 percent of black workers who were counted as unemployed as recently as last year, Minnesota Public Radio reported Tuesday, June 12. That was nearly triple Minnesota's overall jobless rate.

Rep. Schakowsky (D) has introduced a bill, the WORK Act, Woman's Option to Raise Kids, giving federal assistance that would supplement TANF benefits (for the first 3 years), because under current law a woman (poor or not) raising kids does not have her work raising kids counted as real "work." Dems are attempting to use Ann Romney's words against her. Ann Romney said that staying home and raising kids is "work." and Dems are countering that by saying that it shouldn't be just people like Ann Romney that should get to stay home and "work." Schakowsky believes that poor women...

If the likes of Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally and Hollywood Film Producer James Cameron want tax breaks for their projects in Michigan, they may have to take a drug test to get the money if a bipartisan group of State Representatives have their way. Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, introduced House Bill 5527 on Wednesday that calls for top executives in companies to be drug tested if they receive certain tax breaks from the state. The bill currently has four co-sponsors: Pat Somerville, R-New Boston, Judson Gilbert, R-Algonac, Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, and Jim Ananich, D-Flint. Rep. McMillin...

If the likes of Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally and Hollywood Film Producer James Cameron want tax breaks for their projects in Michigan, they may have to take a drug test to get the money if a bipartisan group of State Representatives have their way.

A new proposal announced by state Senate Democrats would use savings generated by eliminating “ineffective tax loopholes” to pay for the college tuition of Michigan students. However, these same “ineffective tax loopholes” for particular businesses include ones that the Michigan Senate Democrats have overwhelmingly voted for over the past several years. Robert McCann, spokesman for Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said the plan was to shave off just 5 percent of the $35 billion in tax credits the state gives out. McCann said under the plan any new tax credit would be limited to four years and there would also...

According to the following from Zerohedge, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, American Spectator, Politico, Dirtdiggersdigest and others, Romney is about as big a pro-crony capitalism, taxpayer-funded corporate welfare hog/queen as you can get. He will make Obama look like an amateur. Hence, why Wall Street is lining up behind Mitt Romney. You can't have what many on Wall Street want and support free enterprise. Corporatism/crony capitalism/corporate welfare should be eschewed by conservatives. If only many in the so-called conservative media would be honest with people instead of trying to mischaracterize and pigeonhole Gingrich... Zerohedge On Mitt Romney's Defense of Bain...

According to The Detroit News, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm made a deal with a group of wealthy and politically connected individuals in Oakland County to use state pension funds to guarantee $18 million they borrowed to set up a film studio in Pontiac, essentially making the pension fund the “co-signer” on the loan. The “business model” for this studio was completely dependent on another of Gov. Granholm’s corporate welfare schemes, a subsidy program that paid up to 42 percent of film producers’ Michigan expenses. No reputable economist has ever defended these subsidies, which are pure “political development” programs, not economic...

Here's an audit Florida's professional sports franchises may not have expected -- records of housing the homeless at their facilities over the years... and if the Florida Panthers haven't been housing the homeless, the team's on the hook for more than $30.8 million in tax breaks it's gotten since 1996. A recently released legislative analysis of State Sen. Mike Bennett's Senate Bill 816 notes that a law from the '80s requires sports franchises in Florida to house the homeless in its facility on off-nights, and in exchange, the teams get $166,667 from the state every month.

In a December commentary I wrote about how Michigan Economic Development Corp. officials appeared to be seeking “massaged” research from consultants who would provide evidence of the need for more investment in MEDC programs. Specifically, the agency seemed to be seeking affirmation of a specific dollar figure — $291.5 million — that the state should “invest” to lower the unemployment rate. An astute reader steered me to a story out of Kentucky involving the MEDC’s winning bidder, a firm called AngelouEconomics. According to the article, AE was forced to give a refund to the city of Lexington after submitting a...

There’s an old story about an accountant, a mathematician and an economist being asked by a job interviewer, “What does 2 + 2 equal?” The accountant and mathematician both correctly answer “four,” but the economist responds, “What do you want it to equal?” Alas, the joke reveals a sad truth, that economists — especially ones paid for their work by government — have often been guilty of tailoring research to satisfy the self-serving demands of their political masters. A case study of such expediency triumphing over a search for the truth may be currently underway here, and it involves the...

What is Democratic Governor like Pat Quinn in a pork barrel blue state like Illinois to do? The Party's power depends upon an endless stream of government jobs with budget-busting benefits, which translates into votes. Unfortunately, the game only works if the bill can be foisted onto a deep-pocket third party. The fly in the ointment is those unreasonable, right-wing tax payers, who are tired of being played for a pocket. The Democrats' preferred solution is to sew up acquiescence and hamstring resistance by invoking fairness, responsibility, family or what-have-you. The answer is never to cut the size and scope...

Gallup finds that 82 percent of Tea Party affiliated voters deem Newt Gingrich an acceptable Republican presidential nominee in 2012. They don't seem to realize that if he wins the nod their movement is doomed, regardless of how the general election goes. The Tea Party cannot support Gingrich without betraying its core principles. But the movement also cannot disclaim him once he is the Republican nominee. Tea Partiers with a better instinct for self-preservation would see that none of the Mitt Romney alternatives still running would be as corrosive to their cause as the former Speaker of the House. Why?...

Again and again Newt Gingrich says he never lobbied. Bit by bit, more evidence surfaces that he did in fact lobby. Blog posts today by Ben Smith at Politico and Jen Rubin at the Washington Post help waterproof the case that Gingrich isn't speaking truthfully about his lobbying. Here are some of the facts of the case: I reported that Gingrich was paid by players in the drug industry to help pass the Medicare drug bill, and he visited Capitol Hill to convince lawmakers to vote for the bill. The New York Times reports that Gingrich actively worked to pass...

Just days after Newt Gingrich won the endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader, one of his rivals sat down with another Granite State newspaper. Rick Santorum met with the editorial board of the Nashua Telegraph Monday for an hour and was asked about Gingrich’s comments on immigration at last week’s CNN and American Enterprise Institute debate. At the debate, Gingrich voiced a moderate approach to illegal immigration saying he would not remove all illegal immigrants that are currently in the country. “I do not believe that the people of the United States are going to take people who have...

There has been a great deal of discussion over the issue of illegals and amnesty. Some have accused the majority of calling for "cattle cars" to "brutalize" the poor illegals. I never thought I`d hear such demogoguery here on Freerepublic, and simply to support a favored candidate. Be that as it may, I`d like to issue this challenge to all who claim to support Conservatism: With the e-verify system, an admitedly imperfect but very improvable system, we can begin to verify who is and who isn`t legal to work in America; Therfore, since it is a federal law (immigration) thats...

A think tank founded by GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich collected at least $37 million over the past eight years from major health-care companies and industry groups, offering special access to the former House speaker and other perks, according to records and interviews. The Center for Health Transformation, which opened in 2003, brought in dues of as much as $200,000 per year from insurers and other health-care firms, offering some of them “access to Newt Gingrich” and “direct Newt interaction,” according to promotional materials. The biggest funders, including firms such as AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Novo Nordisk, were...

His campaign has said that he did no lobbying; but his consultancy practice was centered around his ability to help big corporate interests speak the language of Republicans and navigate the corridors of Capitol Hill on issues vital to their businesses.

Since leaving office in 1999, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has spent much of his time convincing conservatives to support government subsidies for large corporations, reports the Washington Examiner. In addition to his work as a “strategic consultant” for government-sponsored mortgage lender Freddie Mac, the Examiner reports that tax filings show Gingrich received money from the ethanol lobby. Green Energy, a lobbying group that works to secure and create government subsidies for the much-criticized ethanol industry, paid the Gingrich Group more than $300,000 as recently as 2009. Unlike most conservative experts on the industry, Gingrich is a staunch advocate of...

(CNN) - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not release more Freddie Mac-related documents, according to campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond. Though the contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination said Wednesday that his campaign would "do what they can" to release more information about payments he received as a consultant from the government-backed mortgage group, Hammond backtracked later in the evening. When asked via email whether the campaign would release more Freddie Mac-related documents or if a fact sheet it released in the afternoon was the last word on the issue, Hammond responded to CNN, "last word."

Link only, per FR posting rules

General Motors and Ford inflated the number of jobs their companies would retain when accepting tax incentives from the state and collected an estimated $7.7 million for “phantom” jobs from 2006 to 2008, according to an analysis done by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The analysis was based on information contained in an audit of the MEDC performed by the CPA firm Andrews Hooper & Pavlik. Every year, companies involved with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. tax credit program report how many jobs they’ve created and/or retained and then receive money from the state for each job. From 2006-2008,...

Crony capitalism thrives in Alaska, center stage held by the Alaska Native Corporations (ANC). From the pending shakedown of taxpayers through a wholesale land grab (S.730 and H.R.1408) to recent arrests of four people in one of the "most brazen federal contracting scandals in our nation's history," there seems to be no end to the scams, a consequence of an ANC system run amok. It's not enough that over $29 billion of taxpayer money has been transferred to the ANCs under the 8(a) minority no-bid federal contracting scheme. The state's seemingly permanent political class has recently orchestrated sister bills in...

The Legislature is currently debating a package of bills (Senate Bills 566 to 568) that would expand the discretion of political appointees on the board of the Michigan Strategic Fund to hand out cash subsidies up to $10 million to particular companies they select. While lawmakers are quibbling over deck-chair details, these pickers of winners-and-losers would have extremely broad latitude to give the dough to almost anyone they want. Gov. Rick Snyder is likely to have a great deal of influence in those selections, which makes the proposed program similar to a Texas “deal closer” fund that has caused political...

It's been a long while since I posted at FR, so bear with me please. There has not been sufficient discussion about Governor Palin's superb tax policy she announced in Iowa this past weekend. So, before the other campaigns try to co-opt it, I think it's necessary to put our pro-Palin stake in the ground. Current Situation - As we are all well aware, the high unemployment is plainly nasty and long-standing. Much as President Obama would like any of several of his targets to take the blame for the economic fix we are in, it is his name that...

[snip] Interviews with a dozen advisers, including those inside campaigns and those aligned with outside groups, show lines of attack likely to emerge...... While Mr. Romney’s position as an early leader in the race has been shaken by Mr. Perry, it will almost certainly not be Mr. Romney who engages Mr. Perry first. He is already the subject of criticism from other rivals, including former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who questions Mr. Perry’s credentials. “We’ll see how conservative Rick Perry really is,” Mr. Santorum said. Here in Iowa, where the caucuses start the nominating contest, Mr. Perry is placing...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry called in to Mark Levin's radio show and the two had a wide-ranging conversation. Levin ended by saying, while he is not endorsing anyone yet for the GOP Nomination, Perry is "up there with candidates acceptable to me."

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says he opposes a fence along the U.S. border with Mexico. Speaking to hundreds of New Hampshire voters at a private reception Saturday afternoon, the Texas governor says a fence would be ineffective and take too long to build. The comments, which produced one angry shout, expose a rift with some conservative voters over Perry's immigration record. Tea party activists in Texas have been particularly upset by his steady opposition to the fence. He also signed a law giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition for Texas universities.