Romeo Area Tea Party

Posts Tagged ‘Snyder’

Marisa Schultz writes in the Detroit News about a recent effort to combine the punch of Tea Party votes in Michigan for the upcoming effort to elect a conservative to the office of U.S. Senate.  From the beginning of the grassroots Tea Party movement, the leaders and members knew what they wanted in a candidate, any candidate, for office:

(A) candidate who stands for a limited federal government, free-market solutions, individual freedoms and abiding by the Constitution as written by the Founding Fathers.

There is some disagreement about how that will be accomplished. Alliance? Network? Unite? Take over the local GOP?   In the last gubernatorial race, 4 of the Republican candidates each had a base of supporters among Tea Partiers.  Many feel the eventual winner was not a true conservative.  How to maximize the voice and votes of conservatives will be an ongoing discussion among those who have organized themselves into Tea Parties.

Read the entire article by clicking on the Detroit News image, or a PDF here – Tea Parties Unite for Senate Race, Detroit News.

Our own Jan D. is quoted further down in the piece:

The idea also doesn’t sit well with Jan DeBeauclair, chairwoman of the Romeo Area Tea Party, saying the members shouldn’t be told how to vote.

“Our mission statement says we will not endorse,” said DeBeauclair, whose group had two representatives at Saturday’s meeting. “We will do everything we can to educate people so they know what is going on, so they have the chance to listen to the candidates and they make up their own mind.”

Well, what do you TEA Partiers think?  What is the best strategy to elect a  true conservative in the primary race? Do straw poll results affect your decision?  Let us know in the comment section below.

For our generation “Return of the Jedi” was more than a silly movie; it was a clarion call, a summons, to those who believe in freedom, liberty and human dignity against the constant onslaught of the dark forces. These past few weeks we have started to see a new ripple in the pond that we can only hope becomes a giant wave as we move into 2012. Specifically, it is a ripple of energy from those on the forefront of job creation, free markets and sound economic policy that says “We’re not going to take this anymore, we’ve been the punching bags for too long and now we are ready to take up the fight.” It comes not only from business leaders, but from the grass roots and from actors across the political spectrum. Let’s take a look at just a few of the stories from this past week:

Boeing Corporation, our country’s only manufacturer of large aircraft, was ambushed by the Obama Administration’s National Labor Relations Board which took the decision that Boeing does not have the right to open a new manufacturing facility in South Carolina because it’s a Right to Work state (meaning that an individual worker cannot be forced to join a union).This is ostensibly a big negative, bit what was enormously encouraging was that the CEO of Boeing, Jim McErney, wasted no time in confronting the Administration in the pages of The Wall Street Journal:

(The NLRB) claims we improperly transferred existing work, and that our decision reflected “animus” and constituted “retaliation” against union-represented employees in Washington state. Its remedy: Reverse course, Boeing, and build the assembly line where we tell you to build it.

The NLRB is wrong and has far overreached its authority. Its action is a fundamental assault on the capitalist principles that have sustained America’s competitiveness since it became the world’s largest economy nearly 140 years ago. We’ve made a rational, legal business decision about the allocation of our capital and the placement of new work within the U.S. We’re confident the federal courts will reject the claim, but only after a significant and unnecessary expense to taxpayers.

More worrisome, though, are the potential implications of such brazen regulatory activism on the U.S. manufacturing base and long-term job creation. The NLRB’s overreach could accelerate the overseas flight of good, middle-class American jobs.

In Obama’s first two years how many times did you hear a public pushback from the business community? Pretty rare, right? Let’s hope this is just the first shot in a long battle.

Oil executives came under fire again this week as well for their corporate tax carve out. The obvious answer here is to simply lower the corporate tax rate significantly or get rid of it entirely. Congress, never one to take the obvious path, would rather keep a high tax rate and then pass carveouts for every industry from farming to mining to general manufacturing to oil and gas exploration. Then when the industry of the day makes a profit they can be pulled before the high court of Congress and belittled. The oil executives fought back this time, as did Senator Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana:

This will not reduce gasoline prices. So why are we doing it? Will it create jobs? No. It will actually hurt job production in the United States,” Landrieu said. “Why don’t you help us produce more, because we can do it, but we get shut down by bureaucracy, moratoriums, permatorium, rules, regulations, EPA, refuges. We can’t even get free to produce the energy that we can produce for this country

Rick Snyder’s business tax passed the State House and Senate this week, though the Senate was as narrow as it gets. Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves that the state that twice elected Granholm has now come full circle and decided to end the idiotic hand outs to the film industries and embrace general business tax cuts and, more importantly, simplification. A few more years of this and we might just get to the place where we start to realize in Michigan that it is businesses, started by entrepreneurs willing to take risks, that pays for everything else – EVERYTHING ELSE!

Lansing voters said no to a four millage increase in their property taxes. Yes, the very home of America’s angriest mayor, Virge Bernero, learned about the tax millage vote language and said no thanks. Read this article and learn about how to fight tax increases.

Classified under “It must be in the water,” Massachusetts’ Democrats have now started to move legislation that would prevent public sector unions from negotiating for health care benefits. Yes, not Wisconsin but Massachusetts. We are not making this up.

California Lifeguards are the latest casualty of the state and local government bankruptcy  quagmire that we find ourselves in. It was just a matter of time before it came out that many of them make over $200,000 a year and will enjoy million dollar pensions. You can just imagine the Dems lining up to defend the baywatch boys!

All in all, the past week, in fact the past few months, have been good ones. We have focused the nation’s attention on debt, taxes and the need for a growing economy. Call it the Return of the Jedi, in the person of the tea party patriots!

Across our fruited plain this year, state and local governments are coming to terms with reality after years of non leaders – read Jennifer Granholm – avoiding reality altogether. The result is confrontation from Wisconsin to Rhode Island; or, as in our state, some long overdue changes that, though as non confrontational as possible, still generate protests. What’s happening?

The entitlement economy is a government invention in which elected officials decide that they have the best ideas and skills to manage and solve every problem of society. In their attempt to mitigate man made problems they spend like money grows on trees. They also give citizens the attitude that they are entitled to the standard of living to which they have become accustomed. Over time, we the citizens simply start to expect the benefits of living in the entitlement economy.

Michigan Business

But the entitlement economy eventually runs out of not only money, but ideas, energy and innovation; we lose the jump in our step as we slouch along to another hand out. To solve the problem the government increases entitlements; film companies, auto companies, tax exemptions and credits to preferred groups, crony capitalism. Just grease enough palms and you can always find a someone to show up on the Paul W Smith morning show to tout how the latest entitlement is going to be the one that helps us to turn the corner. Strange that nobody ever asks why all of the other entitlements didn’t work.

So it was with great satisfaction that we see our new Governor Rick Snyder come on board and try to nudge us back to the place that Michigan once occupied; a place of true innovation, incredible energy, a level playing field where all are welcome to build their American dream. But alas, there are still many in the State of Michigan who would rather live in the state of denial. They show up with picket signs as if the last 10 years have been just fabulous and we should continue on our glide path to the bottom of every economic and social indicator in the country.

Reading an article by Daniel Howes in today’s Detroit News really brought the whole story of the Winter of Discontent to a head. “Michigan Must Shake Loser Mentality” is one of the best pieces that I have read on the state of our state. Here’s a short excerpt:

Dissemble, delay and demonize may not be particularly effective tactics in the face of declining tax revenue, rising costs, slumping property values, meager job creation and exhausted taxpayers. But they’re the Holy Trinity for blocking the pro-growth/restructured government agendas being pursued by Snyder and fellow Great Lakes governors, including Democrat Andrew Cuomo in New York.

The next time someone complains that a new law giving emergency financial managers more room to maneuver usurps bargaining rights and the responsibilities of elected leaders, ask them where the status quo worked. In Hamtramck? No. Pontiac? No. Detroit or Detroit Public Schools? No and no. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC? No. The United Auto Workers and Delphi Corp.? No.

Ugly truth: Repeatedly, history here shows, the “leaders” elected to lead do no such thing until they’re staring Armageddon in the face. Ugly truth No. 2: The budgetary denial of cities and school districts across the state has real financial implications for the bond ratings of other localities and the state Treasury’s ability to borrow.

The Snyder administration expects at least 20 localities and school districts across the state to encounter payless paydays as soon as this month, a high-ranking official told me over the weekend. If only half that many get there, what does it say about the ability of bargainers and politicians to address their problems before requiring intervention from Lansing?

So this is where we are. It’s hard to believe that after we have fallen this far we still have people who think the status quo is better than any other possible alternative.

If you have any doubts about the utter uselessness of the entitlement economy, and the worth of its opposite – the work, save, invest and innovate economy – just remember how embarrassed you were when our former governor stood before our elected legislature in 2006 and said of her new entitlements “in five years you’re gonna be blown away.” We are blown away; blown away that there are still so many people in this state who think the status quo is going to work.

Folks, it’s past time to rethink how we achieved the Michigan of our youth. It didn’t happen because the Gerbers, the Pfizers, the Kellogs, the Fords, the Chryslers, the Dodges and the Ilitches asked politicians to give them handouts. These people started and failed and started again. They built great companies with great ideas, lots of hard work, innovation, savings and investment. It was done once, it can be done again. First we need a government that knows the definition of humility; a government of appropriate size and appropriate reach. It must be both small and effective. Then, the innovation economy will come.