Flint Citizens Want Snyder’S Head; Gov. Begs Obama For Help

[suneday11]

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Edited January 19, 2016 by suneday11

[Restorium2]

stfu, tool

Not going to happen. Find something to post about other than me.

[Restorium2]

Read those posts in the context of "They are not about you".

[suneday11]

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Edited January 19, 2016 by suneday11

[suneday11]

Stop talking to me. Done.

 

All those were responsors meant to antagonize. You all see through your games. Youre not as clever as you think.

 

You literally respond after everything insay, often quoting me. Ignoring me? Ok, you self-serving clown. Hehe. You're funny

Edited January 18, 2016 by suneday11

[Restorium2]

 

Flint citizens have called for Governor Rick Snyder’s arrest, demanded his resignation, filed recall petitions, and initiated a class action lawsuit for his negligence.

 

 

I think that statement makes it pretty clear what the people who live there think/want. No one has to put words in their mouths. No one has to push them into a political agenda to have a better governor. They are begging for change. I bet a very small percentage of people there even voted for Snyder. They are sick and tired of false representation in our government. You see their real representation wanting to amplify their message and those that would continue to hurt Flint muting it.

No one attacked you. Surprise surprise. I've been ignoring you actually. And that will continue due to your lack of understanding that everything isn't about you. With me, nothing is about you. Try applying that to all situations here and you will understand me better. Nothing is about you. Never was ever. My posts are for/about a broader audience.

 

Not about you.....

[Restorium2]

Stop talking to me. Done

Wasn't talking to you.

[suneday11]

Go work with for federal cop friend and keep growing those lb plus plants. Stop breaking our law.

Edited January 18, 2016 by suneday11

[suneday11]

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Edited January 19, 2016 by suneday11

[Restorium2]

The Virginia Tech Research Team

 

http://flintwaterstudy.org/about-page/about-us/

[+Malamute]

To me, it is simply republican government policies coming home to roost.

 

Wallow in your muck republicans.

 

 Your policies hurt and kill people. just like we have always said.  This is just the latest aberration of its policies.  Deregulation. Removal of local democracy. Not believing in infrastructure(unless it is a golf course on the lake). Not believing things need to be upkept, which costs money.  Cutting money from every program until a bridge falls, or roads completely crumble, or poisoning the water.

 

Yea.  Completely unsurprising and much more of this to come in the future due to current Michigan republican government policies of neglect, deregulation, and defunding of government functions.

 

 

p.s.  All to give Rich corporations more money.(See Snyder tax cuts for the rich and corporate)

[+Malamute]

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/capitol/2015/01/16/state-revenue-shortfall-corporate-tax-credits/21859767/

 

LANSING – State financial officials meet with lawmakers this morning to try to determine how big of a budget shortfall the state faces in 2015 as Gov. Rick Snyder said Thursday he has no misgivings about a series of corporate tax cuts he signed into law.

 

......

 

The current crisis is largely attributed to corporations cashing in hundreds of millions dollars more in tax credits in 2014 and 2015 than had earlier been expected.

 

 

......

 

 

Snyder, while boosting revenues from personal income taxes by reducing or eliminating tax credits and exemptions that pensioners and others received, has significantly cut corporate taxes by eliminating the MBT in favor of the corporate income tax and by signing into law a phase-out of the personal property tax on industrial equipment, which is also now having an impact on the overall revenue numbers.

Snyder also signed into law a controversial law that limits the ability of the Treasury Department to hold corporate officers personally liable for the unpaid taxes of corporations. That law is expected to reduce state revenues by about $295 million over the next three years, of which about $165 million will impact the general fund, the state's main checking account.

[Restorium2]

Exactly like with the roads. Most people don't know that it takes years before a road project can even break ground after it is funded. It's going to get real bad here before we see a stitch of improvement. Yet Snyder gave his buddies huge pay raises behind the scenes. 

The Republican Play Book's main game is to put us hard into the ditch then ask for new taxes "To Save Us" that they get to decide where they are allocated and spent.

People are catching on. The first sign was the rejection of the added sales tax. We are tough. We can fight. We will fight. We will not be silenced.

[+Malamute]

How you're paying more

 

For some Michigan families, changes to tax credits and deductions have been deeply felt.

 

The state is collecting nearly $900 million a year more from individuals, many of them poor people who have lost tax credits or deductions.

 

Meanwhile, businesses pay about $1.7 billion less in taxes, all while job growth has slowed each year since the tax cuts took effect.

 

Michigan's individual income tax revenue jumped 25% between 2011 and 2012, a $1.4-billion increase. About $560 million of that is because of income growth, and much of that is because of a one-time spike in national income tied to changes in the federal tax code.

 

The remainder of the increase can be explained by deductions and tax credits that were either eliminated or modified significantly. For millions of Michigan residents, these were experienced as tax increases.

 

They include:

■ $270 million from a decrease in the homestead property tax credit.

■ $240 million from cuts to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

■ $200 million from the pension tax changes.

■ $50 million from the elimination of deductions for children.

■ $50 million from the elimination of the special exemption for age and unemployment compensation.

■ $90 million from elimination of other nonrefundable credits, such as city income tax, homeless/food bank contributions and contributions to public universities and public broadcasting.

 

The average taxpayer received half as much in credits in 2012 as in 2011. In addition, the new tax code freezes the individual income tax rate at 4.25%; before the changes, that rate was scheduled to drop 0.1 percentage point each year until it reached 3.9% in 2015.

 

In fact, Michigan had the fifth largest percentage increase in tax revenue collected from individuals, according to a survey of government tax collections by the U.S. Census Bureau during fiscal year 2013.

 

"By taking away taxes on business, you are increasing the burden on everything on else," said Norton Francis, a senior research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. "The money has to come from somewhere."

 

Shifting tax burden toward individuals tends to hit the low-income population the hardest, Francis said: "High-income individuals tend to save more, those receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit pour that money right back into the economy and tend to spend locally."

 

Michigan taxpayers claiming the EITC and seniors able to claim property tax credits experienced some of the largest tax increases. About 793,000 tax returns qualified for the Michigan EITC in 2011; the average return was $450. In 2012, the average EITC credit dropped to $140 among 772,000 returns filed by Michigan residents. Senior citizens averaged about $740 in property tax credits in 2011, down to $590 in 2012.

The revamping of Michigan's tax code — described as some of the most sweeping tax reforms the state has seen since the mid-1990s, "involved a fairly significant tax burden shift; reducing business taxes and increasing individual taxes," according to a report by the Citizens Research Council, a nonpartisan research group.

 

It's a different story for businesses.

 

Revenue from business taxes fell by about $1.7 billion after the elimination of the Michigan Business Tax (MBT), replaced in 2012 by a 6% flat corporate income tax. About 95,000 businesses no longer pay state taxes. In addition, the repeal of the business personal property tax passed this year by the Legislature is estimated to reduce state revenue from business by $350 million in fiscal year 2017.

 

 

Those numbers have gotten worse. The 1.7 billion number is now estimated at 3.2 billion.

 

I know I had a discussion on this forum about what this tax plan would do and I would comeback and discuss it with them so I could say I told you so.  Have to dig that discussion back up. I forget who it was...

[suneday11]

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Edited January 19, 2016 by suneday11

[t-pain]

when will snyder install an emergency financial manager to replace himself? haha

[outsideinthecold]

Easy enough to blame Snyder, but who was at fault in creating the need for an emergency manager in the first place?

 

And what is the alternative for Michigan's failed cities?

[Restorium2]

Easy enough to blame Snyder, but who was at fault in creating the need for an emergency manager in the first place?

 

And what is the alternative for Michigan's failed cities?

Flint couldn't down size quick enough to keep up with the population and jobs leaving Flint. Their tax base shrunk. They couldn't decide on exactly what to cut. But that's no excuse for what happened with the water. There's no excuse for it. I'm sure their are a lot of folks that wish there was someone else to blame. And some will try to muddy the waters to make it go away.

[cristinew]

, but who was at fault   Union Busters   and job killers.

[suneday11]

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Edited January 19, 2016 by suneday11

[suneday11]

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Edited January 19, 2016 by suneday11

[outsideinthecold]

Union busters? Job killers? Why not blame the tooth fairy?

 

In fact, over-spending and poor fiscal management are more accurate.

 

The simple truth is Flint was poorly run by its elected officials. This is not an isolated phenomenon as is all too obvious given the other Michigan cities in similar circumstances.

 

And naturally the solution of choice is more debt financed spending to solve nothing except delay an even worse financial disaster on the future.

Edited January 18, 2016 by outsideinthecold

[outsideinthecold]

The water problems in Flint didn't just suddenly appear and sadly it ain't just the water, it is the entire infrastructure. Entire. As in everything, everywhere.

 

So personally I wouldn't get too concerned about Flint. Similar unpleasantness is in everyone's future to one degree or another. Politicians, crony capitalists and sycophants excepted of course.

Edited January 18, 2016 by outsideinthecold

[solabeirtan]

Easy enough to blame Snyder, but who was at fault in creating the need for an emergency manager in the first place?

 

And what is the alternative for Michigan's failed cities?

 

Big Money plain and simple. Make a pile. Move on. Leave your crap for the peeps to wallow in. 

 

Alternative, is gonna be a long road. Mostly uphill too. Listen to Bernie. No politics. just facts... 

Edited January 18, 2016 by solabeirtan

[Highlander]

When Dan Kildee was the was the head of the Genesee County Land Bank I had a discussion with him about Flint's problems. His take was that the biggest issue was that Flint's public infrastructure was built for a population of 250,000 residents. Now Flint has the task of maintaining that infrastructure for only 90,000 residents. So Flint now has the impossible task of maintaining streets, plowing snow, offering trash pickup, fire service, street lights. maintaining water and sewer lines, etc. for a population less than half the size of what was intended. This results in public services costing 2.5 times as much per capita as it should cost to serve the population. So we see a huge drop in tax value/huge drop in tax revenue but with the city still trying to provide necessary services. The tax revenue isn't a 1:1 drop based on the declining population. Even the people who remain in Flint pay far less in property tax proportionally. So it isn't as if a drop in population from 180,000 people to 90,000 people reduces the tax revenue by half. In other words, by the population being cut in half, the property tax revenue probably is cut by 75% because the folks who remain are paying far lower tax bills because the values of their properties have dropped much more than 50%

 

And to add insult to this injury, Flint also has to figure out how to deal with the costs of addressing blight, increased arson, illegal trash dumping, etc.

 

Growing up in Flint and living in the area my entire life, I've seen this first-hand. At one time, there were 70,000 GM jobs in the city. These were more than livable-wage jobs offered to unskilled workers with just a high school education but also awesome health benefits, the revenue of which was added to medical services in and around Flint. Add to that the exodus of retired GM workers. Most of the people who worked in Flint during the heyday retired and took their fat GM pensions and excellent health benefits to Florida, Arizona, and other places. That's about $2400 or more per month per retiree that is getting fed into a local economy 1,000+ miles away.

 

We can blame the union busting to some degree. But a lot of the blame falls on the union itself. Case in point, I recently talked to an older guy who was working at Wendy's in the late 1950s. He was earning 65 cents per hour. Then he got a job at Buick City for $2.64 per hour running a machine that made transmission cases for Buick. He told me that he could run his quota of parts on a 10-hour shift in about two hours. After about a week on the job, he would finish his production quota and then wander through the plant and offer his help to other workers. The union rep quickly shut that down. So instead of helping out on other jobs, while he was still on the clock, he'd sleep in the foreman's office on a cot about six hours per day and then spend about two hours doing his college homework.

 

This wasn't an isolated phenomenon. I had a friend in college who got a production job at the truck plant on Van Slyke in about 1998. He'd meet his quota in about three hours and then spend about five hours playing cards in the break room. It got to a point where he was so confident that he could work the system, that he actually scheduled his college classes for times that he was supposed to be at work and would have a coworker punch out for him.

 

The UAW has to accept some blame for the situation in Flint. The UAW more or less allowed/encouraged auto workers to prescribe to a philosophy of poor work ethics.

 

It's no wonder that the Japanese crushed the U.S. in automotive production costs in the 1980s.