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Michigan Republicans Raise Taxes on Low Wage Earners By $1000 per Year

posted this on October 4th, 2011.

I suppose I should be talking about this since it’s on my beat, though Wizardkitten has an excellent diary about the Republican tax raises in Muskegon.

As it turns out, our Conservative representatives gleefully stripped downtown Muskegonites of the tax free Renaissance zone. The tax free Renaissance zone was set up to help a LITERALLY demolished city center lure people and businesses downtown to have a city center again. For some reason a tax free Renaissance zone was far too libertarian for our Tea Party congress so they…

…oh who am I kidding?

They stripped the tax free zone because there were mostly just poor poeple living there, and who gives a crap about them, right? Am I right?

Of course I’m right.

The Ren zone was mostly populated by low wage earners. If you’re making 25,000 in downtown Muskegon, guess what? The Michigan Republicans raised your taxes by $1000 per year!

For those with Muskegon’s average wage of $25,000 a year, that means paying nearly $1,000 in annual income tax to the state much earlier than was promised.

Classy.

You’d think our State Senator Goeff Hansen would have given a crap…but he still gleefully rubber stamped the bill.

GLEEFULLY.

As did our State representative Holly Hughs.

Gleefully.

They GLEEFULLY voted for that bill. With gusto.

The very same bill that stripped young families of the state Child Tax Credit.

Folks are asking me all the time now, like they’ve JUST heard about it, “Is it true that we’re losing the child tax credit this year?

I’m happy to tell them who punched their young family in the gut. Happy to tell them that Goeff Hansen and Holly Hughs JOYFULLY rubber stamped the bill that is raising their taxes by HUNDREDS and in some cases a THOUSAND dollars.

Middle class taxes: raised Child tax credits for young families: scrapped Food assistance: slashed Help for the poorest citizens: retroactively slashed Pensions: Taxed Schools, police, fire departments: slashed

All to splash MORE and MORE and MORE money on the folks who don’t seem to be hiring anybody right now. But I’m sure they’re paying out some mad [...]

October 4th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , , | Category: Articles, Featured Articles | 2 comments

Now With Video & POLICE: “Low Class” Muskegon Swarms Congressman Huizenga’s Office

posted this on August 17th, 2011.

Vid courtesy of Sean Mullally

My wee boy and I went downtown to join the protest of Bill Huizenga who is known for referring to Muskegon, Michigan as a “Low Class” city. Perhaps we’re Low Class because we’re the major Democratic stronghold in West Michigan. Or perhaps we’re Low Class because Muskegonites WORK with HANDS. The horror.

My camera is broken, I’m afraid, so I couldn’t take pics.

The boy and I got there early, so to kill some time the wee little boy and I parked at the new splash fountain by the old post office down town. The Alcoa splash fountain between the newly streetscaped Western Avenue downtown and the vast sandlot.

Little history: Back in the 1970′s amidst a troubled economy and declining manufacturing base — Sound familiar? — Muskegon, Michigan, attempted to reinvent itself — Sound familiar? — by turning what was once an open air, standard streetscape with old buildings and shops into a modern, enclosed year-round heated shopping center. A mall! The city literally built a glass roof over the old downtown Muskegon and enclosed it with walls. That worked out fine for a decade or two…but it never made Muskegon the major shopping mecca the planners had expected and by the late 1990s the mall….better known as “downtown Muskegon” was dead. Completely dead.

As it turns out, if you put doors and a lock on your downtown and give it a closing time of 9:00 PM, it has no nightlife. Who could have predicted?

This is running a bit longer than I had hoped…the point is that the mall/downtown completely died and in 2002 and 2003 the city actually bulldozed blocks and blocks of the downtown area…most of it, but for a few of the still functional buildings like the post office, or historic buildings like the old Century Club building.

For years, most of the downtown area has been a sand pit, with developers here and there building new buildings, like the new cullinary arts college.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. To kill time, I brought my youngest boy down to [...]

August 17th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Articles, Featured Articles | Leave a comment