Happy Halloween!

MFCD Students First Tour gets off to good (albeit windy) start

Heavy winds and temperatures in the upper 40s can't stop some of us from promoting student activism and having a good time.

After all, we're Democrats.

The first leg of the Michigan Federation of College Democrats' week-long Students First tour wound its way through Mount Pleasant Saturday, stopping in front of the Bovee UC for a couple hours Saturday afternoon.

Those who came by had the chance to drink cider from Uncle John's, eat a couple donuts, and sign two petitions. One called for the repeal of the Rogers Law, which requires students to vote at their home address instead of their campus address. The other petition was a nominating petition to get Senator Carl Levin on the ballot in his bid for re-election. He needs 15,000 signatures from registered voters across the state in order to appear on the ballot next year.

If you wish to sign either petition (or both!), but couldn't make it to the MFCD event, stop by the College Dems cubicle in the Student Organization Center in the lower level of the UC between noon and 2PM any weekday, or come to our next meeting on Wednesday.

(Pictured are Michael Mersol-Barg of the MSU Democrats; CMU Dems President Matt Sous; MFCD Treasurer Chris Stergalas; and MFCD Vice President Emily Mixter. Yours truly took the photo.)

Professor: Lennox harassed Gates

If you don't know much about Dennis Lennox, no worries; CMU philosophy professor Robert Noggle gives us a brief summary of Lennox and some of his antics.

Last Monday, Dr. Pamela Gates was confronted by a man who has displayed increasingly hostile behavior toward members of the University community. Dennis Lennox came to her office to harass her, and refused to leave. When Mr. Lennox thrust a camera in her face, her understandable reaction was to deflect it.

Mr. Lennox has a long history of false statements and hostile behavior. Currently, he leads a smear campaign against Professor Gary Peters. He accuses Mr. Peters of living off of taxpayers, when he knows that his position as Griffin Chair is funded by a private donation. With no credible evidence, he accuses the Political Science Department of anti-Republican bias in hiring Mr. Peters (a Democrat), despite the fact that two of the three people to hold the Griffin Chair are Republicans. He falsely accuses Mr. Peters of violating his contract with CMU. He created such discord in the CMU College Republicans that they expelled him. He is a leader of an organization widely regarded as a hate group. He has stalked Mr. Peters across a dark parking lot, spewing insults and accusations.

Mr. Lennox has made numerous Freedom of Information Act requests about the hiring of Mr. Peters. He knows that they go to Robert Martin, and not Pam Gates. He also knows that if Dr. Martin determines the request to be valid, Dr. Gates has no choice but to comply. Thus, the only reason he had for accosting Dr. Gates was to harass this well-respected university leader. Dr. Gates has served CMU for over 20 years, as a professor, Associate Dean, and Interim Dean. She has earned the respect of students and faculty for her integrity, professionalism, and kindness. Her reaction to Mr. Lennox's aggression was understandable. To call it "violence" or an "attack" is absurd.

NYT's Krugman hits it on the nose re: Gore

You. Must. Read. This.

The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Mr. Gore has been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn’t just inconvenient. For conservatives, it’s deeply threatening.

...

Everything I’ve just said should be uncontroversial — but imagine the reception a Republican candidate for president would receive if he acknowledged these truths at the next debate. Today, being a good Republican means believing that taxes should always be cut, never raised. It also means believing that we should bomb and bully foreigners, not negotiate with them.

...

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

Who loves YouTube?

Mark Brewer, Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party (YouTube user page here), discusses a photo identification requirement that takes effect here in Michigan starting in the upcoming municipal elections this November 6:



Here's Republican candidate Mitt Romney handling a question on medicinal marijuana:



Changing moods: Here's one from the Freedom Toast, parodying the classic "Home on the Range:"



Meanwhile, each of the Presidential candidates has a YouTube account. Click the following links for each candidate's YouTube page, and if you have a YouTube account, feel free to subscribe to your favorite candidate's videos!

• Joe Biden
• Hillary Clinton
• Chris Dodd
• John Edwards
• Mike Gravel
• Dennis Kucinich
• Barack Obama
• Bill Richardson

State Budget: Setting the Record Straight

What happened?

Last week the Legislature passed a continuation budget that extended the deadline for passing the final Fiscal Year 2008 budget by four weeks. Governor Granholm refused to sign it, stating she would not sign any such proposal without a guarantee from the Legislature that there would be new revenues. Because of this, the state government partially shut down for 4 hours and 18 minutes on Monday.

At 4:18 AM Monday morning, the Governor signed the continuation budget after two new sets of revenues were passed in both the House and the Senate; this ended the shutdown.

The new revenues

The state's income tax will go up from 3.9% to 4.35% - still lower than 2/3 of the state's income taxes. The state expects more than $750 billion in new revenues form this tax increase.

Officials also expect a similar amount to be generated by an extension of the 6% sales tax to a number of services, which are listed here.

How does Michigan's new tax rates stack up?

I'll let this article from the Detroit Free Press sum it up:

Thirty-six of the 43 states with income taxes have rates higher than Michigan's new 4.35 rate, at least as of January 2007, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators. But a fair comparison is elusive because most states, unlike Michigan, have graduated income taxes under which taxpayers see their rates increase as their incomes go up.

...

The state's 6 percent sales tax in two months will go from covering 26 service categories to covering 53, including new categories such as skiing, consulting and interior design. At that point, Michigan will rank 27th nationally in the number of taxed services, according to the Michigan Department of Treasury.

Michigan is tied with nine other states that have a 6 percent sales tax, the nation's 11th highest. California has the highest rate, at 7.25 percent, while Colorado's 2.9 rate is the lowest among states that have sales taxes.

Hey conservatives, if high taxes mean weaker economies, then why is Michigan's unemployment rate - 7.4% - the highest in the country instead of being in the middle of the pack?

What this all means for you

Will you pay more in taxes? Yes, but not much. Back to the Free Press article:

The combination of a higher income tax and sales taxes on more services will cost a family of four earning $50,000 a year about $207 - $157 in income tax and about $50 in sales tax, treasury officials estimate.

"That's $4 a week per household," Kleine said. "What that is doing is preventing very drastic cuts in higher education, school aid, Medicaid and public safety."

$4 per family per week to keep Michigan from becoming even worse off? Sounds like a good investment to me - and I'm a college student whose family has mediocre health insurance!

So enough with the whining and complaining about having to pay more. Tax cuts have not helped Michigan's economy, nor will tax hikes hurt. Please don't complain about having to pay just a little less than you used to. A few dollars a week is NOT going to hurt your bottom line.

If anything, you ought to be complaining not about taxes that aren't really that high, but about the high cost of gas (which Democrats have tried to do something about), or prescription drugs (which Democrats have also tried to do something about).

Or having to spend $4.50 for a pop at Kelly/Shorts Stadium. Which I don't think many Dems can do anything about.