This land is my land

In Michigan, Proposal 4 on the November ballot gives new meaning to the definition " this land is my land". How did we get here in the first place? How did we allow government to take our property as if it was theirs to do with as they choose? How did we allow them to give our property to private concerns for private benefit and to increase government coffers? For that matter, how do we allow government to take our homes, which we may have worked for our entire life for back taxes, after just two years, in a deplorable economy of their making? "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Proposal 4 is the first step in putting the people of Michigan back in charge. We hope the people of Michigan have the good judgment to Vote Yes on Proposal 4 and remind those in government that the people of this state are soverign.

Failure To Educate

The Michigan budget for 2007 contains $15.9 Billion for education. That is 37% of the State Budget. You would think that with that much money we could get better results. Maybe that is because a good number of our teachers, certainly not all, are more concerned about themselves then they are about their students and their job performance.

Given the language of Proposal 5, which mandates inflationary guarantees to education and limits local district responsibility for pensions, we can assume that must be the case. The Michigan Education Association, who was the major impetus behind the initiative, worded the proposal so that 2/3 of the increase will go to teacher pensions the first year and more each year as the state liability grows faster than the rate of inflation. Nowhere is there an indication that the money would be used to improve educational quality or accountability.

You would think we would learn that when they say "It's for the Kids" we sould put up our guard. Experience should teach us that it is usually not the case.