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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Democrats accuse Snyder administration of shielding governor's cousin from budget cut
Jonathan Oosting | joosting@mlive.com By Jonathan Oosting | joosting@mlive.com
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on March 25, 2014 at 12:25 PM, updated March 25, 2014 at 2:28 PM
LANSING, MI -- A top aide to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder intervened when a 2011 budget bill threatened to hurt a furniture company owned by the governor's cousin, according to the Michigan Democratic Party, which is alleging foul play.
Emails reviewed by MLive.com show that "Transformation Manager" Rich Baird helped connect George Snyder with Michigan Budget Director John Nixon. The exchange came days after the House passed a budget bill that would have capped state spending on new office furniture at $1 million per year.
Baird's involvement ended there, according to Snyder spokesperson Sara Wurfel, who said he flagged the issue but did not follow up. The administration would have done the same for any constituent concerned about a budget or policy issue, she continued, confirming that George Snyder is the governor's cousin.
"There is absolutely nothing to this. There is absolutely nothing to hide," Wurfel said. "It is a completely manufactured issue that is baseless and has zero merit."
Baird has worked in the governor's office since 2011, but at the time he was paid through the governor's tax-exempt New Energy to Reinvent and Diversify (NERD) Fund, whose contributors were legally shielded from disclosure.
Legal counsel for the Michigan Democratic Party, in a letter addressed March 24, asked U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles to investigate any wrongdoing involving the Snyder administration or the NERD Fund, which has since shut down.
"It appears that when a family member contacts this governor and asks for assistance, that assistance is provided," party chairman Lon Johnson said Tuesday during a press conference in Southfield.
Snyder, speaking to reporters at an event in Battle Creek, reportedly dismissed the allegation as election-season politicking by Democrats. He is running for re-election and suggested that "you find all sorts of things being made up" at this point in a campaign.
The budget bill in question, as approved by the Senate in 2011, included steep cuts in the face of a significant budget deficit. A boilerplate provision would have capped state spending on new office furniture at $1 million per year, limiting the state to buying used furniture if it exceeded that figure.
The proposal would have negatively impacted Holland-based Haworth Inc., which had a $19.2 million contract as the state's sole provider for new office furniture. Lansing-based DBI Office Interiors, owned by George Snyder, is a preferred dealer of Haworth Inc. and had its own contracts with the state dating back to prior administrations.
"We are very upset and nervous about the language in the Senate budget bill on furniture," George Snyder wrote in an email to Baird, asking for advice on who he could talk to about the appropriations bill.
"John Nixon's people are on this," Baird wrote back minutes later. "Sit tight."
The compromise budget bill approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor removed the $1 million cap on new office furniture but required the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget (DTMB) to first examine the possibility of utilizing existing inventory that could be reused or refurbished.
"We know through the email evidence that this money was put back in the budget largely because the governor's cousin brought it to the attention of administration officials," said House Minority Tim Greimel (D-Auburn Hills). "That's wrong."
The Snyder administration contends the furniture debate was more complicated than advertised, and officials suggested that Democrats are missing the mark by a wide margin.
The budget bill would have capped state spending on new office furniture but did not actually reduce total appropriations, according to DTMB spokesperson Kurt Weiss.
Instead, it would have guaranteed more business for a third company, Kentwood Office Furniture, which held a state contract to provide used furniture and had lobbied lawmakers to include the boilerplate provision.
"To try to insinuate this is somehow political is just not true," Weiss said. "We've competitively bid all this work. The efforts to remove that boilerplate were simply to keep the playing field level so one contractor didn't have a competitive advantage over the other."
The state spent roughly $18.5 million on contracts held by DBI business interiors in the three years before the governor took office, according to the administration, but only $17 million in the three years since.
Jonathan Oosting is a Capitol reporter for MLive Media Group. Email him, find him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter. |
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Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:18 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:22 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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MORE THAN HALF OF US NOW PAY HIGHER TAXES THANKS TO THE GOP AND YES I’M SHOUTING!
A little over two years ago, I wrote a cautionary post titled “The tax timebomb that explodes in Michigan in 2012 is MUCH worse than you thought”. In it, I explained how the Republican budget passed in the first year after the 2010 midterm election annihilation of Democrats and signed into law by Governor Rick Snyder created a massive shift of taxation from the wealthy and from corporations onto the poor and middle class. Here’s a bit of that post:
[A]s we all know, last year the Michigan Republicans passed a budget that lowers business taxes by $1.6 billion and increases individual income taxes by $1.4 billion.
What is shocking is how easy the budget goes on upper income Michiganders and how astonishingly HARD it hits lower income residents…In fact, when you look at the total state and local taxes as a percentage of income of those making $334,000 or more per year vs. those making $17,000 year or less, the poorest people pay 1000 times more than those at the top of the food chain. The poorest Michiganders pay 1.0% of their income vs. 0.001% for the top earners.
Other things from the report that you should know about the tax time bomb that explodes in Michigan in 2012:
•Reduces the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for the working poor from 20% to 6% of the federal credit – a 70% cut.
•All major tax credits except the Homestead Property Tax Credit are now gone. Donations to food banks, shelters, and food kitchens: gone. Donations to charities: gone.
•Taxes are instituted or increased on private and public pensions for certain groups of senior citizens/retirees.
•Deduction for children in the family has been eliminated.
•Homestead Property Tax Credit (HPTC) has been taken away for over a quarter million Michiganders with incomes between $50,000 and $82,650. Seniors with incomes between $30,000 & $50,000 will have this credit reduced by 40%. Only half of the working poor that qualify for the EITC will also qualify for the HPTC.
At the end of the day, here’s a very important thing to remember: Thanks to the new Republican budget, 51% of all Michigan tax payer will pay MORE in personal income taxes in 2012 and beyond. Read that again. Over HALF of Michiganders will pay MORE TAXES because of the Republican budget.
By December, the tax time bomb had begun to explode. Many people in Michigan received this card from the State Department of Treasury:
Here’s what I wrote about it then:
That bit at the end is interesting. The main difference between “Total Household Resources” and “Household Income” is that you can no longer take into account “business, farm, rental and royalty income or loss”. If you lost money this way, you used to be able to subtract it, reducing your overall income (and paying less taxes.) Now you enter “zero”. This is the sort of tax credit that wealthier Michiganders can avail themselves of. However, the Republicans have seen to it that this way of reducing your overall income, this tax break, is NOT available to our poorest citizens.
Here in 2014, we’re all feeling the bite of these Republican tax hikes. Well, all of us except our wealthiest residents and the corporations who benefit from our roads, police & fire protections, natural resources, and other public services our tax dollars pay for. Those groups aren’t feeling the pinch at all. You’d think our corporations would be wallowing around in so much profit that they’d be hiring like crazy but, despite the massive tax break, Michigan still ranks 46th in national unemployment.
The Michigan Democratic Party has begun talking about our values as a state and how they affect the way we believe the state should be run, what they call “The Michigan Way”. These values of fairness, equality, and equal opportunity are betrayed Republican efforts to benefit corporations and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. That’s NOT “The Michigan Way” and they urge everyone to support their efforts by taking the pledge to vote “The Michigan Way” at GoMIWay.com.
Our friends at Progress Michigan have put out another “Fake Rick Snyder” video specially for today to remind us in a humorous way just exactly how much the middle class and poor residents of Michigan have been betrayed and run over by Michigan Republicans.
In a statement released with the video, Sam Inglot, project director of Progress Michigan’s SnyderFails.org project said, “One of the greatest criticisms of Gov. Snyder has been his wrong priorities — especially when it comes to taxes. Tax policies that only benefit the wealthy elite and corporations is not the way to help out Michigan families, but unfortunately, that’s exactly what Gov. Snyder has implemented.”
All of this should make Michiganders angry. If you ARE angry, do what the tea partiers did: funnel that anger into something constructive politically. Get active by joining up with your local Democratic party or your favorite candidate and start making phone calls and knocking on doors. You don’t have to memorize a bunch of facts to give to people. You just have to explain how Republicans are not voting The Michigan Way and how Democrats represent the true Michigan Way of fairness and equal opportunity for EVERYONE, no matter how much money you make, who you love, or what you look like.
Get involved today. We simply cannot afford to lose in November. |
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Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:24 am |
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Adam
F L I N T O I D
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Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:17 pm |
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