Dear Friends,
State Senator Roger Kahn announced that he will hold office hours with Saginaw County residents TOMORROW, Monday February 28th, in Birch Run. A member of his staff will be available at Fleschner Memorial Library, 11935 Silver Creek Dr. from 1:00-2:00pm. You may meet and discuss concerns and no appointment is necessary. For more info call Senator Kahn's office at 866-305-2132. |
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Conservative Political Action Conference
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A new group, Citizens Alliance for Life and Liberty (CALL), will hold a conference on Saturday, March 26th. The conference will be at the Capitol City Baptist Church, 5100 Willoughby, Holt, MI. The purpose is to help equip citizens to positively influence our legislators to do what they were sent to the Capitol to do. This conference will prepare you to be an effective communicator.
The tentative schedule begins at 7:30am with registration and a continental breakfast. There will be a variety of breakout sessions throughout the day, focusing on such topics as Tea Party Organization do's & don'ts, Effective Communications with the media, Right To Work - Is it Right for Michigan?, What's going on in the State Legislature, and Local Campaigns and Local Governments. At Noon, lunch is served along with a video presentation/salute to Ronald Reagan. The conference is expected to wrap up at 5:00pm.
Scheduled Speakers include:
Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Markman
Secretary of State Ruth Johnson
Congressional nominees Rocky Raczkowski, John Kupiac and Dr. Rob Steele
Jack McHugh & Paul Kersey of the Mackinac Center
Jack Hoogendyk of the Center Right Coalition
Radio hosts Frank Beckmann, Greg Marshall, and Ron Edwards
Tea Party Leaders Randy Bishop, Bill Bigler, Dennis Moore, Janice Daniels, Paul Hales, Ron Estrada, Tony DeMott, Tina DuPont, Larry Leidlein.
Tuition is $50 for the entire day including continental breakfast and lunch. Students age 12 through college (with ID) are only $25 and children under 12 are free. If you are interested in attending, please e-mail your name, address and phone number to Jack Hoogendyk.
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$100 Million In A Penny
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A fun look at just how feeble and insignificant the President's proposed budget cuts are. Recently, President Obama announced that over a 90-day period, he and his staff are going to work to cut $100 million of spending out of the Federal Budget. A college student explains just how small that is. Maybe this kid should receive a scholarship in Political Science and a large donation for his first political campaign! Even the $100 billion number proposed recently by the House Republicans looks tiny by this method. It's only 1000 of those 1/4 pennies, after all!
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Another Failure of Economic Development
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 Borders Books appears to be the latest failure of Michigan's "Economic Development" policies of the past decade. Borders filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago. Waldenbooks, a subsidiary of Borders Group, was one of the first beneficiaries of the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) tax credit program back in 1995,. The program offers tax breaks to companies that invest or locate in Michigan. Waldenbooks chose Michigan over Tennessee and received a reported $7.7 million tax credit. However, The Mackinac Center found that the company's president was buying a home in Michigan before the credits were awarded, creating the question of whether the tax break was needed to keep the company in Michigan. But the bigger problem with MEGA, and all other attempts by governments to pick business winners and losers, is that they cannot pick any better with the public's money than businesses can pick with their own. Michael LaFaive, director of the Mackinac Center's Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, noted, "It just reminds us that the MEGA Authority is not clairvoyant when it comes to picking winners and losers, be it in the short run or long run. He also considered it "ironic" that the reports of Borders bankruptcy came in the same month as Governor Rick Snyder's announcement that he hopes to eliminate the MEGA program. |
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A Refund From A Labor Union?
|  Every union member in America is potentially owed hundreds of dollars from their union. Yet most don't know how to go about getting their hard earned money back. In 1988, the US Supreme Court decided the landmark case "Communication Workers v. Beck", which established the rights of employees working under union contracts to pay only those union dues or fees necessary for performance of a union's employee representation duties. Under Beck, fees to support union expenditures unrelated to workplace representation, such as political, social, or charitable contributions, are not mandatory. Several states, including Idaho and Washington, have enacted a measure known as "paycheck protection" to remedy these deficiencies in Beck rights enforcement. Paycheck protection requiries unions to obtain up-front, written approval from individual workers before they spend dues money on political or other non-workplace-related activities. Where this paycheck protection legislation has NOT been passed, union workers are required to affirmatively exercise those writes in writing to their appropriate union local. Such legislation has not been passed in Michigan, so many union members are due refunds from unions that have used their money for the prohibited purposes. Saul Anuzis, former head of the Michigan Republican Party, is involved with an organization to help people exercise this little-known right affirmed by the US Supreme Court. UnionRefund.org is a special project of the Cornerstone Foundation. It is NOT a political action organization. and is not tied to any political party. It does not run candidates for election, and it does not financially support or endorse candidates. It neither opposes nor endorses legislation. What is does is to help educate, organize and assist union members nationwide in exercising their "Beck rights" as set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court. To make it easy to discover and ask for a refund that may be due, UnionRefund.org has set up a website where you can enter your state, union local, and contract information. They will search and report back to you as to what refund, if any, you may be owed. If you've been paying union dues that you suspect have been used for political purposes you do not agree with, check out this site. |
The Republican mission seeks to maintain a strong defense, encourage individual achievement and liberty through the free enterprise system, and strengthen families. If you would like to help us move the area and the country towards these goals, please consider donating to the Saginaw County Republican Committee. Every donation, no matter how large or small, will help ensure that we can find and elect people to work for those goals. You can do so by mail to PO BOX 6653, Saginaw, MI 48608 or on the web at www.saginawcountygop.com.
Sincerely,
Helene Wiltse, Chair, Saginaw County Republican Party
Donald Dale Milne, newsletter editor |
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Helene Wiltse, Chair
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