Reluctant Politician

If you came to this blog expecting to be told the one and only way to fix everything that is wrong with politics as well as how to overcome the frailties of America then you will be sadly disappointed.

While I will be expressing my unadulterated opinion of all of those things as well as my views on what we need to do to fix this mess our Democracy has become, it is entirely unrealistic to expect that my solutions will always be the best idea. In some cases, I expect to flat out be proven as wrong.

I hope that this blog becomes a place for others to express their opinions as well and that the freedom of open, debated and collaborated conversation will lean to even better solutions. I also hope that such intelligent banter will force me to rethink my own opinions as I am under no pretense that my every thought is reasonable or rational, much less right.

Sometimes my posts will be well thought out and written with great care and precision. Other times postings may be quotes from others or perhaps nothing more than a free-flowing expression of random thoughts hurriedly jotted down with little concern for grammar or even political correctness.

I will call things how I see them and if you are easily offended than perhaps you should be reading someone else’s blog. I won’t censor myself in order to not offend others. I feel that such actions would have a negative impact toward the purpose of this blog, as well as possibly even being detrimental to our society as a whole. Let that be a discussion for another day.

David Shepardson wrote a story for The Detroit News recently regarding “an $836 million plan to prepare 90 former General Motors Corp. sites for new economic life.”

While the initial bailout of GM was approved during Pres. George W. Bush’s administration, the newest plan as proposed by President Barack Obama will allocate $536 million towards to the cleanup of GM properties across 14 states. Correction, let’s make that ‘former properties of GM’ as the places in question are production plants, other buildings and vacant land that GM divested itself of through bankruptcy in 2009.

The funds for the cleanup will be coming from $1.175 billion allocated last year by the U.S. Treasury to ‘wind down the old GM.’

I’m not thrilled that taxpayer money is being used to finance the bankruptcy and reorganization of a major U.S. corporation such as GM. But so be it. I am a little less upset that the EPA will use funds to cleanup and demolish some of these toxic sites.

With that said, I do take offense to the apparent fact that of the $836 million proposed in the plan, nearly $300 million is being set aside for such things as paying property taxes on these ‘bad assets’ of GM. The State of Michigan alone is seeking $114 million in unpaid taxes on these properties within their borders.

I see no way in which it is proper for hundreds of millions of dollars collected from taxpayers all across America should be used to pay back taxes owed by a corporation. If the states want their taxes, then let them take possession of the properties for which back taxes are owed. Let those states in question have the Feds spend the $500+ million on cleanup and then those states should be free to sell them to the higher bidder, or even keep the properties for public use.

Let the EPA do their job, but I see no rational reason to use federal revenues to compensate a state for lost property tax revenue from a public or private corporation. This action may be only the start of a doomed ride down a slippery slope. If the federal government continues with such a line of action, how long will be it be before the states’ coffers are flush but the country as a whole is bankrupt?

To read Shepardson’s original article please visit http://bit.ly/GMtaxes