Check out the Video of the Day. Vienna Teng performing two of my favorite songs.
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Talk about conflicting information. Today Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced to Congress the U.S. will meet its debt limit ceiling on January 16, 2023, while the State of Michigan is projecting a $9.2 billion surplus for the fiscal year. Here are excerpts from articles by the Associated Press about the debt limit ceiling and from the Detroit News about Michigan’s surplus.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress on Friday that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority or suspend it again for a period of time. But she said it’s “critical that Congress act in a timely manner.”
“Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability,” she said.
State fiscal experts on Friday predicted a “mild recession” looms for Michigan this year even as they reported tax revenue is coming in $1.2 billion higher than expected, leaving Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and lawmakers with a $9.2 billion surplus to spend.
The higher-than-expected tax revenue projections could trigger an automatic cut in Michigan’s personal income rate from 4.25% to 4.05%, or somewhere within that range, under a 2015 law, according to the nonpartisan House and Senate fiscal agencies. State officials will know for certain if the tax cut was triggered when they close the books on the 2022 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, in the coming months. Nearly $6 billion of the surplus is considered one-time money, meaning it’s not recurring tax revenue that can be used to fund state agencies and programs in future years.
Congress will be fighting about the debt ceiling limit and who caused the deficit while the Michigan legislature will be fighting about how to use the surplus and who gets credit for the solution. Only in America. See my Question of the Day.
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I am not sure what disgusts me more, the former president’s election denial or Kwame Kilpatrick’s insistence that he is innocent, and he has been rehabilitated. Thanks to the former president’s commutation of Kilpatrick’s sentence of 28 years, I now face both in the news on a regular basis.
Per the Detroit News, Kilpatrick has asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds to release him from court oversight, a move opposed by prosecutors who secured his conviction following a racketeering trial that ended in 2013 with Kilpatrick sentenced to 28 years in federal prison. President Donald Trump commuted the sentence in January 2021 but maintained an obligation to serve three years’ supervised release and pay $193,303.61 restitution.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick should stay under federal court supervision because he is remorseless, denies he is guilty of running a criminal enterprise out of City Hall and owes millions to taxpayers and other creditors, federal prosecutors said Friday. It appears Kilpatrick, 52, is trying to resume an affluent lifestyle and avoid paying restitution owed to the city, taxpayers, IRS and others, prosecutors said in what amounts to a fresh fight with a disgraced politician convicted in one of the largest public corruption scandals in U.S. history.
Kilpatrick argues he is not a threat to the community, has been rehabilitated and is complying with supervision but needs to be free to travel and earn a living as a speaker and pastor. Prosecutors put the word pastor in quotation marks Friday and said such a job is “rife with opportunities for fraud and abuse.”
See my Quote of the Day and Onion of the Day.
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For the last five years Bridge Michigan has been one of my primary sources of news. I love them because they report the news without bias. Today Bridge Michigan announced it was honored this week as an “unsung hero” among national news sites and a “top straight shooter” for “producing impactful, fact-based news” without slant or bias.
The honor came in the “best and worst of 2022” list from NewsGuard, a publication that rates news sites for credibility and for combatting misinformation. Bridge was among 13 sites featured in the group’s annual report among more than 8,000 worldwide sites it scrutinized. See my Orchid of the Day.
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Quote of the Day: “… contrary to the claims of his attorney, Kilpatrick continues to claim that he is innocent of the 24 felony charges of which the jury convicted him at trial. Kilpatrick’s continued lack of remorse and denial of guilt and responsibility counsel in favor of continuing his supervised release.” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gardey
Orchid of the Day: Bridge Michigan magazine. See above story.
Onion of the Day: The former president for allowing Kwame Kilpatrick to be back in our lives 20 years earlier than he should have been. Just one more reason to despise the former president.
Question of the Day: Why not use the one-time portion of the state’s surplus to Fix the Damn Roads?
Video of the Day: