Online Petition for Lower Gas Prices

You can sign a petition at www.michigan.gov/som in support of lowering gas prices. Basically, the petition is to urge President Bush to cap excessive gasoline profits. Yes, it is awfully coincidental (can you sense the sarcasm?) that since Bush took office in January 2001 that gas prices have increased 240% and he just so happens to have a stake in big oil. Will this petition change the prices we are paying at the pump? Excuse me if I am a wee bit skeptical about this.

It just reminds me of those emails you get encouraging everyone to boycott the big gas stations on the same day to knock sense into big oil and have them lower their gas prices.

The only way gas prices will go down permanently is if our demand goes down. It is simple economics. We need to have a different fuel source for vehicles.

No one seems to ride the government subsidized Amtrak to save fuel. Why doesn't the government drop Amtrak and divert those funds to researching vehicles run on alternative fuels? Any cap the President can put on oil profits will be short term at best. Lets look into long-term solutions.

Thanks to my wife, Lori, for providing me the link to the online petition.

700 State of Michigan Employees Make Over $100k

Did you know we have 700 state employees here in Michigan making $100k or more? Did you know we have the second highest paid governor in the country, yet she comes in a distant second in terms of Michigan's state payroll? Governor Granholm makes $177,000 per year, but is far behind the chief executive of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., James Epolito, who makes $200,000. Michigan's government has been critical of how Detroit spends money it doesn't have with their bloated city government staffing situation yet they are blind to what is going on in their own backyard. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Just goes to show you what happens when the fox guards the henhouse.

Read all about our state's excesses in today's Detroit News.

Springtime & Tigers Baseball

Springtime and the Detroit Tigers go hand-in-hand. They are both filled with hope of good things to come early in the season. Once again, hope springs eternal for the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers are 5-1 coming back to Motown to play their home opener today. The weather will be absolutely gorgeous for baseball in Detroit today.

I hope that like the first warm spring day the Tigers are not teasing us and setting us up for cold and cloudy days ahead. As a lifetime Tigers fan who hasn't had a whiff of success since the Sparky Anderson era came to an end I am hoping against all hope that this is the year the Tigers break out of the cycle of mediocrity.

I am not asking for even a post season spot this season. I just want the Tigers to at least have a winning record and be fun to watch. Go Tigers!

Tigers fans might want to read this article in the Detroit News about opening day.

Increase the State's Marketing Budget?

An interesting editorial in the Detroit Free Press makes the case for Michigan to increase it's marketing budget to gain more tourism dollars. It would be great to see more tourism dollars spent in Michigan as a result of an increased marketing budget. However, I would like to see funding for this to come from cuts elsewhere in the state budget. Michigan tried to rid itself of the Single Business Tax, but Governor Granholm vetoed that. We can't keep increasing our spending while decreasing the state's revenue.

I am not calling for additional taxes or fees (taxes in disguise). I am calling for a more fiscally-minded state government that trims the numerous excesses (too many to list here) and become more lean.

Like I said, you can not just call for an increase in one budget area without a plan for how you will fund it. It is easy to make the statement, but difficult to figure out how to pay for it. Would we see enough money come in as a result in a tourism increase to offset the budget increase?

Protesting Detroit Students Arrested

32 Mackenzie High School students were arrested or "detained" on Wednesday during a protest of the school's conditions. About 200 students staged a walkout yesterday afternoon to draw attention to the school's poor conditions and supposed lack of textbooks. The protest turned ugly with students reportedly began swearing and blocking traffic. The article in the Detroit News has more details on the alleged conditions of the school. I hope that these conditions do not really exist. I also hope that it is not the students bringing this upon themselves by destroying school property and textbooks as the school's principal, Bernard Bonam, believes.