Detroit Politics

Welcome, to Blogger Dunlap. I hope you will find our discussions enlightening, entertaining, educational and addictive. We will broach subjects ranging from politics, race, and religion, to generational changes and infidelity.

In this, our inaugural posting, let’s agree to a couple of ground rules. Biting, kicking, screaming, and punching are all ok. However, words can cut…sometimes very deeply. Please refrain from typing cuss words or comparisons of religion and race in a derogatory manner with animals, inanimate objects or body parts. With that said, let us begin.

Kwame Kilpatrick is no longer mayor of the City of Detroit. The newspapers and TV reporters are dissecting his rise and fall and potential come back. There may be a line on the odds of his reanimation in Vegas right now. I don’t know, nor am I interested in performing a post postmortem on Kilpatrick’s term as mayor. For better or for worse, it’s over.

Ken Cockrel Jr., the interim mayor will face the grim task of grave robbing – looking for and excavating all the bones buried in the financial graveyard that has been so well fortified and guarded by Mr. Kilpatrick and his minions. At last check, according to the Detroit News, the proposed 2007-2008 budget is slightly more than $3 billion and calls for adding 174 workers, including 103 police officers. The council needed to approve $30 million in property sales by the end of June, as well as approve a plan to lease off the city’s share in Detroit-Windsor Tunnel for $75 with $58 million plugging the 2007-08 budget deficit…all by the end of June 2008.

According to Kwame’s Next Detroit’s financial forcast which covers the period of 2004 thru 2008, this action will leave a cumulative deficit of $30.6 million for fiscal year 2007. It’s now September 2008, and none of this has happened. To make matters worse, the state has been witholding millions in revenue sharing because the city has been late in submitting financial statements. Cockrel is gonna need a bigger shovel.

There is good news however, it appears the governor is commited to providing state help in the financing of the expansion of Cobo. Business leaders are scrambling to finish deals put on hold due to the Kwame debacle, and I believe there will be some sort of light rail transportation linking parts of southeastern Michigan in the near future. Presidential politics will play a large role in whether or not the Big 3 get some sort of bailout assistance. This could go a long way towards helping not only the local economy here in Michigan, but, I believe the national economy will benefit. Although, I detest the thought of tax dollars going to help fat cats with fat salaries, I can rationalize it by comparing it to help for the mentally disabled.

Speaking of presidential politics, I’m interested in knowing a couple of things. The first is: Does anyone think that John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin, as a running mate will help him win the presidency of the United States, and if so, why? With Sarah Palin as John McCain’s choice as vice president, did Barack Obama make a mistake by not choosing Hillary Clinton as his running mate for vice president? Secondly, if the federal government bails out FANNIE MAE and FREDDIE MAC, should they also implement a plan to bail out social security?

Comment (3)

Hello,

Thank you for using Detroit Politics Blog!, the premier blogging site that tries to keep our leadership honest. Views expressed by our independent bloggers are generally their views expressed in civil discourse.

Think of Detroit political blog as competing with both newspapers and other aggregators. Blogs are much the way ordinary people can write and express scholarly views. Blogs as many distractors may assume are driven by sensationalism like the mainstream media. That is utterly untrue, blogs are uniquely driven by the desire for originality. In a universe of millions of blogs by newspapers and political entities,fighting to remain the controlling voice for readers, the context of blogs seems to mute and expand the intellectual horizon of ordinary people in this free marketplace of ideas. Blogs are noted for saying something new; demanding new answers and questions like: What's the take or interpretation of monetary influence in politics, corruption in local and state government? What's the real motives of some red noise corrupt leaders? What's lurking behind the surface?

Thank you.

Comment (4)