South County Democratic ClubGeneral News of Interest to Democrats |
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From the New York Times - Posted 2/12/2012 Where Americans Most Depend on Government Benefits Click below to go to this interactive map of which sections of the country most depend on government benefits -- you pick the catagories and can zoom in or out. The share of Americans' income that comes from government benefit programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, more than doubled over the last four decades, rising from 8 percent in 1969 to 18 percent in 2009.
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From the Daily KOS - Posted 2/13/2012 Republicans undiscover fire
The truth is it was probably never that way. It doesn't take much prompting for people to produce examples of nastiness in campaigns back Jefferson and Adams, or to revisit instances of corruption from decades or centuries gone by. We all know that Mr. Smith is a fictional character. However, just because it's possible to unearth grizzled examples of ugliness doesn't mean that the current season is not unique. Uniquely dangerous. And what makes it dangerous is the pretense that we're still in that fantasyland were ideas arm wrestle for history's approval. In fact, that time is long past. It's not even that what's now coming from the right consists of 100% emotional, fear-based appeals without a factual basis. In 2012, a campaign of suggestive fear-mongering seems almost quaint. It's that the Republicans have staked out a position that requires that they lie, 24/7, 365. Not shade the facts their way. Not put their own spin on the situation. Lie. Big, sloppy, and constantly. |
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From the Detroit Free Press - Posted 2/13/2012
Editorial: Religious right's man in Lansing Michigan's overreaching attorney general, Bill Schuette, appears to be working harder at advancing his own narrow personal agenda than he is at representing Michigan's people. Schuette's first-term forays into social issues and hyper-partisan politics include opposing Michigan's medical-marijuana statute, proposing mandatory minimum prison sentences, siding with an Eastern Michigan University student dismissed for refusing to counsel gay and lesbian patients, and trying to cajole the state Supreme Court into postponing a recall election of a Republican state representative until a more favorable closed Republican presidential primary. Schuette's latest attempt to inject his office into what can most charitably be called extracurricular activity was a plan, announced Thursday, to lead legal challenges to a proposed Obama administration mandate that most employers include birth control coverage in their health plans. |
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From CNN - Posted 2/12/2012 Google knows too much about you
If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and terms." It gives you the choice to "Learn More" or, another option, the one I'm betting most people followed, to "Dismiss." Who wants to read about what Google plans to do with all that information it has about us? I, too, clicked "Dismiss." That's because the very idea of considering what Google knows about me can give me heartburn. And if that happens, I may want to Google "heartburn," and then I'll wonder if my insurance company will find out that I was searching "heartburn," or, worse, that one day I will apply for a new insurance company and the side effects of having considered what Google knows will result in a denial of coverage. But I digress. |
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From Vickie - Posted 2/12/2012 Going Viral Now: The Food Stamp President?
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From Think Progress - Posted 2/12/2012 Santorum: Women Are Capable Of 'Flying Small Planes' The Pentagon announcement easing the ban on women serving in combat led Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to express his concerns that missions could be put in jeopardy “because of other types of emotions that are involved.” But today, Santorum attempted to clarify his seemingly sexist statement in an interview with ABC News:
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From Think Progress - Posted 2/12/2012 GOP Ups The Ante, Introduces Legislation To Allow Any Employer To Deny Any Preventive Health Service
Earlier today, in response to criticism from Catholic groups, the White House altered its regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide no-cost contraception coverage as part of their health care plans. Churches and religious nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith are still exempt from the requirement, but now religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals that wish to avoid providing birth control can do so. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer. But Republicans and some conservative Catholic groups are not satisfied with the accommodation and hope to use their false claim of “religious persecution” to deny women access to preventive health services. Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, next week Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it: |
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From Daily KOS - Posted 2/12/2012
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From Think Progress - Posted 2/12/2012 Santorum: Birth Control Is Not Something 'You Need Insurance For' Because It Costs 'Just A Few Dollars' Rick Santorum told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this morning that insurance plans shouldn’t cover contraception services because birth control “costs a few dollars” and is only a “minor expense” for women:
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From Charles Henry - Posted 2/12/2012
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From the Daily KOS - Posted 2/12/2012 [snip] NRA chief Wayne La Pierre says Obama conspiring to destroy the 2nd Amendment in second term
“In public, he’ll remind us that he’s put off calls from his party to renew the Clinton [assault weapons] ban, he hasn’t pushed for new gun control laws … The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment.” La Pierre has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the NRA for 21 years. Gun-owners with good sense long ago said goodbye to the lunacy that this ever-more right-wing organization represents. The delusions presented in its leader's latest rant ought to send a lot more out the door. |
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From the Daily KOS - Posted 2/12/2012 Conservatives suggest defeating birth control by calling it 'abortion.' No, really! At CPAC, some top conservative minds (stay with me here) got together to try to decide how to defeat the previously not terribly controversial law mandating insurance cover contraception. Their conclusion? Conservatives should just lie about it: Stop talking about birth control. That was the key message from some of the most prominent leaders of America’s anti-abortion movement, speaking Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. During a talk on how to advance the movement through messaging, an all-female panel discussed the Obama administration’s birth-control-coverage mandate and suggested that the best way to defeat it is by calling it an “abortion mandate.” Well, of course. Birth control is quite popular with the public, even among Catholics whose bishops are very, very angry about it. So if you're going to fight a law that's popular and uncontroversial, of course the thing to do is just make sh*t up wholesale. Hey, let's call it "abortion" instead! Let's call it an "abortion mandate"! Yeah, that's the ticket. Not quite as catchy as "baby death panels" but trust us, we'll work on it. |
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From Vickie - Posted 2/12/2012 Making Fortune on Poverty: JP Morgan's Big Food Stamp Business
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From Think Progress - Posted 2/12/2012 Former Michigan GOP Chairman Rebukes Hoekstra Xenophobic China Ad As 'Dumb' And In 'Bad Taste' WASHINGTON, DC — Former Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis joined the chorus of criticism against fellow Republican Pete Hoekstra’s recent advertisement that has been roundly criticized as xenophobic and racially insensitive. Hoekstra’s ad, which aired during the Super Bowl last weekend, featured an Asian woman in a rice paddy in China — the scene was actually shot in California — speaking broken English and thanking Stabenow because “we take your jobs.” Hoesktra is currently running for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat. Watch the ad here. ThinkProgress spoke with Anuzis at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday about the ad. Anuzis spared few punches, calling the ad “dumb” and in “bad taste.” |
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There's a mythology around politics, one that sees the ballot box and the floor of Congress as a battleground of ideas. In this star-spangled arena, progressives and conservatives square off in the competition to prove the worth of their opposing philosophies and the merit of their plans. Of course it's not all high-minded rhetoric and reasoned discourse, there are selfish motives and personal ambitions, angry outbursts and plain old mistakes, but in the end the best ideas win out in the great experiment that is America! Cue the brass section and wave the flag.
National Rifle Association chief Wayne La Pierre told a cheering crowd Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference that Barack Obama 
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Posted 2/10/2012 Mitt Romney's web of influence
CLICK HERE TO SEE LARGER GRAPHIC When attacking his opponents, Romney likes to say he's no Washington insider. But that's just the pot calling the kettle black. Romney has raised more money from Washington lobbyists than the rest of the Republican field combined. Today (Feb. 9) he's holding a high-dollar fundraiser in Washington and selling access to lobbyists and special-interest groups. He's meeting with influencers with deep ties to Wall Street, big oil, and the insurance industry. Today's "policy meeting" is a glimpse into the major web of influence in Romney's world: As millions of dollars flow into Romney's campaign fund from special-interest heavy hitters like these, Romney is taking positions that will directly benefit their industries. Here's Mitt Romney's version of a web of influence:
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Posted 2/10/2012 In New Ad, Hoekstra Slams 'What The Media Says' Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) has a new TV ad in his Senate campaign — responding to the controversy surrounding the controversial ad that started running in Michigan during the Super Bowl. That ad, of course, featured an Asian-American actress speaking in broken English, as she rode her bicycle by the side of a rice paddy, to ‘thank’ incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow for spending and borrowing money from China. “Your economy get very weak,” the woman said in the ad. “Ours get very good. We take your jobs.” In Hoekstra’s new ad, he castigates the media — for distracting the public from the real issues in the race. This does point to a possibility we have noticed about the ad, that an aim of the ad may have been to seek out national outrage, and generate publicity for his campaign among conservative true believers. |
Not fit for public office |
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Posted 2/10/2012 Dems Slam Romney For Inconsistencies On Birth Control In his 2006 Massachusetts health care law, Mitt Romney embraced a virtually identical contraception coverage mandate as President Obama recently has, experts say, and as a result expanded access to birth control for hundreds of thousands of women. And Democrats really want you to know that. “They are practically mirror images or each other,” John McDonough, a professor of public health at Harvard, said on a conference call organized by the Democratic National Committee. “They completely reflect each other.” Romney has embraced the shocked, shocked tone of leading Republicans on this issue in recent days, and Democrats have acted swiftly to flag up inconsistencies in his position. |
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Posted 2/10/2012 Colorado student who 'glitter bombed' Romney faces up to six months in jail A Colorado student faced misdemeanor charges on Wednesday for flinging glitter toward Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney in an increasingly frequent protest act some commentators say should be subject to prosecution.
The practice of “glitter bombing” has mainly been the domain of gay rights activists targeting Republican politicians and other public figures who oppose same-sex marriage. But University of Colorado Boulder student Peter Smith, 20, told Reuters he threw glitter at Romney after the candidate’s speech in Colorado on Tuesday to protest against his “general political philosophy,” and not only his stance on gay marriage. |
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Posted 2/10/2012 JC Penney CEO: 'Ellen Represents The Values Of Our Company'
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Posted 2/10/2012 Pete Hoekstra's Attack Ads Spur Campaign Donations For Senate Democratic Incumbent Debbie Stabenow Michigan's Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow and her re-election To be exact, the campaign reports on its web site that it's raised $88,620.00 as of Wednesday afternoon. The campaign says its goal is to reach $144,000, the amount that it says former Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra's campaign spent on a two-week television ad buy that attacks Stabenow for pushing the United States into increasing levels of indebtedness to China. The ad, which launched during the Super Bowl on cable television in Michigan, was controversial for the way it expressed that viewpoint -- by using outdated visual stereotypes to characterize the Chinese. The Stabenow campaign sent out a fundraising e-mail on Tuesday soliciting donations for what it's calling the campaign's "first-ever" money bomb fundraising drive. A graphic in the e-mail showed that as of Tuesday mid-afternoon, the campaign had already raised $39,727.00. |
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Posted 2/10/2012 Democrats Can Vote in Both the Primary and Caucus The Republicans are determined to waste $10 million of taxpayer money on an unnecessary presidential primary on February 28th. To make matters worse, they're trying to drag Democrats into it, despite the fact that we have chosen not to participate. |
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Posted 2/10/2012 Unemployment Insurance As We Know It Is On The Chopping Block
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Posted 2/10/2012
Ignoring the facts My friend and colleague Senator Debbie Stabenow is under attack with one of the most insensitive, misleading television ads I've seen in a long time. Her opponent calls her "Debbie Spend-it-Now" and claims she is to blame for our deficit, the economic downturn, and the challenges we face with China. The ad is certainly insensitive with its depiction of an Asian woman in a rice paddy, and it has been widely condemned. But it also ignores the facts. |
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Posted 2/6/2012
Economy Adds 243,000 Jobs, Unemployment Drops to 8.3 Percent The nation’s unemployment rate in January fell to 8.3 percent, down from December’s 8.5 percent, and the economy added 243,000 jobs, according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The nation’s unemployment rate continues it steady decline, dropping by 0.8 percentage points since August and to the lowest point since February 2009. The number of jobless workers dropped to 12.8 million, down from December’s 13.1 million. But the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 5.5 million, about 42.9 percent of the unemployed. |
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POSTED 2/6/2012
Hate the Pay Gap? Take the App Challenge
The Equal Pay App Challenge invites the public to create innovative software applications that use the department’s data to educate users about the pay gap, and provide tools to combat it. Women earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men doing comparable work—and the gap is wider for Latinas and African American women. Over a lifetime, the pay gap results in lost wages, reduced pensions and diminished Social Security benefits. Of course, unionized women do better than their unrepresented sisters, thanks to the power of collective bargaining. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that union women earn nearly 34 percent more than nonunion women. Software apps that “improve the accessibility of pay data broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, and provide coaching on early career pay, pay negotiation or career mentorship” are among the goals of the challenge. March 31 is the deadline and prizes will be awarded around Equal Pay Day in April. Find development tools here. |
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From the AFL-CIO - Posted 2/6/2012
Affordable Care Act Saves Seniors $2.1 Billion in Drug Costs
The Affordable Care Act has saved nearly 3.6 million people enrolled in Medicare $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs in 2011, finds a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the health care reform law signed by President Obama in 2010:
The Affordable Care Act—which Republican lawmakers are fighting to repeal—provides a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescription drugs and, beginning this year, a 14 percent discount on generics. Last year, it provided a 7 percent discount on covered generic medications for people who hit the prescription drug coverage gap known as the donut hole, with more than 2.8 million beneficiaries receiving $32.1 million in savings on generics. Overall, the 3.6 million Americans who hit the donut hole saved an average of $604 on the cost of their prescription drugs. The Affordable Care Act closes the donut hole completely by 2020. Click here for a state-by-state look at donut hole savings figures for today’s donut and here for a fact sheet. |
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POSTED 2/6/2012
We couldn’t believe it when we found out Pete Hoekstra bought TV ads during the Super Bowl. |
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Posted 2/6/2012 Schools, others hope for money in Gov. Snyder's spending plan
"We'd like to see a stronger investment in education as we go forward," Peter Spadafore of the Michigan Association of School Boards said Friday. "(But) it sounds like the days of per-pupil increases in the triple digits are probably behind us for the time being." The Republican governor already has said he plans to put more money into education and public safety and that he wants $1.4 billion more for road and bridge repairs in the budget that takes effect Oct. 1. But with state revenues growing slowly and the economy still soft, Snyder isn't planning to increase spending sharply, and he may hand out any extra money as one-time help rather than permanent increases. |
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Posted 2/6/2012
Hoekstra begins is attacks with a commercial which aired on the Super Bowl -- the Michigan Democratic Party is launching their own video pointing out the hypocrisy of Hoekstra's attack on Debbie.
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Posted 2/6/2012 ALEC legislators quit making an effort to pretend they care. The proposed bill came with this heading: |
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Posted 2/6/2012 I ran across this item from a progressive blog in Iowa (source below) and thought it of interest:
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Posted 2/5/2012 U.S. Sen. Carl Levin talked about Mitt Romney and taxes during stop in Kalamazoo
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From The Holland Sentinel - Posted 2/5/2012 Senate candidate, former congressman Pete Hoekstra pays $150,000 for Super Bowl campaign ads “We’re not getting into the content too much,” said Paul Ciaramitaro, a Hoekstra campaign spokesman. However, he would say the ad aims to “satirically highlight Debbie Stabenow’s record on spending and job creation — obviously a record we think is abysmal — and the real world consequences of that record” Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer called the ad an attempt to fix Hoekstra’s public image. Read what Mark Brewer had to say below the fold.
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Posted 2/5/2012 Koch Brothers, Allies Pledge $100 Million At Private Meeting To Beat Obama Koch Brothers, Allies Pledge $100 Million At Private Meeting To Beat Obama |
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Posted 2/5/2012 Republicans prohibit funding for high speed rail House Republicans late Thursday night adopted an amendment that would prohibit California from receiving any high speed rail money in a huge five-year transportation bill headed to the House floor next week. The $270 billion bill also eliminates bicycle and pedestrian programs and detaches urban mass transit funding from its traditional revenue source. The underlying bill did not include any high speed rail funding to begin with, and indeed would cut Amtrak by 25 percent, so the prohibition serves mainly as a stick in the eye to California’s plan for bullet trains. |
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Posted 2/5/2012
House committee passes more anti-union bills--Call your state representative! On a party line vote, the House Oversight, Reform and Ethics Committee passed on Tuesday House Bills 5023-5026, a package of anti-union bills meant to curtail the powers of labor unions: |
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Posted 2/5/2012 The Democratic Party has put together a rather slick interactive graphic to demonstrate the relative difference in taxes that Mitt Romney pays and what average, everyday people pay. What Mitt Pays
Mitt Romney just released his tax returns for 2010 and an estimate for 2011. As a corporate buyout specialist, he’s made millions of dollars in income from investments, which are taxed at a far lower rate than the wages of regular Americans—which meant in 2010 Romney’s tax rate was a startlingly low 13.9%. This means Romney not only pays a lower tax rate than many teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other middle-class Americans, he also pays a lower rate than most millionaires in his same income bracket, by about 11%. If elected, Romney’s proposed tax plan would cut tax rates for the rich even further—effectively cutting the amount he pays in half. Use our tool to find out how much more you pay in taxes on your income than you would if you enjoyed the special millionaire investor tax rate that Romney gets. And ask yourself: Is this the kind of economic worldview we want in a President?
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Posted 2/5/2012 The Democratic Party has put together a rather neat graphic showing the economic gains under President Obama. It is interactive and you need visit their web site to get full appreciation of it. Once there, drag you mouse across the different "bars" for each month and see the number of jobs that Obama has created in spite of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives which has been doing as much as they can to wreck havoc with the economy for political motivations.
From the Democratic National Committee Friend -- |
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Posted 2/5/2012 STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom President Obama laid out a blueprint for an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values—an America built to last. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do well while a growing number of Americans barely get by—or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.
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Posted 2/5/2012 |
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Posted 2/5/2012 |
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From the Maddow Blog - Posted 2/5/2012
Chronicling Mitt's mendacity The Maddow Blog has a regular Friday feature which highlights the most offensive Mitt Romney falsehoods of the week. Please vist the Maddow Blog frequently for updates. |
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From the Daily KOS - Posted 2/3/2012 - moved 2/6/12 Susan G. Komen declares war on womenEmail the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to tell them they destroyed their reputation by caving to right-wing extremists. (email content can be edited) Send Susan Komen a message: Susan G. Komen Foundation, you just destroyed your reputation by defunding Planned Parenthood. Cancer screening and prevention comprises 17 percent of Planned Parenthood's services. For many low-income women, Planned Parenthood is their only source of health care. By going along with anti-choice extremists who are determined to put Planned Parenthood out of business, you are essentially saying it doesn't matter if low-income women get breast cancer. Pretty amazing, and truly disgusting. |
JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson spoke out this morning in defense of the company’s new partnership with Ellen DeGeneres. The conservative group One Million Moms has 
campaign team have managed to raise more than $88,000 online in the past few days off of the furor over her Republican challenger's 
If you’re frustrated about the wage gap that persists between male and female workers, you can channel your energy into a new contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor and President Obama’s 
The budget proposal that Gov. Rick Snyder will deliver Thursday isn't expected to contain the sweeping tax changes and spending cuts that made last year's plan such a change from the past. Still, it's creating some anxious moments for school officials and local government leaders waiting to hear how and when the cuts they took in the current budget might be reversed.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin made a stop in Kalamazoo on Saturday to talk about a variety of issues, but focused on how he felt about Mitt Romney and tax loopholes. 
