Raise Taxes? - OR - Reduce Spending?

A pollster from Reason TV talks about the results of a recent poll asking what should be done about the deficit

A Little Snafu with New Landfill

What’s going on with the infamous new landfill project for the Unified Disposal District? Back on February 29th of 2010 the Corrector reported that the bids were in for the dirt work at the new landfill with the low bid of $677,995 received from Advance Earthworks of Stevensville. The Blaine County Journal at that time quoted district landfill coordinator Clay Vincent as saying the disposal District was ready to begin the next phase of the project which was erecting a new building and upgrading the road from Hi-Way 2 east of Havre.

When Unified Disposal aquired this property which consists of around 80 acres they paid close to $1,500 per acre.  On July 18th of 2010 the Corrector reported that the earth moving was well underway at the new landfill site. On August 5th the Havre Daily “News” ran an article quoting Vincent as saying the new dump would be operational by spring. The article also said the bids were in for the new building at the site and work was progressing on the road that will connect Hi-Way 2 to the landfill.

One week later on August 11th the HDN broke the news that American Wind and Wheat Farms LLC had filed suit in District Court to stop the road from being built across their land. Hill County contends that they are using a “road” that was created in 1914 to connect the landfill to Hi-Way 2 while American Wind and Wheat’s complaint contends the road is not legal and no road was created in 1914.

Further information obtained by the Corrector states that a petition was filed in 1914 asking that land for a road be gratuitously donated across sections 6 and 7 Township 17 east 32 north. (Correction 8/31/11– the petition was only filed for section 7 – no petition found on section 6) In 1914 two women (Lillian Heenan and Mary Auld) owned the land in sections 5 and 6 and there is no documentation that they ever signed over any property for this road however I can remember there being a field trail across some of this land that the farmer used for his machinery and harvest clear back when I was in high school. My pals and I used to go out there on occasion to hoist a few beers as minors out of sight of law enforcement and we always assumed we were trespassing on private property as the alleged “road” was a field trail that went from Hi-Way 2 to the Clear Creek road and actually at times had wheat seeded into it. This lawsuit has been dragging on for over a year and is scheduled to hit the court within days according to our source. In spite of this pending lawsuit the county has gone ahead and spent vast amounts of money to construct this road anyway although the graveling of said road has not been completed. So if they lose in court do they have to haul all the materials they have used to build this road back out?

Even with these road “issues” why wasn’t the dump operational this spring? The Unified Disposal trucks can still take the secondary route out through 13th Avenue to the Clear Creek road. Well it seems that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has some “issues” with the new landfill pits and related drainage. According to a report dated June 30, 2011 and attached as a PDF file here the Hill County Commissioners were served a letter by certified mail stating that the landfill was in violation of its permit. violations include:
• failure to maintain records and reports
• failure to submit required permit information
• failure to conduct inspections in violation of the Monitoring and report requirements
• failure to install Best Management Practices (BMP) in violation of Part II Effluent Limitations
• Failure to maintain BMP in violation of the storm water pollution protection plan
• Failure to even have a storm water pollution prevention plan
• Read the whole report here (this is a PDF and takes a couple minutes to load)

The Unified Disposal District had until July 29th to respond to these violations and we are told they have failed to comply. The letter states that noncompliance constitutes a violation of the Montana Water Quality Act and is grounds for enforcement action and permit revocation. It goes on to say the landfill management needs to take necessary steps to correct these problems which have a “reasonable likelihood of adversely affecting human health or the environment.” Furthermore this violation notice “will result in the loss of your eligibility for a 25% reduction in your annual fee.” Just how much is this fee?

The details of the report went on to point out numerous problems involving containment and drainage issues. Our source reports that not only is the landfill in violation of these standards but they pumped thousands of gallons of water from the landfill site this spring damaging adjacent farm ground. If the new landfill can’t even contain its sediment and runoff when it is empty what is going to happen when it is full of polluted garbage? You don’t suppose any of that pollution will affect the water table or people down coulee from this site do you?

Why do all of our local governmental bureaucrats always have to keep vital information from the taxpaying population? Is it just Havre or are all of them like this?

14 New Jobs in Seattle

I love watching the news and seeing all the wonderful things that are being accomplished with my tax money to help “stimulate” the economy. The City of Seattle, one of the Greenie Mecca’s of green job thinking was given a $20 million dollar stimulus grant over 16 months ago to weatherize homes in Seattle and save energy while creating jobs. How are they doing you may ask?

Well they created a program that provided a job for 14 people and have upgraded the energy level of a whooping three homes thus far. The Mayor of Seattle says it is way too early to tell if the program is actually a bust. Oddly most of the 14 jobs created are administrative positions and any business wanting to participate in this program must pay their employees $21 per hour plus a full benefit package including a retirement plan. That sounds great but the average pay in the Seattle area for insulators is $12 per hour so there is no market for these newly trained “professional insulators” in this price range but I am sure there is a long-range plan there somewhere to make this program viable and they just haven't discovered it yet.

But not to worry as they are only 16 months into the three year program so the 14 new jobs are secure for at least two more years.  It would appear that what we need is just another stimulus package to keep this ball rolling so let’s hope the “hope and change” guy can get re-elected and continue with this lunacy.

For all you “No Child Left Behind” graduates try dividing $20 million by 14 jobs and see what that magic number turns out to be per job created.

Seattle Green Jobs Program

HEY PEASANTS ------ CAN YOU SPARE $10 MILLION FOR MY VACATIONS?



Photo from the Martha Vineyard Times of President Obama’s vacation travel “detail”

 Back on August 19th we reported on Queen Moochelle Obama’s disdain for the American taxpayer because she spent 10’s of thousands of dollars by insisting on separate government air travel just so she could start her vacation at Martha's Vineyard a couple hours early.

Today we noticed a tabloid story from Sittingbourne England that plainly shows that we have become the laughing-stock of the free world. The English Mail Online today reported that White House sources are claiming that Moochelle has spent $10 million in taxpayer money on her vacation just this year alone. The sources also say she is a “Vacation Junkie” and loves to indulge in 5-star hotels and extravagant waste

Mail Online reports;

'The vacations are totally Michelle's idea. She's like a junkie. She can't schedule enough getaways, and she lives from one to the next - all the while sticking it to hardworking Americans.

Now even if everything else is Bush’s fault as is frequently asserted by several of our liberal readers here I can say with certainty that this kind of disdain for the taxpayers wasn’t part of the Bush administration. At least back in the days of Bush the American people had a first lady with some class we could be proud of instead of an obnoxious Cow with utter scorn for the American "commoners"

 
Martha's Vineyard Times 
Mail Online
HDCorrector Holiday Story

Hipocracy Alert!

With the U.S. Treasury Department's recent announcement about the National Debt fresh in our minds, the folks over at CNSNews unearthed this little nugget from the 2008 Presidential Campaign when then Senator Barack Obama, D-IL was campaigning next door in North Dakota.



Now here we are some 3 years later and this President has run up the same amount of debt in less than half the time Good Ole Dubya had and he is somehow less unpatriotic?

Let's recap. "Dubya spent all that money on those pesky wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama got our troops out of there and," oops, nope that's right he actually sent more troops and started up another skirmish in Libya. "Bush gave the rich all those tax cuts. Good thing Obama and the Dems cancelled those and," oops, nope they extended them for a few more years.

Typical political hypocracy. Do as I say and not as I do.

But never fear, because as soon as he gets back from his vacation, he's going to work really hard to get this economy back on the right track and tackle the nation's unemployment problem. Believe him? Well one things for sure, we can't wait for the upcoming jobs plan announcement, thank goodness for Youtube, next year at this time we'll probably be laughing about that too, unfortunately!

Do Food Stamps Really Create Jobs?

Obama’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says “Food stamps are an economic stimulus that create jobs” If what he says is true we are well on our way to recovery as Food Stamp participation has doubled in the last three years. And here I thought President Obama, Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus were on the wrong track.

What is wrong with these idiots?

(click graph to enlarge)

 



Business Savvy Legislators – Montana Style

You may all recall Democrat House District 94 Representative Ellie Hill from Missoula. Ellie took Havre’s House District 33 Representative Kris Hansen to task this last session for supporting what Ellie described as the anti-gay bill which would have made illegal the City of Missoula’s recent ordinance which allows cross-dressers to use women’s public bathrooms. Ellie was so angry over Hansen’s stance on this bill she vowed to mobilize her fellow Missoula activists to come to Havre next campaign to see to it Hansen is defeated. Ellie also tirelessly voted against much of the pro-business legislation offered this past legislative session because she “knew what was best” for the business climate of Montana. Well it would appear that Ellie’s business savvy has gotten her in a bit of a pickle.

In November of 2005 Ellie and her husband John Hill opened a gift shop called Ellie Blue Timeless Gifts in an old historic building in downtown Missoula. As I was reading the article announcing the opening of this business in an old online Missoulian article I couldn’t help but think that this poor mis-guided out-of-stater is but yet another in the long list of Montana imports that wants Montana to retain our rustic charm and untouched scenery even while we are dying on the vine for lack of promoting any sane use of our resources. Well the Missoulapolis Blog has a recent report that the chickens are finally coming home to roost for poor Ellie and her husband as the bank has started foreclosure proceedings against the real property housing the gift shop business. The foreclosure auction is scheduled for this October.

On the local front Democrat Senator Jonathan Windy Boy just had a $33,003.48 dollar federal tax lien filed against him for failure to pay his 1040 tax.

With leadership of this caliber is it any wonder Montana has the poorest business climate in the nation?

H/T to Missoulapolis

Downgraded Credit

Happy Holidays (Again)

Hey Ma! …………… The bank has just raised our loan limit so let’s say we borrow a few more dollars and go on a luxury vacation and we can try to figure out our budget mess after we get back and are more relaxed.


All this debt-ceiling debate has taken its toll on the players and as Washington eases back for the summer break President Obama set off Thursday to Martha’s Vineyard for his summer 10 day vacation. While the timing of the President taking a vacation costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars is questionable prior presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have partaken in the Martha’s Vineyard experience. However what I find totally appalling is the big bucks the stupidity of our queen Moochelle costs the taxpayers. She hopped a government Jet with the two youngin’s and touched down around 2 pm Thursday. The president followed in Air Force One about 3 hours later.

Is this pair for real? We have been yapping on and on about the debt crisis for weeks and the queen can’t even wait a few hours for her man to get off work when they know full well that the extra staff and plane will cost 10’s of thousands and for what? A couple hours extra vacation time? Also the Martha’s Vineyard Times has a photo of an itty bitty little Air Force cargo plane that transported “equipment” the President deemed “essential” for his 10 day holiday. See the picture here. He must have packed one heck of a load of clean shorts for this vacation.

The arrogance of this do-nothing administration is downright stomach turning. If you can stand knowing what the leader of the most powerful country in the free world is up to the next 10 days you can keep abreast of the news at the Martha’s Vineyard Times website.

Open Records Laws Ignored by Montana

Apparently Havre isn’t the only place where the government entities work diligently to keep you in the dark. The Montana Watchdog reports that the Montana Policy Institute (MPI) has filed a lawsuit to compel the State of Montana to release information regarding state employee pay. MPI has been dogging the state for this information since August of 2010 and have been stonewalled for over a year now so they have elected to sue. So much for the states open records law.

Why does the state continue to refuse to provide this information? Could it be they don’t want the tax payers to know how many bureaucrats are on the payroll with salaries in excess of $200,000? Recent Worker’s compensation discussions during the last legislative session revealed the head of the division is paid in excess of $250,000 per year with another handful of administrators making close to $200,000 and they are just one agency. As an over burdened taxpayer I want to know how many of these quarter of a million dollar lackeys we have on the payroll. Maybe the Governor just thinks that the average Montanan earning less than $30,000 might be upset to see all these lay-abouts paid these exorbitant salaries.

Kudos to the Montana Policy Institute for leading this charge

Creating Jobs Obama Style

The 1.1 million dollar bus that President Obama bought to do his “grass roots” traveling to be close to the real people like “Joe the Plumber” actually got a costly security rebuild to the tune of another million or so which is not like any ordinary bus. It even has the capability of allowing the Prez to nuke someone’s hindquarters right off the face of the earth if the need arises. President Obama plans to use this bus to tour through the countryside to promote his “Jobs Plan” for getting America back to work.

Ironically this luxury bus was built in Canada which doesn’t seem to me to do much for promoting American jobs.  It's time to throw Obama under the bus and elect a new president.

Read this sad fairytale over at the New York Post here

Record Number of Food Stamp Users, Is This Really Something to Celebrate?

Recently in an interview with MSNBC, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, announced that more people are using food stamps in the U.S. than ever before. He attributed this success to the administration's efforts to "get the word out." How nice, Obama's plan for the overall economic health of the nation is to hand out more food stamps? Certainly not, right? Not so fast. The Secretary and former Governor of Iowa, goes on to call the food stamp program the most "direct stimulus" maybe even more stimulative than unemployment benefits. Is this really something we should be celebrating? We think not.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as it is called now certainly serves its purpose which when created some 72 years ago was meant to curb the hunger woes facing the U.S. during the recovery of the Great Depression. When it first started in 1939 as many as 20 million people in the U.S. used the program to the tune of $262 million. The program has grown to serve nearly 46 million people in the U.S. at a cost of nearly $6 billion at last count.

In May, Republican Presidential candidate and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich came under fire for what was widely quoted as his naming President Obama as the "food stamp President" on NBC's "Meet the Press." Gingrich was criticiszed for suggesting that Obama's overall plan for our economy was the people should just sign up for food stamps, asking if we want to be in a country that creates food stamps as opposed to paychecks. While somewhat crass is this not the same question we should be asking ourselves as we prepare for the upcoming elections? We think it should. Afterall what was wrong with that statement of reasonable opinion? Indeed a blogger on the Huffington Post blogged the same sentiments by claiming Obama's plan for job creation is to hand out food stamps.

It is these exact Keynesian theories that has us trapped in this quagmire of flat GDP growth which leads to further unemployment and thus more users of food stamps, clearly not rocket science. Obviously Vilsack drinks the same tainted Kool-Aid that Obama drinks thinking these things actually work. Only inside the Beltway or between the ears of elitist liberal theorists can the touting of programs such as these solve our economic woes. We should be working to find ways to put more people back to work and get people off food stamps than "getting the word out" Mr. Secretary, we will all be better off.

God help us as we approach the 2012 elections.

President Obama takes the Bus

Poor President Obama has gotten a fair share of flack for jetting around the world on Air Force One costing the taxpayers billions of dollars. Now that the election cycle is upon us the president has decided to cut back a bit and try to appeal to the grass roots folks by doing a little campaign traveling via a bus. That’s right – a bus. Now this is not your ordinary old school bus but rather a special purchase thanks to the taxpayers that just paid 1.1 million dollars for this latest whim of our president. At least this purchase can be used to haul all the President’s buddies off to one of those infamous golfing trips the next time disaster should strike our country and they all need to go golfing to contemplate how they are going to respond. And as a side note this bus is nearly big enough to haul Michelle and her court of hand-maidens on some of her many excursions so maybe we will save a few shekels in the long run.

January 20, 2013 is the next Presidential Inauguration. Let’s make sure it is not this guy again.

MATL Line Hits another Big Snag

Thanks to a fellow blogger over at the 2nd Grade Bike Rack we were pointed to a story over at KRTV that announced that Tonbridge Power Inc has requested its stock stop trading on the Canadian market due to “pending news”. Tonbridge Power is the parent company of MATL (Montana-Alberta Tie Line) which has garnered so much attention the past year because of eminent domain issue. You may recall that the Montana Legislature reviewed several proposed eminent domain legislative actions designed to allow the construction of this line. Tonbridge stock was selling for $2.33 a share a year ago and as of the stop trading request it was at $0.25 a share.

How is all this going to shake out for the completion of this line?

Here are some news sources for what is happening with Tonbridge Power and the MATL line:

Thanks to 2nd Grade Bike Rack for pointing us to this story

KRTV News story here
Another Informative article at the Choteau Acantha
Tonbridgepower.com

Systematic Indoctrination

School Indocrination - another reason to vote no to increased education levys

Note the source of this brain washing –  MoveOn.org  -- The one and same outfit that worked tirelessly to help get Senator “No Earmarks Ever” Tester elected.

Debt Ceiling BS

I haven’t even been able to watch the “talking heads” the last few days because they are all trying to tell us how great it is that congress finally came to some “compromise” to keep our government from shutting down. What they are failing to mention is the fact that this compromise does virtually nothing to correct the problem and just extends our debt ceiling which is already past bankruptcy stage for any normal business. Why can’t these congressmen comprehend that we must not spend more than our income if we ever hope to survive? The following video of Harry Reid recorded during the budget debate basically shows what the problem is……….. They don’t give one hoot about anything but partisan politics. That goes for Democrats as well as Republicans. Poor Harry is more concerned with getting off for summer break on time so he can see his trees bloom than he is in coming up with a solution. Lest I need remind you, our own Senator Tester spent many hours in Nevada prior to the November election campaigning for his good buddy Harry Reid. Take a look at the video and tell me what you think.

Also the following comparison between government financial affairs and a comparable American family really put this financial mess into perspective for me

All this budget talk running into the trillion is really confusing for the average American. Let’s do a simple math exercise consisting of just removing 8 zeros from the budget numbers to make the dollar amounts something we can compare to an average Americans debt to income ratio.

• Annual Income: $21,700
• Yearly Expenses: $38,200
• Yearly New Debt: $16,500
• Outstanding Credit Card Balance: $142,710
• Budget Cut as just passed by Congress: $385

So now with this new “compromise” we are only adding yearly new debt to our credit card balance of $16,115 instead of $16,500. Yea, I can see how this will really solve the problem. The real solution is to match the spending to the income plus a little to go to reduce the huge credit debt. If my income / loss statement looked like this the bank would have foreclosed long ago. What makes you think the government won’t face the same fate? I hate to admit it but the teabaggers are dead on right on this debt issue.

CUT SPENDING

 

BREAKING NEWS: Standard & Poors Downgrades U.S. Debt from AAA to AA+

After all the patting on the back from our Dear Leader Mr. Obama this week and "No Earmarks Ever" Tester about the hard work they've done on behalf of the American people to, as Obama said "solve the debt crisis," Standard & Poors (S&P) has downgraded U.S. debt for the first time in American History. How's that Hope and Change working out for ya folks? Unbelieveable.

Bottom Line? The deal of earlier this week is nothing but a kick the can down the road move that mattered little to the threat from the credit ratings agencies about lowering our credit rating.

After the roller coaster ride on the Dow this week, this nation's economy is teetering on the brink of total failure. Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Zimbabwe, move over. Here comes the U.S.

Note to Congress. . .Cut Up The Credit Card Now!

Spendoholics Promise to “do better” next Time

Was the debt “crisis” really averted? Or did it just prolong the upcoming agony we must all face when we live beyond our means? Why is it so hard for Congress to understand that we must start spending only what revenue we have and no more?

That goes for over-spending program happy Republicans as well as liberal free spending Democrats

Recovery Woes

This is exactly on target

Havre Water -- Good Enough for Thee but not for ME

It appears that Murphy’s Pub is putting up a mighty fine fight against the recent boycott hex placed upon them for daring speak out about Havre’s dirty (looking) water. What could be better than a pint of Pale Ale to wash away your troubles? I didn’t have time to pop in tonight to see if there was a place to actually sit as I was late for dinner and my belly takes precedent over idle curiosity about the negative effects of another failed boycott by a local democrat leader.

Interestingly these complaints to the public works department came to public light 6-7 weeks ago and as far as we know nothing has been changed in the water treatment process. People calling the water department to complain have told us that the voice on the phone from public works tells them nothing is wrong with the water and it is perfectly safe to drink. Those of us at the Corrector take them at their word for this and continue to make our coffee and cook with this water.


Good Enough for Thee but Not For Me


However we are confused about something. If the water is so great why is it that the public works department themselves have a Culligan water cooler and have bottled water delivered to City Hall for their own use? It would seem to me that the expense of bottled water shouldn’t be shouldered by us city peasants who don’t have the luxury of a never ending source of tax money to fund clean water delivered for our own consumption like they do down at the palace. Furthermore, a council that just voted to make using cell phone use illegal while driving also shouldn’t be furnishing city paid cell phones for city employee use.  Wouldn't you say?


What is the matter with this picture?