MDOC/PCS contract doubles rates with slush fund, kickbacks
By Diane Bukowski
July 30, 2011
DETROIT – Members of prisoners’ families who marched outside the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) headquarters in Lansing July 7 to protest prison phone rate hikes that have nearly doubled, are now further outraged. They say they were deceived into thinking a bill signed by Governor Rick Snyder July 8 returned rates to a minimal amount. (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/07/17/prison-phone-rate-hike-protest-helps-bring-possible-victory/ to read original VOD story.)
According to a report from the Gongwers News Service, Snyder said while signing the bill that language claiming that rates would not exceed local residential rates was “unenforceable.” (Click on http://www.capps-mi.org/Synder%20signs%20supplemental.htm for full Gongwers report.)
Prisoner contact with families is vital
Catherine Johnson-Bachus, who organized the protest July 7, said she is outraged that families were misled, and that they and their loved ones will still suffer from decreased contact due to the unaffordable rates. Contact with families, friends and the outside world while incarcerated has been shown to decrease recidivism once prisoners are released.
“As of today, any hope that was instilled in the family members and the prisoners following the signing of SB138 is quickly evaporating and turning into frustration and distrust. In fact . . . now family members question whether or not there was ever any intention of providing any sort of financial relief.” (Read her full letter to several prison advocacy groups by clicking on Cathryn Johnson Bachus letter.)
Almost solely responsible for the increase in rates is a “Special Equipment Fund” (SEF) in the five-year contract between MDOC and Public Communications Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Global Tel-Link, which began Feb. 9, 2011. The SEF is expected to rake in $11 to $18 million annually.
The SEF solely accounts for the huge increase in rates, according to the following chart in the contract:
According to PCS itself, it appears that the SEF is really a slush fund/kickback scheme to make sure banks get their pound of flesh out of prisoners and their families by plugging holes in the state budget deficit.
PCS and MDOC collect
In their executive summary of the contract, PCS said, “Understanding that budgets are shrinking for all State agencies, as part of our Best and Final Offer, PCS is also willing to work with the MDOC to create a Special Equipment Fund to help bridge any potential budget shortfalls. The amount of this fund can be set at the discretion of the MDOC.”
The Michigan Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending (Mi-CAPPS) reported earlier, “The proceeds are to be split between the MDOC and PCS, with the Department’s share increasing as the volume of calls goes up. At a minimum, 70 percent ($7.8 million) would go into a special equipment fund controlled by the MDOC and 30 percent would go to PCS.”
The contract (click on Phone contract PCS MDOC to read entire contract) leaves the purpose of those funds open-ended.
“We family and friends of inmates, as a specific demographic of Michigan citizens, are being forced to shoulder this burden and fork over the money for this opaque, special secret fund — rather than Michigan going through appropriate and legal measures (budgets, taxes, etc.) to obtain the additional funds? . . . All while I stop subscribing to cable and eat cheap frozen dinners every night so that I can talk to my loved one on the phone? Excuse me, but does this sound like something completely illegal to you? It sure does to me.”
Such schemes are common in most prison systems across the U.S., according to PrisonPhoneJustice.org. (“Nationwide research finds excessive prison phone rates exploit prisoners’ families” According to PrisonPhoneJustice.org’s research, a similar kickback scheme under MDOC’s previous contractor Embarq was ended in 2008.
In its original analysis of the contract, Mi-CAPPS noted further that other bidders on the new contract offered substantially lower rates.
“The $0.10/per minutes in-state debit call now costs $0.18/minute, or $2.70 for 15 minutes,” Mi-CAPPS said. “There are similar increases for collect and interstate calls. These increases are occurring despite the fact that all the bidders who passed the initial screening offered base rates that were substantially lower than the rates in the expiring contract. For an intra-state call, these bids ranged from a high of $0.085/minutes to a low of $0.30/minute.”
But all is not lost. The state has the right to revoke the PCS contract at any time for the following reason (among others) stated in the contract: “The state may terminate this contract for its convenience, in whole or in part, if the state determines that a termination is in the State’s best interest. Reasons for the termination must be left to the sole discretion of the State.”
“The discretion of the State” under its current administration, however, has not proven amenable to one single thing that is good for the working and poor people of Michigan. A massive grass-roots campaign to end this and other atrocities committed against Michigan residents is desperately needed. So far, word is awaited from Mi-CAPPS and other prisoner support groups on what the next step in this battle will be.
WCHB 1200 AM in Detroit is using its radio airwaves to protect the Detroit Police Department’s heinous and murderous participation in the killing of 7-year old Aiyana Jones, and the public must not stand for it.
WCHB 1200 AM promotes constantly the Detroit Police-sponsored group, Detroit 300, a group that hunts for suspects that the Detroit Police are looking for.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones will never have another birthday
Ironically, Detroit 300, has not and will not go after the Detroit Police Officer Joe Weekley, the officer whose gun discharged into little Aiyana’s skull. Even more, Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee praised Officer Weekley as a professional whose work for the Detroit Police Department has been superb.
PLEASE stop WCHB 1200 AM by demanding that its advertisers suspend spending and promoting their products on this rogue radio station.
VOD ed.: VOD supports this campaign completely. It is time to stop allowing ourselves to be divided by people who advocate collaboration with the police.
Whether or not a deal is reached in Washington on how to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a government default, the workers and the oppressed have no independent voice in the debate. The process gives them no choice but to accept the result of venomous political warfare in the capitalist establishment.
Several factors have made the political warfare between the big business parties over raising the government debt ceiling especially turbulent. First, there is the upcoming 2012 presidential election and the struggle over control of the federal government and its $4 trillion budget.
Aggravating this warfare is the emergence of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, which has pushed the politics of the negotiations further and further to the right.
Finally, the struggle takes place against the background of the capitalist economic crisis.
The underlying problem of the deficit is the massive government emergency spending of trillions of dollars for bank and corporate bailouts that were meant to stave off a world capitalist crisis. In the short run, however, the debt-ceiling crisis is politically driven by the ultra-right.
Obama and Boehner
The struggle began with the Republicans refusing to agree to raise the debt ceiling unless the Obama administration agreed to cut the federal deficit by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social spending that benefits the broad masses. The Obama administration agreed to massive cuts in entitlements, but not enough to satisfy the right.
The Republicans also want to block any increase in tax payments by the rich. Obama wants them to pay a small part of the bill.
In this struggle over the terms of raising the debt ceiling, the workers are supposed to choose one of the different options posed by factions of the big business parties.
Debt ceiling fight is over how to protect the rich
The fury over raising the government’s debt ceiling is, at bottom, a fight over two things: 1) how to ensure continued government payments of billions of dollars to rich, coupon-clipping bondholders; and 2) how many trillions of dollars can be taken from the entitlements due the workers and the oppressed in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other benefits.
FDR signs Social Security Act in 1935, after massive uprisings by working and poor people during the Great Depression
The crisis atmosphere generated by every organ of big business propaganda — network television, cable TV, newspapers, magazines, bloggers, etc. — is a reflection of the anxiety of bankers, bondholders, insurance companies, hedge funds and other investors over the possibility of default and all its implications.
Over and over again one hears the demand for an agreement that will raise the debt ceiling, avoid default and maintain the “full faith and credit of the U.S. government.” This means, in practice, maintaining the certainty that bondholders will not miss a payment of principal or interest on their investment in U.S. government bonds.
This is the future “crisis” that the White House, the congressional leadership of the big business parties, and all the pundits of the bourgeoisie — regardless of their opinion about what to do — say must be avoided.
But there already is a crisis — a crisis of the working class. It has been going on for four years. It not only has to be avoided; it has to be reversed.
The real crisis: jobs, housing, health care, hunger
MASSIVE JOBS PROGRAM NOW! March in Detroit, Aug. 2010
The workers and the oppressed must break free from these arguments tailored to the interests of the capitalist rich. From a working-class point of view, the debt-ceiling crisis should not be about paying the rich and cutting entitlements.
What about raising the debt ceiling to create a massive jobs program to achieve full employment? If the government is going to borrow more money, let it put the 30 million unemployed or underemployed workers back to work. Better yet, don’t raise the debt ceiling and instead create jobs with the funds that otherwise would go to the banks and bondholders.
Why should our class, the working class and the exploited, worry about a millionaire or billionaire missing an interest payment when 50 million people in this country are missing meals? Why should workers be concerned that some millionaires will not be able to pay the overhead on their mansions when millions are already homeless and millions more are threatened with foreclosure?
(VOD ed: the video below has no ties to the newspaper which published this article. It also has language that may be offensive to some, but it has a very strong political message as well.)
In fact, justice demands that the profits of the bankers and other financiers be used to aid the 47 million people who are on food stamps. It should be used to give health care to the 50 million people who have none because medical care has been turned over to the profit-seeking insurance companies and pharmaceutical monopolies. Continue reading →
Maryanne Godboldo (4th from left in peach suit), with family. lawyers, and supporters including (l to r) Ariana's father Mubarak Hakim, Ron Scott, sister Penny Godboldo, attorneys Byron Pitts, Allison Folmar, Wanda Evans and Roger Farinha (behind Evans), and Rukiyah Shabazz
CPS worker said child needed cage
Detroit cop admits lack of authority
By Diane Bukowski
July 26, 2011
DETROIT — New and shocking details of the encounter between a lone mother and child, Child Protective Services (CPS), and a Detroit police “Special Response Team” replete with tanks, assault guns, and helicopters in March emerged in the first part of Maryanne Godboldo’s preliminary exam July 25.
Caged back seat of police car
They include a CPS worker’s statement that she told police Godboldo’s 13-year-old daughter needed to be caged on removal from her home, and a Detroit police officer’s admission that he had no authority to execute a civil order. A second officer testified that he did not mention observing a “bullet hole” in the house in two reports March 25 and May 19.
Godboldo, 55, faces one count of discharge of a weapon in a dwelling, three counts of felonious assault, three counts of resisting and obstructing an officer, and a felony firearm count related to her refusal to allow police into her home to take her 13-year-old daughter Ariana. She could receive from two to four years in prison on each of the counts.
Judge Ronald giles
The second part of the exam is scheduled for Mon. Aug. 29 promptly at 8:30 a.m. in front of Thirty-Sixth District Court Judge Ronald Giles. Attorneys are to brief Giles on whether the prosecution can have Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Deborah Thomas testify. Thomas said during the hearing that she was at the scene to act as a mediator between police, CPS, and Godboldo.
During the hearing, CPS worker Mia Wenk testified that she summoned police by calling 911, while waiting in her car at a corner near Godboldo’s home on Blaine near Linwood. She said she did this although it was not normal CPS policy, and two other CPS workers were with her. Wenk herself never approached the home.
Mia Wenk
“I told ‘911’ I needed assistance to execute a warrant,” Wenk said. “I told them when they get the child out they will need to transport her in their back seat since they have a cage in the car. I never met her [Ariana]. I didn’t even know what she looked like. I asked them to bring her leg, and told them she has ‘psychosis NOS’ [not otherwise specified].”
Many in the courtroom, which was packed with Godboldo’s supporters, gasped at the reference to caging a Black child, and the derogatory terminology used to describe her disability. The child has been disabled since infancy, but according to family and church members has led a normal life including dancing, swimming and horseback riding lessons, using a prosthetic leg.
Thirty-Sixth District Court Judge Ronald Giles told audience members to leave if they could not restrain themselves, upon which Godboldo herself left the courtroom, returning shortly after she was able to compose herself.
Attorney Allison with her own daughter, during rally for Maryanne Godboldo July 17
Godboldo was represented at the exam by attorneys Allison Folmar and Byron Pitts.
“This witness heightened the level of law enforcement involvement based on her lack of knowledge,” Folmar said. She asked Wenk, who has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, whether she knew the difference between a “warrant,” and the civil court order which Wenk said she gave to police who arrived an hour later.
Wenk did not give a clear response.
Wenk testified that she petitioned Wayne County Family Court by filling out a “JCO5b” form (click on Order_to_Take_Children_into_Protective_Custody_321602_7[1] to see blank form) the morning of the confrontation, which began that afternoon. She said she left the form at the Family Court “intake” and later got what she called a “writ” back.
Judge Leslie Kim Smith (l) with Wayne County Chief Judge Virgil Smith and Maura Corrigan, Director of Department of Human Services, and Mia Wenk's ultimate boss
The “writ” was the JCO5b form with the rubber stamped signature of Wayne County Family Court Division Judge Leslie Kim Smith, and a provision that gave 30 days to execute it. Wenk testified it had a raised seal that she claimed made it “official.”
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Lora Weingarden entered the form into evidence.
Judge Giles had denied Folmar’s motion to quash the court order at the beginning of the hearing. Folmar contended it was invalid because that there was no “Wayne County Clerk” stamp on the order, and numerous parts of it were not completed.
Those included what action was to be taken, who was supposed to take it, a full description of the child (Wenk entered only her birthdate) and whether the information was entered into LEIN (the Law Enforcement Information Network.)
Giles ruled that testimony could be taken regarding what was on the order, but granted a prosecution motion to preclude testimony regarding what led up to the issuance of the court order.
CPS child abduction a national plague
Wenk said two contradictory sentences on the form, “Reasonable efforts to prevent removal of the child(ren) from the home were not made,” and “Reasonable efforts were made to prevent the removal of the child(ren) from the home,” were both checked because the first was not fully erased.
She testified that the one “reasonable effort” she made to prevent Ariana’s removal was a “Permanency Planning Conference” (PPC) she held March 23. She said she notified Godboldo of the conference March 21 “by phone” and sent her a letter “as a courtesy.” When Godboldo did not attend, Wenk said she and another CPS worker held the meeting by themselves.
“Did you indicate in the letter that you were planning to take Ms. Godboldo’s child?” Folmar asked. “No,” Wenk replied. She said that when Godboldo did not keep the appointment, she immediately initiated removal procedures.
Over Folmar’s objection, Giles himself read Section 3a of the form into the record, “That Maryanne Godboldo has numerous CPS referrals in the last year regarding medical neglect . . .[the child] was prescribed Risperdal . . . .mother refused to give it to her. The mother is in denial . . .she believes [the child] is severely psychotic and out of touch with reality due to immunizations.”
There is also a medical form in Ariana’s file signed by Godboldo giving her the right to take Ariana off the medication for any reason.
Godboldo, who said Ariana had severe adverse reactions to Risperdal, has received worldwide support for her decision to take her off what many medical professionals have determined to be a dangerous drug, and for her stand against the CPS action. Many others who question the side effects of vaccinations have also come to her defense.
Detroit police officer Kevin Simpson testified that he and his partner “received a police run,” and met Wenk down the street from the Godboldo home. He said neither exited their cars, but that Wenk passed him the court order through her window.
Lt. Michael Nied also services in Michigan National Guard
He said he knocked on Godboldo’s door, and she opened the door inside the security gate. He said he asked to come inside to discuss Ariana’s removal, but that Godboldo said she needed to call her attorney. He said he went back to the door with the court order, which he had left in the car, but Godboldo told him he was frightening her child and closed the door.
He said his supervisor Lt. Michael Nied then arrived and knocked loudly on the door before the three obtained a crowbar from Simpson’s trunk. He said Nied yelled “Police,” and pried open a side door, then attempted to kick in a locked door at the top of a set of inside stairs.
“I heard a loud noise from the other side that sounded like a gunshot,” Simpson said. He said the three left the house, Nied with white powder on his left shoulder. He said Nied then declared a “barricaded gunman” situation and summoned the SRT.
Attorney Byron Pitts
On cross-exam, attorney Byron Pitts got Simpson to admit that they had no warrant, only a court order.
Pitts had him read a Detroit Police Department policy which says it is the responsibility of the Wayne County Sheriff’s office, court officers, or a bailiff to serve civil court orders.
“It’s not the official responsibility of the Detroit Police Department?” Pitts asked.
“No,” Simpson said.
“The order is not directed to the Detroit Police Department, it’s not directed to anybody?” Pitts asked.
“Correct,” Simpson replied.
Pitts asked further, “So you were not working in your official capacity, doing your official responsibility?”
Simpson admitted that was the case. Defense attorneys have focused on this issue, because MCL 750.81d, one of the statutes governing charges against Godboldo, reads in part, “(1) Except as provided in subsections (2), (3), and (4), an individual who assaults, batters, wounds, resists, obstructs, opposes, or endangers a person who the individual knows or has reason to know is performing his or her duties is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both.”
Tanks roll down Linwood to Godboldo's home March 24, 2011
After pointing out that the order gave 30 days to execute it, Pitts asked, “Nobody said, hey, let’s come back another day?”
“No” was the reply.
Simpson also admitted that there were no “exigent circumstances” allowing them to force entry into the home without a warrant, such as “hot pursuit” of a person who has committed a felony.
Pitts similarly shot holes in the testimony of Detroit Police Officer William Blake, a member of the department’s Tactical Mobile Unit.
Blake testified that they were backing up the SRT, and that he sat outside the home for about eight hours before Godboldo surrendered. He said he then entered the home to execute a search warrant for a gun. He said he is not an evidence technician and did not know if any had been called to the scene.
Tanks roll down Linwood, during 1967 Detroit rebellion
He said that he found a “bullet hole” in the ceiling leading to the locked door inside the side entrance that Need pried open, and plaster and debris in the stairwell. He said he found a “blue steel revolver sitting on top of a piano” in the front living room, with one spent casing still inside, and that he found a purse with 43 bullets that would fit the gun under couch cushions in the room.
Pitts referred him to his original report, known now as a CRISNET form, previously called a PCR, or “preliminary complaint form.”
“There is nothing in there about a bullet hole, is there?” Pitts asked.
Blake said, “No, just my discovery of the weapon.” Blake also told Pitts that he omitted any mention of the bullet hole from a May 19 report to the Prosecutor’s Office. “I chose not to write it down,” he said.
Daily media reports of the March 24 encounter prominently featured the alleged bullet hole.
“It’s a fair statement to say that you don’t know who fired a shot, isn’t it?” Pitts asked.
Blake responded in the affirmative. He said he did not know if pictures had been taken of the scene or if an evidence technician was ever called to the scene. Continue reading →
UAW Pres. Bob King at 2010 rally in Detroit; it's time to put words into action on behalf of workers, poor
By Gary Walkowicz, Bargaining Committeeman, UAW Local 600, Dearborn Truck Plant.
July 25, 2011
UAW President Bob King said that the union leadership supports profit-sharing, but not wage increases, for Ford, GM and Chrysler workers in the new contract.
If our wages stay the same for the next 4 years, while prices go up, that means our purchasing power is steadily going down. If we can’t buy as much 4 years from now as we can today, then our standard of living has gone down. Let’s say it like it is – a wage freeze is a wage cut.
After years of concessions, autoworkers have already fallen far behind the cost-of-living. Ford workers have had one base wage increase in the last 9 years, while prices for gas and food and clothing and almost everything else has gone up and up. Can we afford to go another 4 years falling further and further behind?
UAW workers participated in historic April 13 march on Lansing state capitol; mobilize the workers and poor, no concessions to the rich!
Profit-sharing instead of raises?
We need our raises and our COLA back. We need something that is guaranteed. Depending on profit-sharing means letting the companies tell us what they are going to pay us. Do you trust the auto companies? Do you really think profit-sharing will pay as much money as getting a raise every year?
The history of profit-sharing shows what a scam it is. For Ford workers, we have had profit-sharing in the contract for the last 28 years. In 8 of those years, our profit-sharing was a big fat ZERO. In 5 more years, our profit-sharing was between $160 and $600 (before taxes). That means, almost half the time our take home pay from profit-sharing was less than $400.
Ford CEO Alan Mullaly brags about profits; he and Bill Ford each got $26.5 million salaries last year, plus stock benefits totaling $98.9 million
The auto company executives themselves are calling for profit-sharing instead of raises. So if the companies are pushing for profit-sharing, who do you think profit-sharing will benefit, us or them? And when their promises of big profit-sharing checks don’t materialize, who is going to help us pay the electric bill, the mortgage and our car note? We can’t live on promises.
Competitive with who?
Bob King says that we can’t demand raises from the auto companies because we have to help them stay “competitive”. Competitive with who? Ford just had one of their most profitable years ever. Was Ford being competitive when Alan Mulally and Bill Ford were each paid $26.5 Million last year? And, oh yeah, Mulally and Bill Ford were also given a total of $98.9 Million in stock options last year. How competitive are they?
For years, they have used this talk about being “competitive” to justify taking tens of thousands of dollars in concessions from autoworkers. Now that the auto companies are making big profits again, they want to sell us the same old crap about being “competitive.”
Hey, Bob King, autoworkers need “competitive” wages so that we can pay our damn bills!!!
VOD Ed.: Tens of thousands of autoworkers who were laid off have yet to be called back while the auto companies boast of a comeback. Meanwhile, Fox 2 News in Detroit targets auto workers found having a beer at lunch hour in their union parking lot. It’s no accident they did this story while contract talks are pending. The corporate media backs up big business including the auto companies. TAX THE CORPORATIONS TO SAVE OUR ECONOMY! PUT AMERICA BACK TO WORK!!
The video above tells the clear story of a police cover-up in the brutal murder of Kenneth Harding, 19, by police as he ran from them July 17 in the predominantly Black and poor Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco.
To read earlier story, click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/07/19/%e2%80%9cwhy-should-you-die-for-a-transfer%e2%80%9d/. That post also details police claims that they found a gun picked up by a bystander in a “parolee’s” house. In an obviously fabricated video, an alleged bystander says he spotted the gun and points it out in HIS video. The police say that due to his help, they located the gun and are running ballistics tests.
Kenneth Harding, Jr.
Now–do tell–suddenly they say they DO NOT HAVE THE GUN, and that Kenneth Harding likely shot himself because the caliber of the bullet they claim killed him (380 9 mm.) doesn’t match police bullets. Anyone ever heard of police throwaway guns. NO? Better educate yourself before you fall victim to one as did Lamar Grable in 1996, victim of three-time killer Eugene Brown, and family patriarch Tommy Staples, Jr., shot to death in an alley by cops in retaliation for his advocacy for youth being harassed by police.
A second video on the tape above details the police killing of a homeless man at a BART station in Oakland July 3. Police claimed he threw a knife at them, and that he had two knives, the exact same description Eugene Brown gave after he murdered Rodrick Carrington in 1995. Now it’s throwaway knives, too.
Rodrick Carrinton, Lamar Grable, Darren Miller, murdered by killer kop Eugene Brown in 1995, 96 and 97;
After watching the video above, it struck me that the same dynamic is operating in San Francisco as operates in Detroit with regard to brainwashing by the major media and so-called “peace advocates” in bed with the police.
The reporter in the video above asks leading questions regarding whether people on the T-train, who are being videotaped, agree with what the police did. “Yes” one says (the police are watching this, remember). But then the older gentlemen blurts out that the “police are messing with everybody in Bayview.”
Tommy Staples (rear 2nd from right); his family won $2.5 million settlement against killer kops
Then the representative of “Brothers Against Guns” says people at the public meeting should have given the police chief more respect. Remind anybody of the Detroit 300 and other so called community activists speaking on the same platform with the top cops?
No wonder there has been no uprising in this city against the murder of seven-year-old Aiyana Jones last year, and the fact that Prosecutor Kym Worthy has yet to bring charges against killer cop Joseph Weekley and the rest of the SRT team that bombed her home and killed her. Families of Eugene Brown’s victims also demanded she bring charges after exposure of the infamous internal police document, “The Shoulders Report,” which said Brown should be charged,, several years ago. But all the cops involved in all these shootings are still on the police force. What is wrong with the people of Detroit and elsewhere?
Did 7-year-old Aiyana Jones have a gun too?
As Frederick Douglass said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are proscribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress… ”
STOP COLLABORATING WITH THE POLICE!!! THE PEOPLE MUST RISE!!!
“We family and friends of inmates, as a specific demographic of Michigan citizens, are being forced to shoulder this burden and fork over the money for this opaque, special secret fund — rather than Michigan going through appropriate and legal measures (budgets, taxes, etc.) to obtain the additional funds? . . . All while I stop subscribing to cable and eat cheap frozen dinners every night so that I can talk to my loved one on the phone? Excuse me, but does this sound like something completely illegal to you? It sure does to me.” 
