That is exactly what is happening. The new “big success” automaker is spending millions hiring lobbyists to squeeze more millions out of state legislatures. As Justin Owen notes, GM has “turned to another, smaller government teat” by putting its hand out to the states. GM, Owen says, “has received another $1.7 billion in taxpayer-funded grants and tax abatements.”

This is no accident of timing, either. GM admitted to the Tennessee Watchdog that begging to the states for tax dollars is a concerted effort.

“We are increasing our activity with the states obviously, in the communities in which we operate. In doing this, we’ve invested more than $6 billion (throughout the states) during the last five years and brought 15,000 people back to work. So, the activity at the state level is important to us. Our lobbying is comparable to what our competitors are doing throughout the states,” said GM spokesman Greg Martin.

For the Watchdog, Christopher Butler found that GM has received more than $1.5 billion from Michigan, $7.5 million in tax incentives from Kentucky, over $10 million from Texas, and over $2 million from Indiana. Ohio and Maryland have given to the GM bailout fund, too, with tax incentives and other giveaways.

Naturally, as these lobbying efforts grow, GM has paid lobbying firms millions for their work, millions that are coming right out of the pockets of American taxpayers both federal and state.

Apparently, making cars is not a top priority for GM anymore. Owen says that, “turning taxpayers on their heads and shaking every penny from their pockets is a profitable corporate strategy for a quasi-public car company. As of last summer, GM sat on roughly $40 billion in reserves. Yet the ribbon-cutting ceremonies with state officials across the country continue like clockwork, with taxpayers footing a lofty bill.”

The main question here is, once all the facilities are open and humming, once all the tax dollars are safely in GM’s pocket, will there be demand for the products that all these new plants are turning out? Is it a good idea in this bad economy to massively expand using the false benefit of government handouts? What will happen if, after all this government aide runs out, GM finds that its sales still don’t justify all these new plants?

Are we taxpayers going to be expected to hand GM billions more because they are “too big to fail”?

In the midst of this firestorm, Judicial Watch took aggressive action, launching a national television advertising campaign to combat illegal immigration. The purpose of the campaign is to collect petitions from the American people to send to the governors of all 50 states, urging them to obey and enforce all laws against illegal immigration. This campaign to encourage our nation’s governors to stand strong on illegal immigration law enforcement has become more urgent now that the Obama DOJ has decided to sue states for merely trying to protect their citizens from the scourge of illegal immigration.

But it’s not just the federal government that is to blame. Some states have decided to side with the illegal aliens, rolling out the welcome mat for illegal aliens through costly and unlawful sanctuary policies. That’s why we’re going national with this petition campaign. The petition campaign is being driven by a series of television advertisements that began broadcasting this week in California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, as well as nationwide on Fox Business News (FBN) and the Military Channel.

In this new national campaign, Judicial Watch asks Americans take a stand on this illegal immigration crisis:

The cost of illegal immigration is a burden on every taxpaying citizen. That’s why Judicial Watch fights hard to hold politicians accountable when they violate and undermine immigration law. Take a stand. Sign this petition and tell your state governor to enforce our federal immigration laws.

The objective of our television campaign is to educate the public and encourage citizens to petition their government in support of the rule of law. Here’s what our petition states (If you’d like to sign off on these principles, then please click here and join our cause!):

• Whereas, the subject of illegal immigration enforcement in America is a matter of preeminent importance to each and every local, state and federal taxpayer;
• Whereas, it’s a fact that illegal immigration touches our lives in many ways, and without a doubt, a portion of the true costs of illegal immigration is in the local, state, and federal taxes we pay;
• Whereas, a majority of Americans agree that the reason we have illegal immigration is that past federal, state and local enforcement efforts have been “grossly inadequate;”
• Whereas, a modest estimate of the total net cost to American taxpayers each year is $113 BILLION;
• Therefore, I, the undersigned taxpayer, call upon you to pledge that you will do everything in your power to uphold the rule of law and obey and enforce all laws against illegal immigration.

Politicians in Washington and in the states want to ignore the illegal immigration crisis while asking taxpayers to foot the bill. Judicial Watch wants the rule of law enforced and we know millions of Americans share our views. Our new television spots are designed to educate and motivate Americans to take a stand against politicians who simply refuse to enforce or even obey the laws against illegal immigration. As I’ve said many times: Every state is now a border state.

The American people cannot sit on the sidelines while politicians continue to allow the illegal immigration crisis to spiral even further out of control. Now is the time for the rule of law to be applied to the illegal immigration problem. If you agree with me, then please click here, sign our petition, and make your voice heard and help us get the word out about the effort. As someone else in Washington is saying these days, “we can’t wait any longer…”

Earlier this month, news broke that a group calling itself the “Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative” is pushing a $1 per pack cigarette tax hike in the state. Via the AP:

A Maryland health group is planning to push for a $1 increase in the state’s tobacco tax.

The Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative says it will launch the campaign next week in an effort to build public support for increasing the tax to pay for public health needs.

[...]

Maryland last raised its tobacco tax from $1 a pack to $2 a pack during a special session in 2007.

Those who follow consumption tax policy will know that state cigarette tax increases have historically constituted a somewhat unreliable revenue stream.

In the event that Maryland’s legislators follow the group’s recommendations and institute the tax hike, it could fail to deliver the funding the Citizens’ Health Initiative evidently seeks.  Recent news has indicated that cigarette smuggling into the state, in several cases involving the sale of cigarettes acquired in Virginia where the cigarette tax is lower, presents an ongoing challenge.

That effort continued this week as we filed a “Motion to Intervene” on behalf of MDPetitions.com, the organization that sponsored the petition drive to place the Maryland DREAM Act on the ballot for the November 2012 elections. We filed the Motion in response to a lawsuit that seeks to deny voters an up-or-down vote on the Maryland DREAM Act. The chairman of MDPetitions.com is Maryland Assembly Delegate Neil Parrott of Washington County; Delegate Patrick McDonough of Baltimore and Harford Counties is its honorary chairman.

By way of review, the DREAM Act was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly and signed by Governor Martin O’Malley on May 10, 2011. The law creates a new taxpayer-subsidized public benefit – the ability to pay reduced tuition rates at Maryland community colleges and public higher education institutions – for certain eligible illegal aliens. The petition drive was perhaps the most successful in Maryland history. The drive collected nearly twice the amount of signatures required by law to put the new benefit to voters in a referendum.

As Judicial Watch lawyers stated in MDPetitions.com’s filing:

As the sponsor of this overwhelmingly successful petition, MDPetitions.com obviously has a compelling interest in ensuring that voters across the State of Maryland have the opportunity to vote on the Maryland DREAM Act in the November 2012 election.

MDPetitions.com represents not only its leaders and organizers and the hundreds of volunteers who worked to make the successful petition possible, but also the 108,923 confirmed registered voters who signed the petition in the exercise of their rights under Article XVI, Section 2 of the Maryland Constitution. In addition, as the creator of a web-based computer program that as many as 28,860 confirmed registered voters used to generate, print, sign, and mail in clear and accurate petition pages, MDPetitions.com has a unique interest in preserving the availability of this…tool for use by registered voters in future petition drives. MDPetitions.com seeks intervention… to protect these…interests against the unfounded allegations of the [lawsuit]…

The filing also included an “Answer of Intervenor MDPetitions.com to Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief,” which responds point-by-point to the allegations of the plaintiffs, who include two illegal aliens and the advocacy group CASA de Maryland.

As Delegates Neil Parrott and Patrick McDonough pointed out in statements issued in conjunction with our court filing, this effort by MDPetitions.com is all about giving Maryland voters an opportunity to have their voices heard on an issue that impacts their families and their communities.

“CASA de Maryland and the illegal alien lobby are attempting to throw out over 100,000 validated voter signatures and ignore the will of the people,” said Delegate Neil Parrott. “It appears that those who oppose the referendum process are doing so because they know how unpopular this bill is and, fearing that they will lose at the ballot box, have mounted this lawsuit to prevent Marylanders from exercising their constitutional right to decide the issue on their own. Marylanders across the state have worked hard to bring this bill to referendum, because they know Maryland cannot afford to subsidize college tuition for illegal aliens and they want to see our existing immigration laws enforced. Maryland’s referendum process has worked, and now Marylanders should have their voices heard at the ballot box.”

“It is a great asset to the voters of Maryland to have Judicial Watch help to make sure that Marylanders will have an opportunity to vote on this important issue in November of 2012,” said Delegate Patrick McDonough. “As Honorary Chairman I know the volunteers worked hard to make this petition campaign the most successful in the history of the state. This is the people’s petition and the voters have the right to exercise their power on this key issue.”

MDPetitions.com followed the letter of the law in its overwhelmingly successful petition drive, and there is no question that the Maryland DREAM Act should be put to a referendum. The illegal immigration lobby simply wants to keep Maryland voters from having their say on the issue of taxpayer-funded tuition benefits for illegal aliens. Because they well know that the American people are fed up with bankrolling perks for illegal aliens.

Given Maryland’s devastating budget crunch, now is not the time to spend taxpayer dollars by paying for the education of illegal aliens who can’t legally work in Maryland or anywhere else in the United States.

After a conference with the court last week, we expect that the court will allow our client to intervene and defend its interests in this litigation.

Among the speakers at the rally was AFL-CIO top boss Richard Trumka, who hit the highlights of his usual class-warfare stump speech:

“Madison is just the beginning, this right here is only the beginning, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Trumka before an energized and cheering crowd. “Scapegoating teachers and public workers is bad policy and it’s flat a** wrong.”

Trumka said the larger fight remains between the “haves” and the “have nots.”

“When the rights of workers in one state can be stolen, all of us should feel a little less secure,” said Trumka. “This is about the corporate CEO agenda that equals more, more, more for them and less, less, less for us.”

With labor battles sprouting up throughout the midwest, Trumka remained optimistic that the people will prevail.

“Together, we’re a movement,” said Trumka. “We stand for our children and grandchildren, and tonight, you have been heard.”

That Maryland is controlled by Democrats and that the budget cuts the protesters were protesting have been proposed were proposed by Democrats was apparently lost on the protesters, as well as Trumka. Especially as the keynote speaker of the evening was the very governor proposing the cuts: Democrat Governor Marty O’Malley.

As noted by the Maryland Reporter:

It was a bizarre finale to a rally that brought thousands of state workers and teachers to Annapolis to protest cuts in pensions, retirement benefits and pupil spending. The last speaker was none other than the man who had triggered the rally by proposing the cuts: Gov. Martin O’Malley.

“I don’t like this budget either,” O’Malley said in a short speech. He was met by cheers, some grumbling, and the evening’s chant of “Keep the Promise.”

He proclaimed his strong support for collective bargaining rights for public workers.

“Our state is not like other states,” the governor said. “You will not find in Maryland the sort of Midwestern oppression that you find in Ohio and Wisconsin.”

The mixed messages at the rally were a sign of the co-dependency between the public officials who rely on teachers and unions for their base of support and the public employee unions that rely on the governor for their funding.

A “mixed message” is an understatement. With a governor bashing other states’ solutions to the mess public-sector unions and their political puppets have helped create by gaming the system, O’Malley’s pandering to the union crowd is nothing less than hilarious hypocrisy.

_________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted on RedState.

She learned about lemonade stands after seeing one in a cartoon.  She got excited and wanted to open one of her own.  And so Julie’s mother worked with her to get everything together and set up shop at a fair in Northeast Portland, Oregon.

20 minutes after opening, a government official approached and asked for their $120 occupational license.  Of course, they had no license.

And so 7-year-old Julie, the budding entrepreneur, was told to shut down her lemonade stand or face $500 in fines.

Julie and her mother were encouraged by others to keep the stand open and ask for donations instead.  Business picked up, and the regulators returned.  This time they made Julie cry.  They also got their wish:  Julie’s mom shut down the lemonade stand.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of licensing gone wild.  Rather it is a classic example of a national problem that affects countless people in America every day.  Institute for Justice President Chip Mellor wrote this week in the Washington Times:

Mired in a nationwide jobless recovery, state and local governments have the power to create jobs and transform communities if they do one simple thing: Get out of the way of aspiring entrepreneurs.

Unfortunately for small businesses, however, laws restricting economic liberty are becoming more commonplace in America. Consider that since the 1950s, the percentage of occupations in the United States that require people to obtain permission from the government in the form of a license before they can pursue their chosen occupation has grown from a mere 5 percent to more than 30 percent.

Consider a few recent IJ cases:

• In Philadelphia, it is illegal to talk about the Liberty Bell for money without permission from the government.  Unlicensed tour guides are subject to hundreds of dollars in fines for talking about the place where the Declaration of Independence was written.

• In Texas, eyebrow threaders are getting hit with $2,000 fines.  Bureaucrats expect threaders with up to 20 years of experience to immediately stop working and spend approximately $20,000 obtaining 1,500 hours of instruction from government-approved beauty schools that do not even teach threading.

• In Maryland, Mercedes Clemens was threatened with thousands of dollars in fines and criminal prosecution unless she stopped . . . massaging horses.  The state’s veterinary cartel said only veterinarians could work in the growing field of animal massage.  All practitioners were forced to attend four years of vet school, where massage is not even taught, or shut down their businesses.

• Until IJ filed suit, it was illegal in Louisiana to sell and arrange flowers unless you had permission from the government.  You had to pay for a special license, which required you to take a test that was graded by existing florists.  When IJ first filed suit, it was harder to pass the flower test than to pass the Louisiana bar.

At best, these laws simply create pointless red tape.  IJ recently profiled a series of entrepreneurs in a campaign called The Power of One Entrepreneur.   These studies demonstrate that the best way for government to encourage economic growth and job creation is simply to stop preventing people from growing the economy and creating jobs.

At worst, these laws allow powerful insiders to protect themselves from competition.  Sadly, federal courts have sanctioned this abuse of government power.  In 2004 the 10^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in Powers v. Harris:

[W]hile baseball may be the national pastime of the citizenry, dishing out special economic benefits to certain in-state industries remains the favored pastime of state and local governments.

Our courts should not allow such blatant protectionism to occur.  And our legislators need to stop handing out special favors to politically connected groups—and do away with the needless barriers to entrepreneurship.

Does anyone really believe that Julie Murphy should be fined $500 for operating her lemonade stand?

The Gazette response, typical of leftist news media everywhere, displays in microcosm the arrogant myopia that is driving newsrags out of business across this nation. Who in God’s green earth do these people think they are? When and how can any problem be addressed if every controversial proposal is attacked and written off before it is even aired? This is precisely the kind of attitude that gave rise to the Tea Party movement and it is causing a seachange in national politics. The Gazette should take note. Trouble is, liberals are so smug and self-righteous, they can’t see reality even when it is dangled in front of their noses.

Unfortunately, it is the rest of us who pay for their self-serving, destructive polices, and we are frankly fed up. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer deserves credit for braving the denizens of political correctness to enact the Arizona bill. She has set off a chain reaction that has already seen similar legislation proposed in at least nine other states.

Before they start criticizing the Arizona law, which mirrors federal law – not that such irony would ever stop them –  Obama and the Democrats should read the sixteen page bill. Or maybe they should learn why it is the federal government’s failure that prompted passage of the law in the first place. The Montgomery County Gazette got exactly one sentence correct in their diatribe against McDonough when they said, “The federal government basically has abdicated its would-be, should-be role.”

Of course they immediately negated any hope of intellectual redemption by reverting to form and advocating for Congress’s latest try at an amnesty bill.

Oh yes, the Democrats and maybe one or two really stupid Republicans are proposing immigration “reform” like they did in 2007. But as in 2007, it is nothing more than an amnesty bill, and we already know from the 1986 law, that amnesty doesn’t work. It didn’t work then and it won’t now.

But that fact is irrelevant to Democrats, because it is not designed to work. It is designed, like practically everything else that Democrats do, to undermine the rule of law and overwhelm federal, state and local crimefighting, health and welfare budgets according to the Cloward-Piven Strategy of Manufactured Crisis, while securing more reliable voting blocs. This last is an especially high priority for the Obama administration and Congress this year because they are going to need every vote they can get to keep power, and they know it.

The Los Angeles Times, which seems to be coming somewhat to its senses lately (it correctly recognized Senator Barbara Boxer as not having “adequate intellectual firepower” for the job) had the decency to allow Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform to make the case for the Arizona law in an OpEd. But that the Gazette, or the Baltimore Sun for that matter, should be so open to first amendment expression. To wit:

• [Arizona] state taxpayers spend more than $2 billion a year on education and healthcare for illegal immigrants and their children
• kidnappings in Phoenix are at an all-time high
• criminal drug, illegal immigrant and other contraband smuggling is epidemic
• Arizonans have endured decades of federal neglect of immigration enforcement
• killing last month of rancher Robert Krentz — police suspect by an illegal immigrant — is only the latest graphic example of widespread lawlessness on the border

The left deliberately raises the strawman argument of “racism” and “racial profiling” to distract from these critical realities. Arizona’s problems are being replicated all over the country as a flood of illegal immigrants, including criminals, terrorists and gangs bring with them violence, diseases once thought to be eradicated, like tuberculosis, and overwhelming burdens to our welfare system, the courts and medical facilities.

A  2006 report from the Dallas Morning News spotlights just one of these issues. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 requires hospitals to accept pregnant women in need of emergency help, and imposes a $50,000 fine for violations, so no hospital can turn down illegals. But Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas goes further, offering free prenatal care to pregnant mothers.

Not surprisingly, Parkland gets the lion’s share of indigent and illegal immigrant mothers. Some of its statistics are eye-popping. For example, a 2006 patient survey indicated that 70 percent of mothers who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of that year were illegal immigrants. In 2004, the hospital spent $70.7 million delivering 15,938 babies.

Yet Parkland is proud of its service to the community and is not troubled by the high cost. As Parland’s CEO said, “We are the safety net hospital for Dallas County, and these folks are residents of our county.” Nice sentiment, but as always, the wise bet is to follow the money. Parkland earned a profit of $7.9 million in obstetrics that year – a hefty 10 percent return! Nice work if you can get it.

So who pays for this cadillac care to indegents and illegals, many of whom are taking advantage of the services to have anchor babies? According to the News article, about $44 million came from state and federal Medicaid funds while Dallas County taxpayers shelled out $31.3 million.

Once again, the taxpayer is on the hook so why should the hospital care?

Like the Arizona law, Del. McDonough’s proposal would give law enforcement the teeth it needs to tackle this problem. And in Maryland, thanks to the Democrats’ sanctuary state policies, the problem is immense. According to a report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform:

• There are currently about 250,000 illegal immigrants in the State of Maryland.
• Illegal immigrants cost Marylanders $1.4 billion per year in education, medical care and incarceration. This represents 70 percent of Maryland’s current $2 billion budget deficit.
• Between 2002 and 2008, the foreign-born population in Maryland grew by 34.6 percent. Meanwhile, the number of students requiring english instruction has grown a whopping 93.7 percent!
• Marylanders spend more than $966 million annually on education for an estimated 80,800 children of illegal aliens.
• nearly $250 million additional is spent on providing special English instruction to an estimated 35,000 children of illegal aliens.
• Almost 10 percent of public school children in Maryland have illegal immigrant parents.
• These costs would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as assistance programs for needy families or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers or resulting from depressed wages were included in the calculation.

Given the high proportion of mindless living in Maryland, McDonough may well be tilting at windmills, but the worm is turning, and if someone doesn’t act nothing will happen.