The National Institute on Money in State Politics is the only nonpartisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states. Our comprehensive and verifiable campaign-finance database and relevant issue analysis are available for free through our Web site FollowTheMoney.org. We encourage transparency and promote independent investigation of state-level campaign contributions by journalists, academic researchers, public-interest groups, government agencies, policymakers, students and the public at large.

Taking a look at the Michigan Elections from 2008, obtained from FollowTheMoney.Org we can see that the total dollars contributed to candidates: $22,582,236 based on 98% of reports for candidates that were collected. (FollowTheMoney.Org; February 11, 2010)

The above report demonstrates the actual contributor, total amount donated to various candidates, percentage of the total amount donated and the sector they are associated with. The below report demonstrates the top 20 industries and their total amounts of campaign money that was shifted towards candidates.

A significant amount of data is collected on a state to state basis with automated ways to reorganize the data to connect individuals, candidates, and organizations to issues and campaign financing related matters through the tools made available by The National Institute on Money In State Politics. I certainly thank them for making it freely available and hope that others find it useful as well.

The FairTax Movement is a site dedicated to encouraging an alternative tax reform structure that reduces government bureaucracy, invasive government practices, and increases government transparency.

The government is invasive, needs to be more transparent, and should consider alternative tax reform policies. In order for the government to consider those proposals the public must demand it. This site is provided free to the FairTax Community and we are proud to support individual and group efforts for tax reform.

If you would like to volunteer and contribute to the FairTax Movement project, simply send an email to info@fairtaxmovement.com.

*We will be consolidating this site with another project between February 2, 2009 and February 5, 2009 and the site may be unavailable during this three day period.

I guess the one disappointment that I have had this month are the number of updates I have had to make to the Family Court is Deadly Business Article that I have been compiling since 2007. I have linked the updated version here. I continue to encourage people that when you see a divorce related death to forward a copy of this article to the reporter or editor that is managing the local story so they can truly see the effect of adversarial divorce on children and parents.