While Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tried to directly attack workers by stripping away collective bargaining rights, Michigan’s top official is waging a similar attack on workers, the elderly, and schoolchildren. And this “tough nerd’s” attack has been more cunning, and in some ways, harsher than Walker’s approach.
Rick Snyder’s plan to “reinvent Michigan” apparently entails fairly standard, run-of-the-mill corporate thuggery, something his vastly under-funded opponent, Virg Bernero, warned us about during the lead-up to the 2010 election: give tax breaks to wealthy companies and make everyone else pay, and pay hard, to fix the state’s budget crisis.
Snyder has chosen to deal with an $1.8 billion budget shortfall by giving $1.8 billion in tax breaks to companies. By squeezing hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents just a bit more than they are already, Snyder will be able to pay for his tax giveaway to the rich, and possibly balance the budget too.
It is understandable changes need to be made in order for Michigan’s economy to work again. Eight years of Jennifer Granholm’s dishonest or delusional assurances that a vague “green economy” was just around the corner and ready to lift Michigan out of deep recession certainly wasn’t cutting it. But Snyder’s ideological plan goes too far.
Snyder’s Republican colleagues (only one state Republican voted “no”) have vested him with “emergency financial manager” powers. It sounds like some kind of nerdy superpower. And tough? Yes, but to the point of possibly being unconstitutional, and certainly anti-democratic.
The emergency financial manager law allows Snyder, himself, to appoint an emergency financial manager to unilaterally take over a struggling school district or local municipality. The emergency manager has no salary cap or term limit, and serves “at the pleasure of the governor.” The emergency manager can override publicly-elected boards, seize assets, strip unions of collective bargaining rights, cancel labor contract agreements, force a municipality to place a property tax millage on the ballot . . . the emergency manager, in other words, has a lot of power.
Every single Republican state representative in the Upper Peninsula (there’s only one Democrat) voted for Snyder’s draconian bill: Senators Tom Casperson and Howard Walker; and Representatives Matt Huuki, Ed McBroom, and Frank Foster. It is a sad day when folks elected into public office based upon a message of being anti-big government and pro-democracy choose to come down so hard on their own constituents by vesting Snyder with kingly powers.
Former Wisconsin governor Robert M. La Follette once warned that democracies, too, can produce oppressive rulers:
“We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results. Now, there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life; and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.”
Political representation is supposed to be a fluid, always changing process. Sure, Rick Snyder easily won election over his under-funded opponent, but that doesn’t mean Michigan citizens must endure Snyder’s thuggish anti-worker ideology for four years. Already, polls indicate Snyder would lose his seat if the election happened today. Snyder should be responsive to this.
A group has formed to recall Snyder. firericksnyder.org even has a countdown clock on its website reminding viewers how many seconds must pass before signatures can be collected in an effort to oust the new governor.
Recalling the governor is likely a difficult battle but is something Michigan’s families, workers and retirees may well rally around. After all, we voted for a governor, not a king.
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Great story Gabe.
It is sad – even sick – that both Republican (Snyder) and Democrat Governors (Granholm) were bought off by Rio Tinto/Kennecott.
This also goes for most of the other Upper Peninsula and Michigan politicians with the big exception of Congressman Bart Stupak – who resigned.
If that were not true they would have answered reporter’s questions about their financial connection to the mining giant.
Rio Tinto and Kennecott’s ongoing international crime spree includes the rape and robbery of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior.
Those who support this crooked company now – with change their tune when the Kennecott’s well known disregard for worker safety causes a cave-in of the proposed underground mine.
And current supporters will change their tune when Rio Tinto/Kennecott has exhausted the rich nickel deposit on the Yellow Dog Plains and moves on for greener dirt – leaving behind an environmental nightmare that will be cheaper to litigate for decades than clean up.
Upper Peninsula residents who support this mine should be stripped of their Yooper status and be forced to forever wear a big scarlet “K” on their chest.
Better yet a “KKK” standing for “Killer Kennecott Kohort” – again this would be humorous if not the disgracefully sick consequences of Michigan’s incestuous relationship with Rio Tinto/Kennecott.
On my drive to work into the southwest gate of my employer’s industrial campus, there is an Elk Crossing sign – still there was two elk-car accidents last year. On the south-east end of the campus, we often see antelope. Along the west side we often see mule deer and too often find ones killed by deer-car accident. On the north east side we have to chase away the bighorn sheep, and the cougar. Along the east side the rancher has several hundred head of angus. I work at an open pit mine with 950 employees, 1/2 of our copper is obtained by acid leaching and the other is through milling and flotation. Ravens pick thru our dumpsters, quail scramble thru our grasslands, ducks swim in our tailings ponds, coyotes burrow into our hills. If you watch closely you may see a badger, a fox, a ringtail cat, a horned owl, a road-runner, or a black bear. If you don’t watch closely you will run over a cottontail or jack rabbit, or one of those narley javalinas. Honest.