Michigan Republicans Go Off The Deep End

According to Rick Snyder, wealthy businessman and freshly-minted Republican governor of Michigan, the state, which is approximately $1.4 billion in the red, requires "shared sacrifice" to solve its budget problems. So how does that shared sacrifice work?

*His $45.9 billion proposal includes spending cuts for schools and would eliminate many personal tax breaks while slashing business taxes. Among the proposals: ending exemptions from the state income tax for most pension income.*

OK, we get it - You sacrifice your tax dollars, and your school funding, and he shares the proceeds with his business buddies.

This shouldn't be a surprise - businessmen make lousy, lousy governors precisely because they think like businessmen. They think in terms of businesses, not people; their natural affinity is to other businessmen, not to the workers that make up the vast bulk of their constituency. The bottom line is profit, not people. People don't count that much to businessmen like Snyder, particularly people that can't work anymore:

“Lansing politicians say everyone must share in the sacrifices, yet the only ones making the sacrifices in this unfair budget are seniors, schools and ordinary families,” said Henry Lykes, a retired Marine and retired Wayne County public service worker. “Lansing politicians must stop exploiting Michigan’s budget as an excuse to attack ordinary Michigan families, seniors and our children. I know a retiree in Westland who is struggling to get by. If Gov. Snyder taxes her retirement, she may have to cut back on her medicines, or even food. That’s just not fair.”

And with that sole motive comes a disdain, if not an outright dislike, of working people, especially union people, which is why he's been moving to bust unions in the same way Scott Walker has in Wisconsin.

All of which sets up the really seriously radical, undemocratic, un-American moves Snyder is pushing for, along with the Republican majority in the Michigan Legislature:

Newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is set to pass one of the most sweeping, anti-democratic pieces of legislation in the country – and almost no one is talking about it.

Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.

Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That’s right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.

Think about that for a moment. These are a dictator's powers Snyder is seizing. Simply by declaring an emergency, the Governor, by fiat, can dissolve local governments, hire a corporation from out of the state to come in and tell everyone what to do and how to do it, and you're forced to pay for it. The good people of Michigan, who have been designated "sacrificers" in the new regime of "shared sacrifice," will have absolutely no say in how their town or county is run.

And how will the Emergency Managers, these Republican commissars empowered by Snyder to so dismantle local governments, perform their duties?

Because the bill establishes no process for how appointees can carry out their new powers and specifically lays out that Emergency Managers need not consult with a community’s elected representatives, some worry that corporate managers, appointed by the governor, could liquidate community assets to cover debt and leave towns no better off than they were.

What values will guide these individuals or firms as they work to balance budgets?

How will a manager decide whether to sell off an ice rink or a library?

The Treasury Dept. is in the process of training potential Emergency Managers, so the Messenger asked for some details of the training in hopes of better understanding the motivations and priorities of the folks who may soon take over our schools and towns.

It turns out the training itself was mostly outsourced to the law and accounting firms — Plante & Moran, Plunkett & Cooney, Miller Canfield, Foley & Lardner — already involved in emergency financial management of Michigan towns.

And none of this is about the budget. It's all about busting up unions, and, even more importantly, selling off state functions to corporations. Because as we mentioned above, businessmen think only of profit, and there's no profit in letting a government perform a government's functions. Republicans like Snyder want only to privatize your government so they and their buddies can make a profit off of you.

The inimitable Rachel Maddow has more:

This is Republicans showing their true colors.