I frequently criticize the Michigan Dems for their approach and tactics but they scored a home run with this new ad/video called “Governor Snyder’s First Three Months on the Job”.
I apologize to those with crappy innernetz connections or video-blocking firewalls. The video is essentially a montage of news reports about Snyder signing the Emergency Financial Manager bill into law, gutting funding to education, closing over 20 state police posts including the ones in Detroit and Ypsilanti!, reducing state unemployment insurance benefits by six weeks (the shortest in the country) and planning to tax public and private pensions. It comes back repeatedly to his statement that he’s “Reinventing Michigan”. The closing tagline is “That’s not reinventing Michigan, that’s RUINING Michigan.
I recently attended a presentation by the Director of the Michigan House Fiscal Agency, a nonpartisan group that advises the State House of Representatives on fiscal matters. His name is Mitchell Bean. He was blunt. When you look at the rhetoric about what the Governor says are his priorities (education, revitalizing cities, e.g.) and then compare it to his budget priorities, you realize the gigantic disconnect.
Here are some of the cuts his budget contains:
- 5.8% cut in corrections
- 26% reduction in human services
- 45.1% cut in higher education/community colleges
- 23% cut in school aid
- 53% cut in revenue sharing
- 22.4% cut in transportation
One of the things Bean said that stuck with me is that running a government and running a business are not only different, in significant ways they behave 180 degrees opposite of each other. During an economic downturn, a business sees a decrease in the need for their product or service. Therefore, their inputs go down, matching up with their outputs going down. However, during economic downturns, the need for government outputs (in the form of services) increases, despite the fact that their inputs (revenues) go down.
Rick Snyder was elected Governor without one day’s worth of experience running a government. He is a businessman, pure and simple. And it shows in his budget priorities in painful and cruel ways.
The Michigan Dems have it right in this video. That isn’t reinventing Michigan. It is ruining our fine state.
Good stuff. Please, sir, may I have some more?
I’m just sayin’…
