All right, Governor Rick Snyder, stop fooling around. This is a prank, right? This is some hoax you and Ashton Kutcher came up with for the biggest “Punk’d” moment of all time, right?
Nope. We’re doomed. Snyder is shafting Michiganders. His plan? Privatizing prisons, screwing democracy, dumbing down the people of Michigan, reaping benefits from the poor, and investing that money into corporations.
Snyder’s plan is to eliminate deductions for pensions and place a tax on them. In the name of “shared sacrifice,” he also plans to increase tax rates for the entire public so he can then spend billions of dollars on private corporations in Michigan.
During his campaign, Snyder’s ten-point plan to reinvent Michigan said he “believes that we need to reduce the tax burden on families and businesses in Michigan.” Instead, Snyder is doing a fantastic job of depriving the poorest citizens and the working class residents of Michigan by increasing their personal tax burden.
Thanks to Snyders’ timely signing of a bill for the unemployment program, unemployed residents will be given an extension for federal unemployment. In that bill were changes that will now include a reduction from 26 weeks to 20 weeks of state-paid unemployment benefits.
Another change in this bill was a cut to the unemployment insurance program benefiting corporations that were required to pay for insurance for their unemployed workers. Michigan is now the only state that offers less than 26 weeks of state-paid unemployment benefits and is also one of the hardest states hit by unemployment.
Both of these changes were not mentioned as Gov. Snyder announced that he signed the bill. In fact, he made it appear that this was a positive thing for unemployed residents of Michigan.
“In signing this bill, the governor has tried to distract Michiganders from the full story, seeking to portray legislation that includes a drastic and permanent cut as a ‘protection’ for the unemployed,” said Senator Carl Levin.
Currently the governor is running our government focused solely on benefiting corporations. Instead of caring about the people of Michigan, our governor wants to give corporations $1.8 billion in tax cuts.
The governor gave no warning for any of the changes he has made to our government during his campaign. Many people have been betrayed.
Snyder didn’t come out and say, “Hey everybody, vote for me, I’m going to make your local government officials useless and tax the hell out of you.”
The people were not given any warning. We weren’t asked to vote on anything. Most people didn’t know about it until after the bill was actually signed.
Unfortunately, matter what the party line is, politicians only look out for their corporate benefactors.
The only thing the people can do is speak up by sending letters to government officials’ offices or by signing petitions. We’re not helpless; there are ways to create change as long as that right is not stripped away from us too. n