Often times Michigan does not get the national attention it deserves, because their totalitarian Republican governor is not as flamboyant as the Koch suckers in charge of Ohio, and Fitzwalkerstan, formerly Wisconsin, but here’s some information about the harm that he and and the Republican party are imposing on the neediest Michiganders in order to increase corporate welfare.
In the last few weeks of 2011, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) rounded out his concerted campaign against Michigan workers with a few final laws. In a prejudicial move against the LGBT community, Snyder signed a measure prohibiting all public employees from providing benefits for their unmarried partners. In considering his state’s 10.6 percent unemployment rate, Snyder also signed a law forcing some of Michigan’s over 400,000 unemployed workers to take low-wage jobs after 10 weeks of benefits, even if those jobs pay less than they were making before:
The measures require some unemployed workers to take new jobs after 10 weeks of benefits even if the available work is outside their previous experience or pays lower wages than they were making before. They also make it harder for someone to collect jobless benefits if they’re fired for cause or leave a job voluntarily.[…]
Snyder disagreed with critics who say requiring jobless workers to take a job paying 120 percent of their weekly benefit could trap them in a low-wage position by leaving them little time to look for work in their area of expertise.
“It’s to encourage people to work. It’s not to have them go backward,” Snyder said of the legislation. “It’s easiest to find a job when you’ve gotten a job.”
This new requirement comes in addition to Snyder’s decision to cut the availability of unemployment insurance from 26 weeks to 20 weeks starting in 2012. The measure also encapsulates Snyder’s priorities over his first year in office — placing the burden on the most vulnerable for the sake of the state’s bottom line… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
In the midst of his assault on public employees, whose contracts he undermined, and unemployed workers, whose needs he ignores, Snyder had no trouble finding funds for another corporate tax cut. Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and corporate criminals. They do NOT represent YOU!
16 Responses to “Snyder Goose Steps Backward”
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Snyder was another of the same who campaigned, not on being a whizkid or hero but just that maybe a Nerd could fix the states deficit problems. Same as the other Mid-western governors did. He never laid out a plan but as soon as he was able he started running the legislation he’d been working on as a private citizen through a completely red controlled government. Don’t believe that there weren’t 50,000 people in Lansing protesting this but he had no ear for it or for the hundreds of thousand of emails. There is also a good start on a recall rick campaign but to be honest, I doubt it will go anywhere.
<ainly the state is divided north to south with the Eastern part of the state being blue and the Western reed. It’s always been this way. The problem as the home of Reagan democrats, a lot of the switch hitters were tired of Granholm the Democrat governor who came into office beginning in the third year of the slide started by John Engler her 3 term (he’s the reason we term limit state politicians)predecessor. She started off her two terms with a deficit and hemorrhaging jobs. This was long before the ’08 crash.
Odd thing about people here they don’t vote their wallets as much as they do their false hatreds, thinking everyone who has no job or can’t get to one is a black welfare rat stealing money from the state. When the truth here is that our infrastructure in regards to public transportation is almost non existent and the largest corporations that still hire here are on the West (conservative) side of the state, This is exactly the manner in which Engler started his administration off, closing all mental hospitals and clinics. cutting all pass through grants to larger cities and then cutting off the $125 per month every homeless person qualified for to use for food and hygiene products. He had a balanced budget for awhile but he kept cutting more and more, especially from Detroit all the while just dumping them who once were residents of those same hospitals and clinics off on the streets of Detroit and if you have no insurance…to bad.
Now we are in the same sort of situation, the right leaning court is allowing Snyder to violate almost at will the state constitution. I was a civil servant, my pension was protected from taxes as a part of a formula that for years kept our wages below private sector wages because in the end they would not be taxed. Starting next week I do not get a pension but rather income from the city which then makes it legal to tax at 4.3%. That alone I could live with but now the city wants to tax it at 3% and i believe that the Federal government will follow suit and it is then my wife and I fall below the poverty level but without any deductions. Ouyr situation is about the typical one for retirees in MI. We could move I guess but then I didn’t run 30,000 jobs out of Michigan and set up a business friendly environment where they will have their corporate HQ here but there profit streams over seas. leaving the unemployed just as unemployed as before. People are now willing to work for minimum wage or less if it lets them keep their home for another month, and get their food from the food banks because the governor has also cut the $ stipend and amount of $’s for food to the poorest residents. Limiting the benefit to 48 months then off gone from the roll never to be allowed back on.
48 months being a lifetime benefit. What I find is funny is that Federal government funds each person for 60 months (doesn’t strictly enforce it) but Snyder will then have a bigger pot of Federal money designated for one thing but hasn’t said how the state will distribute it. I do know he hasn’t said he will send the excess back. and yes come Jan 1 anyone who has been n “welfare” more than 48 months immediately loses the cash portion and by next November they lose the food stamp portion. Because that is what the churches are fr, ya know to like feed the hungry.
Be Well and even if you don’t vote as I do at least VOTE!!!
Mark, thank you very much for insight that could only come from a local. Is people voting their hatreds rather than their wallets the reason the recall election failed?
You gotta give Michiganders at least some credit. They have recognized Snyder for the A-Hole that he is (doesn’t explain WHY they elected him, but giving credit where credit is due): Snyder’s polling Approval is now BELOW 20%!
It could not happen to a more deserving cretin.
There is no end to the lies and the cruelty of people like Snyder— A repiglican to his black heart– “Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and corporate criminals. They do NOT represent YOU!“
Thanks Phyllis. I agree.
I could not have said it better — “Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and corporate criminals. They do NOT represent YOU!”
From the analysts story: Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst . . . “I felt we’d been hosed.” I think a lot of people in a lot of states feel this way about the Republican/Teabagger policy of divine right to rule omnipotently.
That’s why I keep saying it over and over again.
I agree!
When are they going to put this asshole in jail? Recording someone without their permission is a felony.
When are they going to put this asshole in jail? Recording someone without their permission is a felony.
Where does the John Birch Society get these really fucked up ideas? The UN doesn’t have the resources to take over the world.
And without our money, they’d be bankrupt.
Good Question, Lisa.
Partially from National Socialism, partly from the KKK, and partly from the Asylum.
Sure, would!
When are they going to put this asshole in jail? Recording someone without their permission is a felony.
Where does the John Birch Society get these really fucked up ideas? The UN doesn’t have the resources to take over the world. And without our money, they’d be bankrupt.
Sounds like another idol threat from Iran. If the block the Straights of Hormuz, they are going tobe pummeled by the US Navy and Air Force.
Me too! How lucky is he to be born in Hawaii?
See above.
Hope it is ldle.
Really!
I live in the 4th city taken over by this cretin’s “emergency managers”, he has over 200 trained managers as of early last spring. He also had talked about selling the “problem cities” to his corporate friends for pennies on the dollar. I do not know where this will leave the people living in those cities if he does this and it should be illegal to do this in the first place as Rick Snyder does not own the land or anything else in the state. You get the idea he thinks hen is either God or Monarch of this state and not a so called public servant. His buddies have already privatized the water in Pontiac. They have forbidden the people of Benton Harbor to go to the public park/beach that was donated to the city for just that use decades age as his 1st emergency manager wants to make an upscale professional golf course and country club there instead. And BTW that manager owns the company that makes these golf courses and yearly fees are $5,000.00 a year. Average income of people in B.H. is $10,000.00 a year. Plus it is over 90% black, and this is one of their answers to bringing jobs to Michigan. Have not heard what they plan to do with Eacorse or Flint yet.
I didn’t vote for him, but I did sign the recall petition which did not have enough names for Novembers ballot but we did recall Paul Scott, his pet political boy. The petition gatherers are hoping to have enough names to have it on the spring time ballot. I did hear that Snyder was already working on his 2014 run for governor last October while people were still collecting names for his recall, talk about crude. The sooner he is gone the better.
Rick Snyder, former owner of Gateway Computers who bought the company when it was E-Machines and shipped out jobs to China and then bankrupted the company is like another former Rep. candidate who ran in the past in Mi. Dick DeVos of Amway fame. Yet another repug who took our jobs from Michigan and then tried to run on the lies that he knows how to bring jobs to Michigan. Yeah right, we have seen their past track records and they speak for themselves. I just still do not understand why those who vote these people into office fail to see them for what they really are.
Welcome Deborah! 🙂
Thanks for an excellent perspective on conditions there. I certainly hope that your next attempt to recall Snyder succeeds.
BTW, congrats! 😉