While outraged Americans were transfixed on the happenings in Wisconsin, where a Republican governor was busy inventing reasons to silence the public employees of his state, another governor was floating along, doing the very same thing in his state, with little media attention.
Rick Snyder, Republican governor in Michigan got his union busting bill approved by his fellow Republican in the state’s senate and the state’s assembly, and any day now, Mr. Snyder is expected to sign the bill into law.
And this bill will give “over reaching” a whole new meaning. It will have the power to determine whether any district in Michigan is failing, terminate the positions of the elected officials of that particular district, and allows Snyder to assign anyone he sees fit to run that district. So the voters are left cut out of the process when it comes to who’ll run their district.
These new appointed officials will have the authority from Mr. Snyder to void any contracts the districts or municipalities may have entered into. Included, will be contracts with unions and their collective bargaining and school programs.
The bill also creates additional taxes for the middle class and the poorer sections of Michigan. The revenues gained from this new tax, figures quoted at $1.8 billion, will be given to the rich in the form of a tax cut.
Michigan’s AFL-CIO president, Mark Gaffney tells Politico;
“Michigan politicians have capitalized on our state’s budgetary woes in order to ram through legislation that rather than create jobs, takes away even more rights and resources from Michiganders and instead gives an unprecedented amount of power into those connected to the governor. As hundreds of thousands have chanted in Wisconsin, ‘This is not what democracy looks like.”
5 replies on “Another Republican Governor, and More of The People’s Rights Disappear”
You can be sure that many, many Republicans voters will be secretly crossing the blue line to vote Democrat, Indepedent, …anything but the damn GOP and their Corporate mobsters in 2012.
@ Theresthatbear – Viva La Resistance is right!
And thank you and your daughter for all you’re doing there to show your solidarity towards the people, and not the Corporatist Republicans and their attempt to dismantle the middle class. America owes you both all our gratitude.
Keep up the pressure. Justice must prevail.
LOL. Thank you P.F Bruns. Sometimes in the haste to publish, little unseen mistakes slip through. LOL.
The headline should read “Another Republican Governor, and More of the People’s Rights Disappear.”
Hey Ezra,
thank you for so much for giving this so much attention. My 11 yr old daughter and I were at the rally for the entire 6 hours. The lawn of Lansing’s Capitol was full the entire time, the police estimated the crowd at 6,000! I will Tweet some great photos soon. All the local news channels were there, at least 25 people took my daughter’s picture to post on their website, and I was interviewed for DetroitJobSearcher.com. I think we will have a lot of statewide press. But looking at some national news I see “hundreds turned out”. The speakers were fantastic!!! And I was so grateful for the Wisconsin protesters that came all the way up to show their solidarity. Viva la resistance!!