(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
In the wake of the feudal take over of the State Of Wisconsin by the Republican corporate puppets with a bill that stripped state workers of their bargaining rights, the fight has moved now to Michigan where the feudal lords have passed a bill with far over-reaching powers that would give the state the power to to remove elected officials and dissolve union contracts. Gov. Rick Snyder is going to sign this medieval take over of government. This is a clear assault on the rights of the people to elect officials and disincorporated or dissolve entire city governments.
This isn’t just about unprecedented power but placing the brunt of deficit reduction onto the backs of their state’s public employees, students, and middle-class taxpayers with regressive tax cuts (pdf) while simultaneously enacting corporate tax cuts and giveaways. On of the proposals by Snyder is to cut corporate tax rates by 86% while ending the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, cutting a $600 per child tax credit, and reducing credits for seniors, while also cutting funding for school districts by eight to ten percent. This is starting to sound like England in the 12th century under King John which led to the signing of the Magna Carta and a rebellion. Robin Hood may be a myth but the principles are not.
Rachel Maddow explains Snyder’s plan to take from the poor to give the his corporate overlords.
There was a small demonstration in at the capitol building in Lansing on Tuesday sponsored by the AARP. The big demonstration will be today with bus loads of protesters descending on Lansing with bus loads of Michiganders telling the lords that they cannot have their hard fought for rights.
From Michael Moore of Michigan:
Friends and neighbors,
The call has gone out and I’m asking everyone who can to take Wednesday off and head to the State Capitol in Lansing to protest the cruel and downright frightening legislation currently being jammed down our throats.
What is most shocking to many is that the new governor, who ran against the Tea Party and defeated the right wing of his party in the primaries — and then ran in the general election as “just a nerd from Ann Arbor” who was a moderate, not an ideologue — has pulled off one of the biggest Jekyll and Hyde ruses I’ve ever seen in electoral politics.
Governor Snyder, once elected, yanked off his nice-guy mask to reveal that he is in fact a multi-millionaire hell-bent on destroying our state and turning it over to his buddies from Wall Street.
In just 8 short weeks he has:
* Gotten the House and Senate to pass bills giving him “Emergency Management” powers such as the ability to appoint a corporation or a CEO who could literally dissolve town governments or school boards, fire the elected officials, nullify any local law and run your local governmental entity. That company then would have the power to immediately declare all collective bargaining contracts null and void.
* Proposed giving business a whopping 86% tax cut while raising everyone’s personal taxes by 31%! And much of that tax hike he believes should be shouldered by — I kid you not — senior citizens and the poor! He says these two groups have not been “sharing the sacrifice” the rest of us have been burdened with. So his budget proposes a $1.8 billion tax CUT for business and a $1.75 billion tax INCREASE for the rest of us, much of it from the poor, seniors and working people — even though the top 1% in Michigan ALREADY pay a lower state tax rate than everyone else does!
* Together with the legislature, introduced over 40 anti-labor bills in just the first two months of this session! They have wasted no time and have caught most people off guard. Much of this is being rushed through right now before you have a chance to raise your voice in objection.
These actions are breathtaking when you realize they will drive our already battered state straight into the ground. What we needed right now was an inspiring leader to help us reinvent Michigan and to find creative ways to create new jobs and lift us out of our economic depression. The rest of the country may call what they’re experiencing the “Great Recession,” but few argue that Michigan is suffering a “one-state Depression.”
We stand with the citizens of Michigan tomorrow.
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