Gov Granholm’s tax hike is the wrong or right thing?

Response to Nolan Finley "Gov’s (Governor Jennifer Granholm) tax hike ploy is reckless" in the Detroit News on November 15, 2009.

Intro of Finley piece:

"There's something Gov. Jennifer Granholm isn't mentioning as she barnstorms the state to leverage the deep cuts she orchestrated in school funding into the sales tax hike she's long coveted. The governor isn't telling angry and fearful parents that there's at least $1 billion, and perhaps more than $2 billion, in education money to be had if she'd stop obsessing over the fact that there's still a few dollars left in our wallets she hasn't taxed.

"She's absolutely looking for taxes and ignoring the low hanging fruit that could be had from reform if she had the leadership to pursue it," says Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who's tired of Granholm blaming him for the cuts. "

Another Clip:

"House Speaker Andy Dillon has proposed placing all public employees into a single health insurance pool to save, he says, $900 million. But that's going nowhere, again because of the MEA's opposition and Granholm's indifference.

It's a reform that wouldn't cost a single teacher job. And as an added benefit it would make obsolete the MEA's insurance affiliate, MESSA. MESSA is sitting on an estimated $450 million reserve, money skimmed from the school districts it serves. It would be worth exploring whether the districts would have a claim on the money if MESSA was reformed out of business."

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Gov’s tax hike is the right thing

Would to God Nolan's neck were not so stiff and frozen in a naysayers nod. Perhaps he needs a therapeutic message, hopefully he could afford such.

One has to wonder if Finley can make a move without consulting with that hovering covey of cathouse ideologues at the Mackinac Center or the one-note, business first last and always, State Chamber of Commerce.

Just a quick review of the unfolding of the Mackinac Center’s  "50 fixes for Michigan" shows the real agenda that drives Nolan's thought patterns.

Looking back over years of clippings from the News and other papers plus reading and rereading those columns, statements, news items, releases and editorials from statewide sources, one realizes that for well-over 20 years the Detroit News has been hamstrung by repetitive and negative attitudes and has been short-sighted, if not a blind-sided ideologue paper trumpeting long-sought goals that do not embellish or improve the public square or the common good.

As much a negativist and as self-serving as John Engler was, he was always a pragmatist.

I recall observing first hand his going into the Republican State Senate Caucus for a desired purpose and coming away angry and empty handed. Did he huff and puff publicly, like the much weaker, milquetoast Michael Bishop? No. Engler simply sent into the GOP caucus Al Short, MEA's head of governmental affairs, and got the result he needed.

Sen. Bishop is tethered to an oath not to raise taxes and he is powerless, if not helpless to do anything but obstruct and obfuscate both the governor's leadership and the general public's desire, which polling shows, would support some tax increases to tide the state over this very difficult period of economic downturn.

To quote John Engler from his State of the State in 1997:

"Being for public education means making sure that every school, every classroom, every teacher, every student is safe."

"BEING FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION MEANS KEEPING EDUCATION OUR TOP PRIORITY!"

"One key to quality education is quality teachers. Proud, passionate -- these professional men and women are making a difference in the lives of students every day. That's why I was outraged to read in the Detroit News that in one high school this year nine teachers have been assaulted."

"When teachers are attacked in their own classrooms, academic performance is also a casualty. I may be old fashioned, but it seems to me, if a student lays a hand on a teacher, that student is gone."

And so what did Engler put forward? Confrontation and stalemate, No, never. He called for collaboration and cooperation from two well-known sources, the Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association.

Here's the Engler quote:

"Further, I invite the leadership of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association to join with us in developing and passing this legislation."

Finley's sour cynicism and harping has resulted in comments such as this from whyareyousoangry, Rochester, MI:

"(Finley's) logic--if there is any--is laughable, and I am SO tired of his hatred of teachers, state workers and anyone else who worked for any of the automakers, EXCEPT the company CEOs who mismanaged them into the ground. Finley loves company execs, even when they are proven incompetent. It's a viewpoint I can't wrap my head around, as the EDUCATED owner of a small business trying to make it in this state. He is a great example of why people like me cannot stomach the Republican Party anymore." And the comment concludes: "I am not the only one who thinks Nolan Finley is nothing but a worthless shill for a few SE Michigan moguls. Hope those moguls are ready to bail the Detroit News out when all the readers are gone."

Pretty Boy Bishop is running out of time and electability for any future statewide office. He must sense it now, and what can he do? He's lost control. Mike's caught in the timeless methodology and inertia of a state legislature that has gone "out to lunch" in terms of tackling the real problems of Michigan, or should we say "out to hunt?"

All the arguments and comment about how dire the situation is, and how desperate the legislature is to resolve it (with more taxes or without) are "blown away" by their craven self-indulgence and stoic indifference to the needs of children and families in this once great state. We say "get to work!" Get to work co-operatively right now.

In this crisis, which incidentally is just one of many from the past, relabeled "the 2009 budget crisis," has all the ingredients which are basically the same; repeated often in the last 20 years, the projected solution always includes some form of "reform" and as relates to education. The "crisis" always includes demanded give-backs or something punitive.

A lot of foul hot air goes into the rhetorical posturing, such as the recent You-Tube speech of Sen. Alan Cropsey, where he projects the blame wherever he likes (his favorite whipping object, MEA), but not at his own stiff-necked party of covenant-bound hostages, held to a foolhardy oath extracted by the out-of-state no-tax wingnuts the GOP has come to fear more than the state's economic collapse.

Many taxpayers would gladly give a $1 a day to move Michigan forward.

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