Amber Arellano has struck a firm mile marker in the budget ballyhoo:
"Pitting poor working families against school children is about as low as you can get in politics, but that's exactly what Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop is doing. This is a sign of how far we have fallen in Michigan".The poor are not on the Republican radar (as they once were under Gov. Romney and Gov. Milliken,) as they should be.
Today's Michigan Republican legislator is largely a "Gault" guy or gal. From their actions the very thought of altruism is an ugly perversion. These are market fundamentalists; elected they believe to protect and promote business, first, last and always. In their minds business is the first and highest order of their legislative responsibility.
These hardhearted folk are not the free individuals, the stand alone heroes that Gault would inspire. They are cowering under the taxnut crazy quilt which forces them, by sworn covenant with the tax haters "not to raise taxes" not now, not never.
These individuals, fancying themselves "rugged individuals" and towers of moral principle, are in a practical political sense civically insane.
Of course there is a time and place to oppose certain taxes, given very well defined and vigorously defensible logic. But to hold to "no compromise" on taxes is akin to a tantrum prone infant in a fit of piqué . So to make a fool's promise and be forced by party discipline and those greatly feared national forces to which the "no taxes" pledge was made, then to doggedly keep that promise, means compromise is out. No compromise, no politics, no hope of consensus, no good outcomes. So it comes down to the Republicans versus the poor and the disadvantaged.
GOP gridlock. Mike Bishop would like to freeze the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as a method of raising revenue. If he does so he will put a vicious hit on the least able to pay. What must this man be thinking?
Arellano continues:
"The EITC is a tax break for working poor families. To understand how critical the EITC is to a working family today," writes Amber Arellan, Detroit News Columnist, "In recent years Michigan has become known as one of the worst states for working lower-income people. We heavily tax working poor folks, while letting Bloomfield Hills and Ann Arbor families (myself included) skate by in comparison. Until recently, Michigan had the nation's third-highest tax on a single parent of two children living in poverty."Pretty Boy Bishop has to do something. His hopes of future statewide office are fast fading. He calculates the poor don't vote, wouldn't vote for him anyway, and are poor for reasons of personal defect or slack habits, no doubt. If they were otherwise, his appeals to shelter them from the present economic harm would be entirely different.
Republicans see the core city Detroit only from the freeway, they repeat the outstate myths which disassociate Detroit from "their" Michigan. Like Big John and Sisco (WIND AM, far right radio in Chicago) joked today, "Just fence in Detroit as a maximum prison." That's a totally specious and brutal way to dismiss our state's obligation and part in Detroit's plight, but it's real sentiment similarly shared by a boat load of outstate tax and government haters.
Enter the "where's-the-peanut" in the ageless shell game. It's true that, if GOP'ers are not going to raise revenues, then cuts, and sharp cuts at least, are going to be made. The trick for Bishop and company is to hold out on "no new revenue" and/or accuse the opposition of inflicting the cuts, and put the blame for the hurt on the other party.. Bishop wants cuts (not Granholm's cuts, but cuts under his control and at his discretion).
"He complains constantly about how unfair Granholm's cuts are to schools, acting as if he is the one who is getting hurt by state budget cuts, when he is the one proposing to damage people. THIS IS NUTS". [emphasis added]
There are plenty of other fat cows to cut before gutting poor folks' grocery budgets, writes Ms Arellano.
Bishop believes he has the luxury of putting the blame on Gov. Granholm and the Democratic Party, even though everyone knows it's not the Governor's intention to rely on the current "cuts" without gaining new revenue to put together a budget that is fair and balanced as far as possible.
Ms. Arellano Concludes:
"So now when the going gets very tough, both sides want to do what's easiest: blame one another, whine like bratty children and work to undermine kids' classrooms and poor working families... Could these people get any lazier and more ridiculous? The budget crisis requires all of us to step up and make sacrifices"Her suggestion: "Michigan's tax system, stuck in the 1950s, needs to move to a modern sales tax base and graduated income tax, and tax services such as pedicures and dry cleaning.
These taxes would disproportionately burden women (how many men get pedicures, really?. More from Arellano:
"So let's go for some gender balance here. The beer tax has not been adjusted in decades. In comparison to other solutions, protecting the Earned Income Tax Credit makes a lot of sense."It's refreshing to read such insightful assessments and practical advice from the pages of the Detroit News.
"Overwhelming research shows when poor and working-class families get a tax break, they spend the money immediately -- on food, children's clothes, real needs -- unlike wealthier families. Thus, such tax breaks are highly effective economic stimuli."
Amber, you go girl!
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