Response to Daniel Howes in "Crises necessitate emergency managers" in the Detroit News on April 22, 2011.
A commenter reporting in from (Mt.) Olympus, Michigan has grown giddy breathing in all that anti-public sector gaseous blather. Defending our sacred right to ignore the poor, with the bromide: "Our poor are rich by comparison." This intentionally misleading assertion does not account for what it means to be poor and unemployed, or worse yet mentally ill and/or unemployable in present day Michigan.
Food banks, homelessness, and re-sale shops, all of which now abound, testify to real needs or our neighbors. The new blight and seedy/greedy "licensed to steal" store fronts e.g. the Cash Advance and the Title Loan Outlets are covering the old Main Streets like a black-leafed kudzu.
Then comes Danny Howes: His message, blessed by the billionaire Koch Brothers and "Amen-ed" by the crudely partisan TeaPublicans, is: "The EM law would not threaten democracy if elected officials and those empowered to represent public employees instead trained their finely tuned political antennae on financial reality and charting a path out - because someone has to get the job done."
Howes might have had help developing the physical/mental flexibility to swallow his own tail like unto some mythical beast, when he so twists his flawed analysis of the serious nature of Michigan's "one state depression" into a contorted mis-truth such as his screed of local government: "Boil it all down, and the biggest rap against Michigan's stiffened Emergency Manager law is that it's anti-democratic."
The entire nation is looking on. Michigan has become the focus of dread and awe. Is this what a Republican Majority cowed by a smattering of anti-tax, "we got ours, go get your own" rowdies can do to a powerful state in real trouble?
Lead into the taller Weeds, Howes.
You're taking opinion in this state further to the bottom; in a manner that is so blithely arrogant and condescending that its bitterness, in you opines, cannot be assuaged or sweetened. In fact, Howler Howes, your interpretation of the Emergency Finance Managers' purpose runs 180 degrees to Gov. Snyder's envisioned purpose of that new act: Preventive Help.
"An EM could privatize public services, restructure departments, rewrite supply contracts, assess the affordability of pensions and post-retirement health-care obligations and - the Big Kahuna - reopen collective bargaining agreements."
The Big Kahuna, as Howes so inelegantly labels this crisis, is demeaning to the citizens, first responders, teachers and a fleet of others you give over to the privatizers and the high-fee lawyers-all of whom like bottom feeders, will harvest for themselves much of the savings you pretend to believe will be garnered by this Corporatist Take Over of Michigan's local governmental units.
Remember the top yearly pay allowed for an EFM is limitless, even beyond the salary of the governor. Over 300 EFM's have been "trained" that is run through a crip course. Danny, how many places do you think they will be needed?
There are scores of DetNews regulars who will agree with Howe's assessment: "There would be scant need for a new law empowering state-appointed outsiders to make the hard choices for municipalities and school districts if the people hired to make those choices in the first place actually did their jobs." But agreeing with Howes' pronouncement does not detract that the coming crisis, on top of the current crisis, the crisis created by Snyder's cut off of historic block grants is part of his Retro-Englerite advisers' Rube Goldberg tax-and-shift; the outright giving of approximately $.2.2billions to Snyder's base, the business community stolen from education, the poor, the elders. And what have these businesses done to earn bonanza-this gift outright?. .....That's right, Nothing!
Howes has blackened the reputations and integrity of every local governmental official in the state when he snidely concludes in his delusions and deductions: local governmental officials as a class are slackers: "(T)hey mostly don't," do their jobs properly or professionally. Put down that tarry broad brush.
Howes sees Michigan as diseased. Everywhere he sees, " symptoms of a disease whose cure begins with an honest, disinterested, financially sound assessment of where a locality or school district stands, what its revenue is and how the two can be reconciled free from the push and pull of power politics." Howes' shortsighted criticisms are invalid and decidedly injurious to the Michigan commons.
How over-extended is Howes' logic. He picks the "richest county" in Michigan to use as a dashboard for the state: Oakland Co. Even in the Kingdom of Patterson, roads turn to rubble, snow goes un-plowed, pot-holes do their damaging havoc, but Howes sees a bit of hope (in what may still, yet be a downgrading ) in Oakland's AAA credit rating.
Collectively all of these "incompetents" (as outed and so labeled by Howes) see the emanate dangers and the coming storm: "It is completely understandable for elected officials, union leaders and (semi-informed) members of the news media (caught an MSNBC rant on Michigan's new EM law, lately?) to rail against the apparent anti-democratic hooks of the controversial EM law." But Danny is more knowledgeable than these, more sure of his prejudices, he is, for sure his own favorite "expert". Yet Rachel Maddow has shown light in a very dark corner; Howes obviously must look away.
The problem is in Lansing, Danny. It's the deadhead TeaPublican Legislature, it's their inability to see that things are - actually in an upward trend. The main problem is they're fans and water carriers of A.L.E.C (The American Legislative Exchange Council- a secretive far right/pro-corporate and secret legislative bill mill) and also perennial partisan enemies of unions and public servants. The public reactions will continue. Recall efforts are underway. When 1,000 march in Marquette, even a paperboy knows there's real discontent and change in the air.
If Howes wants to be a cheerleader for Grover Norquist and his anti-civic gaggle of bathtub-drowners and silly "NO TAX" Pledgers, let him go to D.C. and ply, take up, his twisted trade on K Street.
Howes would have us believe its all about lack of money-state revenues. No Danny, it's much more, it's about a culture of greed and resentment from many encouraged to whine rather than participate; People talk radio agitated and refusing to share in the responsibility and obligations of freedom and citizenship.
Gov. Milliken faced similar budget crisis problems; his good faith and belief in people; and a consensus to find real, across-the-board sharing; and even a temporary raise in taxes combo, brought us through former tough times.
Look around, the wide-spread Koch Brothers' coup being rammed through state legislatures across America; represented in part by their paid mercenaries and the front they created, Americans for Prosperity; It becomes clear the Mega Wealthy have an "bum's rush" agenda designed in their favor.
This is an all-out attack on the Middle Class and a usurpation of dreadful opportunity created by a G.W. Bush induced near-Depression-crash of our national economy. For Bros. Koch, Amway, The Wal-mart Waltons, et. al. It has become an prime "disaster capitalist opportunity" to cash in on economic woe to carry out ideological and partisan reprisals and massive "take-backs."
For shame, Howes, in all of this you've become part of the greater problem, not the cure.
Original Post.
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