Michigan's John Engler: The Judas who led the Public Away from Public Education and Civility

John Engler’s personal crusade to eliminate public schools has at its heart the weapon of “Faux Public School Academies” better known as “public school charters.” Charter Schools are direct descents of Neo-Jim Crow Segregation academies .  These are schools siphoned off taxpayer dollars for partisan and ideological purposes.

Charters are mainly privately-run , proprietary operations funded with tax dollars taken from traditional public schools funding sources - one clear major steppingstone in the take-down of traditional public education as we have known it.   The yellow pages of the Deep South are crammed with private and religious academies run to provide schooling for white parents’ children - with every intent to support and expand paid segregation via public tax dollars.

What a long awaited dream is being achieved via for-profit “charters!”  Using chartering and vouchers to fund these separatist operations (with public tax dollar creates a separate educational and social apartheid.  Using local and state tax dollars to re-segregate the south (and the entire nation) is a wholly unworthy accomplishment (Much MORE on Engler and Charter Schools below).

Decades Long War on Unions: Protesters hold "Stop Engler at Northwest
(Airlines)" signs and pass out John Engler Flyers in May of 2006

First Some History: Nasty was the virus infused into Michigan Politics by John Engler
No amount of sophistry or interpretation of the present "sorry state" of Michigan politics and/or its immediate future can ever factor out the corrupting cynicism and bone-ugly operations of John Engler.

Engler's revolutionary angst and bitter many years of partisanship has produced a maelstrom of civic negativity in his aftermath. Many "Englerites" (and there are plenty surrounding Rick Snyder) conditioned and trained in the "Englerisque" ways have continued and matured in "bad habits" with regard to how state government is run and how the legislature behaves-late night sessions, straight party voting, and verbal bullying. Engler's part in term limits has come to be a disaster undermining good government. His appointees and friends are still scattered around the workings of this state, unrepentant if not aggressive.

One of Engler's most visible undermining achievements was his part in creating the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - a perpetual negativist voice that has near unlimited access to both the Detroit News but many of the other newspapers and media outlets in the state. Mackinac Center's voice is an echo and a replay/update of that of Engler.

Engler planted this very bitter seeds of divisiveness in this state and also in the nation. It was Engler who, in full support of Newt Gingrich, encouraged the complete shut down of the federal government to embarrass Bill Clinton and the Democrats.

It was "Big John" who royally rewarded Engler cronies with highly placed state jobs and salaries which actually exceeded his income as governor. It was Engler who participated in and surfed off the effects of the 1983 recall efforts in the state.

The cruel and unthinking explosion of 89,000 singles from the welfare rolls and general assistance with one quarter being mentally ill and another quarter "unemployable" under heavy protests from the religious community. It was Engler who attacked the state's mental health programs in search of cost savings. Parents with children suffering with mental disorders had to take their children out of state for treatment because of Engler's revolt and ideology.

The stacking of the Michigan State Supreme Court with highly loyal and politically activist judges, one of whom telegraphed his opinion on a famous case, losing his probity for even-handedness. The amount of money raised and spent to elect the Engler Three to the state supreme court was patiently obscene.

The huge expansion of the Michigan prison system under Engler, as a state industry, has resulted in many of our current corrections imbalances and difficulties. The decline of the state started its momentous downhill, run-away pace under Engler. Jobs were being lost from 1990 on. Engler's replacement jobs, if you recall, were at McDonalds, WalMart, and Menards, hardly the living wage jobs required to live nominally in this great state.

Engler's sops to business were ineffective in building up the US manufacturing base and he was always ready to say more tax cuts would improve what in fact got worse-by projecting blame on some other entity or group.

The propensity of Engler to favor certain corporations and lower their taxes created structural deficits, many of which compounded the huge debt he left - to be covered by his successor, Jennifer Granholm. This was all at a time when the nation had a period of huge deficit reduction and surplus, and a booming economy.

Engler and George W. Bush deliberately and systematically ignored the need to bring General Motors to account for its ineptitude and disregard for sound business practices. Bush's right hand man, Andrew Card, knew the inner workings of the auto industry and was ineffective in making the difference which was required.

No one wants to remember G. W. Bush. Among Republicans is name is trash. Bush's will carry into history the burden of his ineptitude and an uber-cowboy attitude which took this nation and the world to the brink of economic disaster and disrepute. Engler's sticky fingers are all over the tarnished silver platter he used to deliver goodies to his insiders and cronies.

When it came to Engler's legacy, following his governorship, he was deemed unacceptable for a position in the Bush administration. Then as a highly visible and as the overpaid head of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Engler compounded the mistakes John made in Michigan, inflicting them on the entire country.

Engler's part in the demise of Northwest Airlines and his perpetual support of outsourcing and manufacturing in Communist China over and against the pleas from such groups as the tool and die manufacturers in Southeast Michigan, who cry out for regress of such grievances. As one loyal and supportive Engler contemporary has stated, there are those who would like to have the "fat boy" back.

Engler's a mindsticker. Ask the state's teachers about Engler. He's well-remembered and still greatly-disliked. The entire state breathed a sigh of relief when Big John left the state, but he still makes his appearances like his latest visit to CMU.

John Engler as Corporate Thug: Union Bashing in Blood-sport Englerite Politics
(Original Cartoon in the MetroTimes Series on John Engler by Curt Guyette 1999-2002)

Engler dropped his proud proclamation of his Engler Revolution when it became obvious that the public was fed up with that term.  But his undercutting the stability and necessary functions of state and local government by revolutionary means continued to the end of his tenure.  Keep in mind a revolutionary TAKES FORCEFULLY FROM SOME to gift those takings to others he favors, there’s nothing civic-minded or healthy about that.

Engler’s role as a fire-breathing pugilist politician became well-known.  Porcine and in-your-face,  (Engler is literally the model of "Godfather Politics" adopted by Chris Christie of New Jersey)  Engler was side by side with (and devising) Newt Gingrich’s infamous and dangerous total shutdown of the federal government in the 1990’s.

At one point in Engler’s escalation of personal braggadocio, the then governor donned a leather Hell’s Angel-style black leather biker jacket and strutted about; proud of his new and expanding tough bully image.  Engler believed he had achieved his goal as the man who had made Michigan governance the throny nest of those whose mantra was “Death to Public Service.” To this day, John M. Engler is a man with a malevolent, indelible image and remains the perfect archetype for vulture politics.

Back to Charter Schools...

John Engler - Master of Predatory Politics - The Judas Who Led the Public Away From Support for Local Democracy in Education

Central Michigan University’s Center for Charter Schools was recently renamed to honor Engler, by some of the folks he appointed at CMU. At the renaming ceremony in Mt. Pleasant John Engler had this to tout:

"We can announce today charter schools are here to stay" ….“Competition and choice are here to stay."

The Detroit News account of this event noted on May 22, 2012:

“Monday's dedication festivities at CMU reflected on the legal, political and social struggles Engler and charter school proponents have endured while highlighting new laws allowing unlimited charter schools in Michigan after 2015 and an expansion of cyber charter schools.” 

And so the Engler Revolution slogs on!

Engler and Charters
Engler’s ensconcing of Charters at CMU was but one part of his personal “revolutionary” master plan. Engler announced at the Harvard University School of Education, May 3, 1995 (Box 123, Engler Records, Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) and made himself crystal clear as to where his passion was and where his efforts were leading.   In ten years Engler hoped to render the education unions inoperable.  Destroying the professional associations for educators would then give him entre to an entire plethora of destructive legislation and ideological opportunities.  John M. Engler never reached that goal as governor, but his successors (with the ardent help of many Rad Right think tanks and civically subversive groups like the secretive Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Rick Snyder) never relented.

Currently under a CEO/Boss Rick Snyder (who sees himself the “executive hire” in sole command of Michigan) and with the help of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (A.L.E.C. in which Engler is an important, long time operator  and committed proponent /supporter) and the Tea Party Republicans or TeaPartisans (funded by such anti-public education mega bucks as Walmart, Amway / Dick & Betsy DeVos, and the Koch Brothers) the push is on to complete the felonious work of Engler. 

See Also the exhaustive article: "Public Money Finds Back Door to Private schools" in the New York Times on May 22, 2012.

Michigan Was Not the Earliest Leader of the Charter Movement, That Distinction Goes to Minnesota

It was not Engler and Michigan who were the leaders in the origins of the charter movement.  Historically “chartering” was a teacher envisioned concept for real improvement in education and schools utilizing less administration deadweight and over-regulation,  hoping that by ramping up autonomy and innovation they could do great things for kids.   It became apparent to the determined critics of public education that “charters” could be easily co-opted, and so they were.   “Chartering” as a competitive wedge, an anti-neighborhood public school device (incentivized by privatizing and appeal to long sought sectarian goals) could be used to undermine the entire taxpayer funded system.

Undermining public education had taken root in the radicalism of the Cult of Ronald Reagan and was fully expressed in Reagan’s anti-public union action: the PATCO Action - where the aircraft controllers of the nation were summarily fired.

CMU is a poor excuse for a Teacher Training Institution:  Why was it made Engler’s center for Charters?

Such schools as CMU fall into a category where “the schools that train our teachers are known to be "under performing." To illustrate, "fewer than 70 percent of graduates [of our schools of education] meet state licensing requirements.... Sandra Feldman, the [former] president of the American Federation of Teachers...acknowledges that the quality of teachers isn't high enough."

Central Michigan University has had since 1996 an opportunity to retool, become a premier and singularly outstanding teacher prep institution.   Instead, it chose to  take the easy path, accept the 3% management fee offered for overseeing the Englercentric faux public charters (CMU now loosely supervises over 50 charters with 30,000 students receiving the foundation grant at about $7,000 each).  Meanwhile the university remains a sub-standard venue for teacher prep.

For a powerful account of Engler's lachluster history and more on CMU's Charter School initiatives read Michael Hanley, Democratic Michigan State House Leader in 2000, in "The Political Brutality of John Engler Over the Issue of Charter Schools":

"Charter schools may be sponsored by a variety of governmental institutions. Unlike traditional public schools, their boards are not elected by the public (or even the parents of their students). Unlike private schools, they are financed by public tax dollars. Proponents claim that charter schools will make traditional public schools better by creating competition in the educational marketplace. Opponents argue that some Michigan charter schools have been poorly managed and have not delivered results in test scores. These claims are supported by several critical reports authored by Michigan universities and think tanks [Mackinac Center and others].

State law allows any local school district, intermediate school district, and most community colleges to sponsor an unlimited number of charter schools. However, state universities are limited to 150 overall. In his 1999 State-of-the-State message, Governor Engler called on the legislature to eliminate this cap on university charters. A united House Democratic Caucus and about nine House Republicans have resisted this initiative. This bipartisan coalition continues to believe that additional accountability measures, such as a certification requirement for teachers and expanded oversight of how public tax dollars are spent by the schools, should be in place before the university charter cap is raised. Of course, some legislators believe that charter schools are a generally bad idea, and do not support expansion under any circumstances.

It deserves to be noted that one of the reasons the Governor insists on removing the cap is that Central Michigan University - the state's most aggressive charter authorizing institution - has reached its limit for granting charters.

And who appoints the Board of CMU? John Engler."
{emphasis added)

Man Who Did Nothing Else Butt: A life-long Government Employee
and Politician (with 3 government pensions), John Engler Hates Government

John Mathias Engler is a Master at Utilizing Government to Undermine Government

Engler’s gamesmanship with various aspects of tricks and schemes devised to distort or control branches of Michigan government knew no bounds.   He shifted aspects of the Michigan State Board of Education to the State Treasury Department. He purposely under-funded the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSER) retirement fund. According Michigan State Senator Glenn Anderson:

“Republicans want to blame our teachers and our school workers for the issues with the current retirement system, but the real problems started 15 years ago when Gov. John Engler made severe changes to how the system was operated. MPSERS had previously been prefunded, but Gov. Engler decided to take the lid off the cookie jar and start stealing money from the fund to fill other budget holes. Now, former, current and future school employees are being unfairly punished for the mistakes and financial mismanagement of their benefits by the state.”

Engler devised many other means to obfusticate and to purposefully undermine programs and organization(s) he wanted to REVOLUTIONIZE.

Source: "GOP's attacks on retirees must stop" by Glenn Anderson on DailyKos (May 2012)

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."

Just words to fill in the time looking back, fake whiskey talk used to gin up support for his major overhaul of not just education financing, but the whole public perception of Public Education.  Perhaps no single individual has done more, going out of their way to make the lives of Public School teachers in Michigan lives more miserable and more publicly attack teaching as a profession, that Johnny Mathias Engler.

NAM and Damn
John M. Engler coming off term limits, and failing at his short-lived, only private sector job at EDS, was hired to run the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) a very right of center, right-wing infested, anti-union amalgamation of interests working against American workers and as an aggressive partner with Communist China.  From its earliest days NAM has been a perfect match for Engler.

Even back in 1903 the then radical NAM President “David MacLean Parry  delivered a speech at its annual convention which argued that unions' goals would result in ‘despotism, tyranny, and slavery.’ Parry advocated the establishment of a great national anti-union federation under the control of the NAM, and NAM responded by initiating such an effort.”   Eight years later, “In an address at its 1911 convention, NAM president John Kirby, Jr. proclaimed, ‘The American Federation of Labor (AFL) is engaged in an open warfare against Jesus Christ and his cause.'”

Engler’s All About Power & Money
John M. Engler is reputed to have received a million dollars a year to pontificate and expound at his NAM post.  Not bad for a “kid from a family farm near Beal City,” a legislative loner who honed his command of government minutiae and insider operations to the point he was once hailed as the “Butcher from Beal City” for his savage and relentless attacks on the mentally ill, the homeless and many other aspects of Michigan’s infrastructure and operations using government-to-destroy government.

Go ahead rebrand Central Michigan’s Center for Charter Schools with the name “Engler,” but know full-well that such a label on the public university’s infrastructure has degraded, not enhanced, the image and mission of that state institution.  The Engler Center for Charter Schools would rather have been a perfect fit for Hillsdale College – well-fit to that rogue institution’s overall mission and purpose.

On the Reader:

• "The Real Engler Revolution" and Engler series by Curt Guyette (MetroTimes 1999-2002) (Note: On-line archive no longer availible - Use Lexis-Nexis to access).
• Read about Engler's Michigan "Virtual High School" history (page 24-25) and history of "Virtual Education" used to create defacto vounders system. 
• Engler as "Public Official of the Year" in right-wing, ALEC funded "Governing" magazine in "Remaking a State through Ideology and Determination" (2001), creating $1.3 Billion "Rainy Day Fund" and... 
• Then read how Engler depleted that fund and hacked State Revenues as he left office in 2002 in "Rick Snyder’s Michigan Data: Reversing Engler Mistakes by Reviving Them (Slash, Burn, Repeat…)" (February 2012).
• More history on the political fights between Dems and John Engler on Public School funding and Engler's appointment of the CMU Charter School Institute board in "The Political Brutality of John Engler Over the Issue of Charter Schools" by then Dem House Leader Michael Hanley in 1999.

Related Slates:
The Ugly History of Engler’s Attempt at What He Praised as “School Reform” During the Engler Revolution in Michigan (April 2011) - Nerd Snyder Goes Engler’s Mississippiafication of Michigan One Better: Rick’s Kicked Michigan’s Future Right Into the Crapper (April 2011) - Before Rick Snyder Removes the Michigan Public School Code, Step Back to the Engler Revolution: What  Will NO CODE Mean? (April 2011) - John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan (March 2011) - The Governor (Granholm) Must Lean on the MEA to Accomplish the GOP Senate's Radical Goals (December 2009)

More on Michigan Public Education on the Gazette.

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A Fully Electrified Detroit News Jim Crow Campaign Lights the 'Dark Clouds of Fury' with Neon Intensity

The drumbeat of Jim Crowism published by Henry E. Payne IV and his cast of "All Stars" at the Detroit News is now the accompaniment to a massive neon display with serial blinding flashes. These folks want to take down Detroit, and they want it down now. Mayor David (Dave) Bing, having raised resistance, feels like a "token" caught in the machinery of the cog works prepared by planners at the Mackinac Center and by elites invited into the Business Leaders for Michigan corporate cabal, the new “Big Boss.”

Planner and elites alike are steamed and they want Bing out of the way! But how?

Do they really think Mayor Bing should simply take the humiliation of being handed a consent decree? Without adequate time to even read it? Much less to digest its extremely important content, and then frame his reactions and assessments concerning its ramifications?

Just sign the order, ‘Mister Mayor!’ caws Michigan View's Blog Prof Chris Kobus, who pounced on this new opportunity when he saw an opening: Detroit must be made to realize it is now totally under the jurisdiction of the government of the State of Michigan.

Says Kobus, the city government of Detroit, including Mayor Bing, must be put under the EM laws and the authority of Snyder/Dillon “when that body gets out of line." Why? Kobus says because "I point out that Detroit does not operate in a democracy but rather under hegemonic domination of a single party and has for over two generations now."

There it is. A vast exaggeration and accusation not met at all by facts. The rub for creators of the new Jim Crowism is that minorities, especially Blacks tend to support the Democratic Party in large percentages; therefore, their behaviors as elected officials of the City of Detroit and as Democrats do not "operate in a democracy”. They are “beguiled” and “incapable of self-rule” in Kobus's Jim Crow view.

Recycling the Racism Fight: Civil Rights Congress
anti-Jim Crow Button (Cira 1948) (Tamiment Library Collection NYC)

The new Jim Crow supposition: Blacks can't or don't act in a genuine democratic manner; therefore, the Emergency Manager (EM) takeover (forced bankruptcy) of the City of Detroit is perfectly proper, if not absolutely necessary, on the part of Snyder and the TeaPublicans--now so solidly in charge of Michissippian-style governance. Here again, the News's electrified Jim Crow editorial campaign in service of the EM flashes neon for the Planners: TeaPublicans, Mackinac Center, and the Business Leaders for Michigan.

Michigan View Editor Henry Payne, in his own Jim Crow-style added digs against Mayor Bing. In his tart tome, “A DETROIT LEADER” March 14, 2012 on the Michigan View, Hank toys with several racially charged Jim Crow putdowns and 'bat language.' Here’s the list: 

FIRST, Payne refers to Black ministers’ objections which express disapproval toward the Snyder/Dillon treatment of Mayor Bing and the underlying larger rights issues and calls the religious leaders' objections a "black cloud of fury that rained on Governor Snyder's proposal."

Rev. Charles Williams II, the Michigan chapter president of the National Action Network, a civil rights organization based in New York, said, “We are unequivocally calling Governor Snyder a liar…We are standing up (against) hypocrisy."

Protesting Ministers arose in support of Mayor Bing, seen in Jim Crowism terms as “insubordinate” & “uppity,” for defending the powers of his office. Is this a "dark cloud of fury" ? Just how threatening and dangerous are ministers of the gospel, even if they are African Americans?

SECOND, "’When somebody lies to you, you can't trust them,’ raged Bing,” the nettled Payne wrote. Here Hank raises the image of an "angry Black Man" with his accusation and condemnation.

THIRD, Payne claimed that Bing used "coded language that skates along the line of us vs.them racial demagoguery." Is it wrong in a democracy for a Black mayor (forced by specific revenue devices, a punishing TeaPartisan legislature, and long term anti-Black Detroit bigotry) to acknowledge that what is happening is an historical and unprecedented use by Snyder and his own of use of the Shock Doctrine to takeover and usurp the duly elected officials of a city. Thus Snyder is threatening and enabling the EM to liquidate and/or sell off to privatizers (Disaster Capitalism) whatever he wills or chooses? This is a clear case of racial demagoguery by white Republicans against Black Detroiters, Black Democrats, all of whom are perceived as impotent, hapless enemies, endangering the whole miserly anti-tax policies of the TeaPublican scheme for Michigan., Payne teammate Kobus in “Detroit activists protest activism” March 19, 2012, fuels the flames at the Michigan View belittling activist Black pastors:

“Detroit has problems, and as Jeremiah Wright famously said, the chickens have come home to roost. So the Snyder administration is giving Detroit a carrot in the form of $100 million in loans. But it comes with the caveat that the D will have to hand the steering wheel off to non-drunks (politically-speaking). Of course, some aren't taking the news sitting down: Detroit activists ratchet up opposition to state financial intervention.

‘...a group of pastors and other community activists is staging sneak protests to amplify their opposition to state intervention in what they are dubbing '12 Days of Action.' 'We vow to bring 12 days of action against the financial review team and Gov. Snyder so they understand they can't dismiss democracy,' the Rev. Charles Williams II said.

“So once again, there is this bogus assertion that Detroit's democracy overrides state democracy, even though state taxpayers are on the hook for Detroit's corruption and incompetence. Ten (sic) there's this “’Many Detroiters say any intervention is unconstitutional if it strips elected leaders of their authority and autonomy.’"

Bing defended his actions alluding to his sworn oath of office: "I'll work for the people of the city of Detroit because they voted me in to do this. I won't work for anybody else."

FOURTH, Payne continued his rant by asserting Mayor Bing must "not make veiled allusions to not working for The Man." In this context, “Working for "The Man" has derogatory connotations. Under Jim Crow, a Black, even a mayor of the state's largest city, has no right to resist the power of "The Man." In this case the power is welded by a more powerful man, the white Gov. Snyder, who is "The Man" with all good intentions.

The motive here is said to move toward “reinvention” as derived from TeaPublican ideology and directed toward Mayor Bing and his urban dwellers--the city's growing and desperate revenue shortfall not withstanding.

And so it is Hank Payne himself who in his own words "skates along the line" deeper into ugly, provocative Jim Crow dialogue.

Paul Robeson & Civil Rights Congress picketing the White House (August 1948)

Jim Crowism: Conscious or unconsciously is racism at issue.

An important publication reminds us:

"The problem of unconscious racism is not confined to one locality or one point in time. The problem is a national problem that may be responsible in large part for the continuing disparities in any number of categories including wealth and income, percentage of population with chronic diseases, and incarceration rates.”

"These disparities are not insignificant and impair the ability of the African descendant communities to thrive and flourish.”

"FAILURE TO EXPOSE AND DISCUSS ISSUES OF ONGOING, UNCONSCIOUS RACISM PREVENTS THE IMPOSITION OF A REMEDY to minimize if not eliminate these ongoing disparities and undermines the true equality of African descendants."
(emphasis added)

Source: This selection is from “CAN WE TALK: How Triggers For Unconscious Racism Strengthen the Importance of Dialogue”, Adjoa Artis Aiyetoro, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) William H. Bowen School of Law, published by Columbia University (2009).


There Is a Legitimate Objection/ Reason for Protest of the Snyder/Dillon Moves Against Detroit  

Andrew Paterson, an attorney defending the rights of Detroit citizens has stated unequivocally:

"The proposal (Snyder's drawn consent decree) reveals that they met and negotiated at least twice in secret, in violation of the judge's order... They met in violation not only of the Open Meetings Act, but of the judge's order and Public Act 4 (the emergency manager law).(break) "It's a lawless group that is running the state right now."

A spirit of lawlessness has always hovered over the tactics of Jim Crowism whenever and wherever it occurs. Should this usurpation of minority rights and voter's sovereign rights (now centered on Detroit) be taken lightly, strictly because it came rushing through a state legislature, giddy with its unlimited power of repression and aggression against its alleged political enemies?

The entire imbroglio, as it concerns Detroit's pending subservient economic freedom and status as an EM Apartheid Plantation, is near the tipping point. Twenty-three years ago, a ham-fisted curmudgeon hammered down a cut- off of General Assistance to nearly 90,000 welfare recipients who were declared able-bodied. A large number of these individuals were residents of urban Detroit. One quarter were mentally ill and another quarter were functionally unemployable. Yet despite a huge outcry from many quarters and many religious leaders, Engler soldiered on. The damage done to former Republican Governor John Engler was that he gained a reputation as a coldhearted radical, a tag he still wears.

Truth be told, Jim Crow was there, too, in Engler's decision and allowed him to float his political capital past the initial sting of public rejection and opened the way for Engler to mount further vicious attacks on the weak and defenseless, and on state government itself.

For those outcast by Engler's indifference, the Engleresque welfare program became: “Collect returnable containers" and "pick a deserted street corner or alley as your home.” What did Engler do with the money he saved by expelling the GA recipients? In part he subsequently raised the salaries of his top aides, to salaries totals greater than his own as governor.

Some of the GA savings were drilled in to a huge expansion of the state's prison system under Engler! Where are the 90,000 casts offs today?

John Mathias Engler froze government in the ice of cold, calculated indifference, thereby set up a harsh tone. That tone still rings in the ears of caregivers in Michigan. Once a threshold of heedless neglect of needs and human rights is breached by a governor, it is difficult to recover positive solutions from the reigning party leaders interested only in themselves and making money.

After the City of Detroit's resistance is taken down, EM becomes the rule of the day, what comes next?

Beyond that: What is the GOP/TeaPublican & Snyder/BLM Corporatocracy’s end game?

On the Reader:
Essay " CAN WE TALK: How Triggers For Unconscious Racism Strengthen the Importance of Dialogue" by Adjoa Artis Aiyetoro (Columbia 2009) (Read Abstract)

Related Slates:
More on Emergency Management issue in EM Plantation/Jim Crow Series in "Snyder’s Michissippi (Michigan) Revival of 21st Cent ‘Jim Crow’: Imposing ‘EM Plantations’ Across the State & Nation" - "A Shout Out to the Overlords of Michissippian EM Plantations (Michigan EM)" - "Jim Crow & Hank Payne Call for Detroit EM Martial Law: America’s First Urban Apartheid EM Plantation" - "High up in Jim Crow’s Nest: Constant Cawing Incites Civic Upheaval by the Detroit News - Michigan View" on the Gazette.

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Snyder Snippets: Auto Manufacturers "regret" their move to Right-to-Work States

Just in case he's thinking of forgetting things he might have said, here are the statements made by Rick Snyder on Feb 8, 2012 in reference to Michigan workers and Right to Work (for less).

"We (Snyder and team) were meeting with some of the auto companies at the auto show (who) say that their companies regretted being in the southern part [of the country, where right-to-work laws are common] because they weren't getting the SKILLED WORKFORCE the same way that they would in MICHIGAN."

-- Stateline Online

See the complete INTERVIEW with Snyder in "Seven questions for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder" conducted by Melissa Maynard and Jim Malewitz, Stateline Feb 08, 2012

Important Snyder Snippets:

STATELINE: Do you think the research is clear on whether right-to-work would help improve Michigan's economy, political considerations about the fights over getting it passed aside?

SNYDER: No. Actually I think if you look at some of the labor agreements out there, there are some really competitive ones. And if you look at productivity overall, we actually had people when we were meeting with some of the auto companies at the auto show say that their companies regretted being in the southern part [of the country, where right-to-work laws are common] because they weren't getting the skilled workforce the same way that they would in Michigan and the flexibility. They were having people taken away for other lower wage situations versus having the right talent at the right place.

SNYDER: This is not something people should overreact to. In many respects when people say right-to-work, it's like one of those red flag kinds of issues where too many people just sort of have a visceral reaction and say "ok, here's my position and I'm not open to listening to anything else." That's not how good government should operate. I want to listen and hear it and work on it.

STATELINE: What about the state's labor relations with its own employees?

SNYDER: We had successful collective bargaining with our own employees at the state level. I want to give credit to [UAW President] Bob King. It was literally a case where the UAW took the lead and he had great people working for him, but Bob and I got on the phone and we actually met a couple of times to sort of hash through issues. WE GOT THINGS RESOLVED. In the end IT WAS GREAT that when we hit a loggerhead we just sat down and talked and got a good agreement done. (emphasis added)

For all of those of you with limited legislative experience or knowledge of Michigan's political history: Former Gov. John Engler often said, "Michigan's autoworkers are world-class!"

FULL TRANSCRIPT of Rick Snyder Interview with StateLine.

Original.

If Only Michissippian TeaPartisans Would Stand Up to the Bullies at the Michigan Chamber...

Those like The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and the Koch Bros.’ Michigan Chapter of the Americans for Prosperity’s Ranting Rabble

If only Alexander Hamilton could have foreseen the ravishes and rashness of vengeful TeaPartisans in the ruinous TeaPublican led extension of the musty and dank Engler Revolution (the 2011 Legislative Session), bitter partisanship now headed up by a myopic and weak Nerd Beancounter who thinks he owns the right to dictate to citizens of this state following his evisceration of many state programs and budget responsibilities.

But alas!

"We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority."

-- Alexander Hamilton-The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 85

Who can save us from a radicalized TeaPublican state legislature reeking havoc on all its enemies, a bully-boy super majority, out of control and disrespectfulof all minority rights?


Original.

Great Teachers: Pack Up & Go, Snyder Hates You

Starting today the devastating, hate-inspired impact of harsh anti-teacher measures ramrodded through by TeaPublicans takes over.

Witness soon the growing, aggressive, and vengeful aftermath of the TeaPartisan fury and purge of teacher rights and privileges in Michigan-completed in a blitz/spade of Reprisal Lawmaking finalized on the last day of June 2011. Cringe as these negativist measures go into full effect. Watch helplessly as entire systems and achievements are destroyed.

There is all that talk about "reform" of education: John Engler was a big "revolutionary" who thought he knew how to reform education. Rick Snyder, the "always project positive" corporate educational hit man has done his snide share, as a result Snyder now makes John Engler, the former satan for public educators look like St. Francis-viewing the metrics of The 30th of June outcomes; lawmaking in deconstructive, vicious, and morale-destroying legislation, aimed directly at individual teachers, NOT their professional association-as is so often reported.

What will Snyder's hits on Michigan Public Education produce? Here is a prime example. The "best and the brightest" are always the mantra of Snyderesque reformers. The best and the brightest are smart enough and thorough enough to look at the long haul (career view), the real world impact of the devastation and damage Snyder has inflicted on the teaching profession in Michigan. They're packing their bags, Good-bye to Michigan. How so? Follow this news story:

WASHINGTON: Debbie Johnson got her teaching degree from Michigan State University (MSU), but recruiters persuaded the 23-year-old to start her career in Georgia, where the weather is warm, the cost of living is lower and the schools offer more resources, such as projectors and interactive wireless pads.

"I like technology," Johnson said. "There are a lot of [classroom] resources here I hadn't seen in Michigan. There's an amazing opportunity."

Michigan is one of 31 states facing a multimillion-dollar budget gap this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That makes its teachers prime poaching targets of out-of-state recruiters from states such as Texas, Georgia, Nevada and Wyoming, where school-age populations are growing.

Even if teachers aren't yet being laid off, a tough economic climate is often enough to drive them away, said Kelly Herndon, director of recruitment and retention for Gwinnett County, Ga.

"I watch the markets," Herndon said. "I'll admit, if the economy is in bad shape or the state legislature isn't managing funds, I focus on those states."

In some states, teachers are being let go because of shrinking budgets and shrinking school populations, including Michigan, Florida and California, which is facing a projected $11.2 billion deficit in 2009.

-- Excerpted from: "Recruiters zero in on teachers in ailing states", Nathaniel Weixel, Stateline.org, The Seattle Times, 12/14/08

Original Post.

Nerd Snyder Goes Engler’s Mississippiafication of Michigan One Better: Rick’s Kicked Michigan’s Future Right Into the Crapper

John Engler presided over the beginnings of the future Mississippiafication of Michigan, now Snyder and the greenpea majority TeaPublicans have just taken the State a dozen giant steps further in that dreadful direction.

Recently John Mathias Engler has become a subject of renewed interest in Michigan media. He was a star panelist at the tax-hater sponsored Mackinac Leadership Conference in September of 2009. Engler's friends are happy "the fat boy" is back. But it isn't the best of times for Engler in the big picture here in Michigan. Most notably because pro-China Engler has been taken to task by state industrialists and the Traverse City Record Eagle as being vindictive, obstructionist and anti-Michigan manufacturing:

"Our own former governor has been completely blinded by the larger business interests that are running the NAM," Herb Trute, a southeast/downstate tool and die executive told Crain's: "And it's patently obvious to me that they have done very little to help the plight of the small manufacturer. "

Engler and the NAM have "betrayed" domestic manufacturers in U.S. dealings with the Chinese. 

That editorial was chased by a follow-up letter to the Record Eagle from Joyce Braithwaite Brickley, who served as a long-time top aide to former governor William Milliken. She made this observation about the record and character of John Engler:

"No two people on the face of the earth are more familiar with the machinations and childishness of former Gov. John Engler. We put up with his small tricks, dishonesty and continuous negativity over our 15 years in the governor's office when Engler was in the state Legislature." 

John Engler is a star example of a payroller politician's devotion to one's own advancement in politics at the expense of person ingenuity and civic responsibility.

Engler's policies deserve some deserve credit for helping Michigan in the '90's, however the success of the Engler Era (a robust state economy under Clinton/Gore boom) meant the national economy did most of the work, not Engler. 

Engler killed the high tech corridor which was first proposed by his predecessor, a diversification that would have built on our stellar state universities and skilled workforce at the time and would have put Michigan ahead of other regions and headed off the downward spiral of our over-dependence on the auto. Engler also failed to secure statewide "latest generation access" to the internet.

There are others who falsely believed that Engler's philosophy and tactics, while onerous and meanspirited, (constantly touted by the Detroit News and its conjoined philosophical twin, corporatist/insurance endowed and controlled Mackinac Center) were "the" building blocks of a better future for Michigan.

All those Engler tax cuts and give backs should have produced a "new economy" which would have taken the edge off our precipitous fall; when the auto companies and suppliers were sandbagged under George Bush and his former auto guy, Andrew Card which led to the near catastrophic disappearance of both GM and Chrysler.

If the Engler Era were the masterful marvel it bragged it was, and if, until just the before the 2002 election, the governorship, the entire state legislature and the judiciary was tightly controlled by mavens of Englernomics: Why did Michigan's fabulous manufacturing base and its world class, high-pay jobs market tank? 

Michigan's sharp decline started well before John Engler had cleared his mementos from the governor's suite? John left office having seen thousands of jobs lost and he left Jennifer Granholm a deficit of over one billion dollars.

Now, due to inherent and systemic weaknesses and flaws built into Michigan governance by John Engler (Cut and Scrap state programs), coupled with the crippling effects of term limits, and the massive effects of a failed George W. Bush administration, huge national debt, and the Bush 2008 financial collapse, Michigan is on the ropes.

Who will rescue Michigan Republicans from the pitiless Englerite games Snyder and crowd desperately continue, trying to duplicate utilizing and expanding the harsh "bully boy" politics of "Big John"? 

What will it take to ferret out those anti-tax wing nuts whop hide behind the flypaper ideology they have hung for unassuming tax-hating rustics, all those who bought the touted Engler's Revolution theme: Just do more with less?

Yes, Engler left Granholm a staggering debt, over one billion dollars in the hole. Worse yet, Engler left an overpowering negativist political attitude that blocks any real effort at bi-partisan co-operation to face the new reality even as the Mackinac Center sees it:

"For starters, states with an "agricultural legacy" such as Mississippi typically have a long history of lower incomes. In a paper on right-to-work states, economist W. Robert Reed wrote that an 'important determinant' of current wages is how large a share of a state's total income in the past was generated by the agricultural sector: 'The economic past still casts a long shadow on the economic present.' Scholars (or politicians) who fail to consider a state's economic past may misinterpret reasons for its economic well-being or lack thereof today... In plain terms, Michigan began the time period covered ...as a relatively wealthy industrial powerhouse, but over the past 60 years has trended lower. Mississippi started dirt-poor and has made great strides against long odds and obstacles."

Original Post.

Before Rick Snyder Removes the Michigan Public School Code, Step Back to the Engler Revolution: What Will NO CODE Mean?

No State School Code Equals Stealth Control

" A virtual de-regulation of schools" is being sought by Gov. Snyder and Mike Flanagan

No School Code in Historic Perspective
Engler's State of the State (SOS) announcement calling for complete destruction of the State School Code had a clear purpose. It was to be no longer the state, acting as consensus of the whole, but rather local boards who will have the ultimate power to make and enforce the rules. Who then will control education?

Now that may seem easy to answer. The community and the parents at large decide, right? NOT SO. Engler's illogical action is designed to dovetail with the stealth campaign of the Hard Right (A Betsy DeVos backed and funded Citizens for Tradi-tional Values which claims 68% of the winners in one Michigan statewide election were their/her candidates). Their purpose is made clear in these words:

"We are now in the process of putting born-again Christians on every school board in America. How? by COMMUNITY IMPACT EVANGELISM! A school board with five members needs only three Christians to take complete control of a school district. You can literally own that system and control all personnel, curriculum, materials, textbooks, and policies. You will influence the mindset of between 20,000 and 50,000 children." - Robert L. Simonds, president, National Association of Christian Educators/Citizens for Excellence in Education 1986.

Simonds, a former California teacher and preacher who in 1983 founded Citizens for Excellence in Education/National Association of Christian Educators, heads a Christian crusade which is mounting a vigorous attempt to gain control of public education, and it is a crusade in which there are armies of willing warriors. It is succeeding because of the lethargy of a preoccupied citizenry that no longer votes or takes part in civic affairs. They assume too much!

On the surface it seems like an attack only on the publics' schools, but it is part of an even larger purpose. This activity is aimed as much against the Mainline Protestant churches and their memberships as much as it is against those whom these religious enthusiasts label "secular humanists." Mainline Protestants serve on school boards in large numbers and don't, except in rare cases, operate church related academies via their churches.

This sea change in America is an all-out-no-holds-barred attack upon the Methodists, Presbyterians, and other major Protestant denominations which are labeled "apostate" in the view of this militant army of Pentecostals, Fundamentalist Catholics, and Fun-damentalist Independents. The Mainline Chruches' "liberal" stances on human sexuality and the co-operation with the World Council of Churches are but two examples of this tradition's' "sins." Nor is there likewise any real ultimate historical reverence or toleration of the Jewish and Muslim--Abrahamic faiths, or the Buddhists. Read their literature. The Fundamentalist Magazine, Tim LaHaye, "Only Christians should hold high office." (LaHaye's definition of "Christian" is on his own narrow terms and does not include many Christian believers with less Fundamentalist views than those of LaHaye.)

1/22/04 Former Republican State Rep. Joanne Voorhees' simply stated conviction (quoted by the Grand Rapids Press) was Christians are the only folk she would endorse or support for public office. She explicitly trusts Christians The general public, perhaps casually agreeing with her sentiments, fails to understand Voorhees' thinking, practice, and parlance. Qualified Christians according to Voorhees are very specific, narrowly defined believers. Society thinks of Christian as a broad, inclusive term. Voorhees defines/limits Christian to narrow, specific dogmas and exclusivity. Her "Christians" must adhere to exacting/specific religious demands.

It's a problem. Voorhees, was, at the time, an elected representative who must do all the people's business: her approved "Christians", other Christians and faiths, as well as everyone else's business. She as an elected state legislator was sworn to uphold a national constitution disallowing religious testing for public office. Yet, in practice, Voorhees espouses religious tests for public office--conflicting with the constitution and putting herself above it.

Voorhees' subsequent restatement: "Christian" includes the Jewish faith--awkwardly and inaccurately attempted to mitigate damage her candid expression of her "selective" Christians only viewpoint had previously created.

This is just one example of what Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson announced in Houston '92 at the GOP National Convention: a "Cultural and Religious war." Such unbridled intolerance is a serious threat to America's pluralistic tradition and well-being. It must not be taken lightly.

This is a time of great unrest worldwide. In America, the undefined unhappiness of many citizens over the loss of personal control over their financial futures, and a preoccupation with crime and violence, contributes to a volatile and dangerous time. Adopting simplistic solutions to complex problems has a great and widening appeal. Provocateurs and provocations abound.

These "values voters" are souls who feel, with all fervency, that they have the "absolute answers" to the problems of education and society. Those answers come straight and literally from the Bible, as taught and expounded by their powerful leaders. These leaders know the power of faith in the lives of the Faithful Followers and covet the power of government to impose that narrowed view of faith on a wayward society, a culture and worldview, they condemn.

In any age or time this kind of crisis mentality spawns fears that constitute the formulic recipet for violence and repression. Just as the ultra-right national leaders picture it, it's a war (a starkly harsh term) on all unbelievers.  They allude to it as analogous to the Civil War where a moral issue was said to be the root cause of the conflagration....

It was a specious and treacherous act on the part of Engler to willingly and deliber-ately attempt to open the flood gates of carefully constructed and tested pubic school control to such ideologues - by a radical reconstruction of state government policy-so clearly favoring the Hard Right's pre-announced, divisive purposes.

Remove the State School Codes? Can educational apartheid be far behind?

Original Post.

The Ugly History of Engler’s Attempt at What He Praised as “School Reform” During the Engler Revolution in Michigan

Commentary prior to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's 'special message' on Michigan Public Education Plans.

John Engler, known for his vengefulness, facilitated the school debacle during his tenure with ease. Documented proof and scholarly studies underwriting the need for Engler's drastic action were never produced. Engler's resources and support came from the ideological warehouses of the Hard Right and the cut-throat business bosses long anxious to flex their power.

"Friendly fascism in the United States...(does not) need a charismatic, apparently all-powerful leader such as Mussolini or Hitler...The chief executive, rather, becomes the nominal head of a network that not only serves as a linchpin to help hold the Establishment together, but also provides it with a sanctimonious aura of legitimacy through the imagery of the (governor), his family, his associates and their doings."

"The chief executive is...a TV performer, (a star of the Far Right), and his...(office) is indeed 'a awesome bullypulpit' from which he and his entire production staff can wield a potent "magic wand."...the Establishment's top levels (have no need to) remove power from the...(governor) but would accentuate the need for at least one fully presented face, to help counterbalance the facelessness of the (greedy business and religious) oligarchy and (help to) legitimate the regime as a whole...continuing to distract attention from the (purposes) and powers operating behind and through (the governorship)."

--Friendly Fascism by Bertram Gross

Without such supporting assets as provided by the various organizations and the immense funding mechanisms as come from the powers behind the governor, Engler could never dare begin the process of creating educational apartheid in our cities. He would not dare to suggest elitist academies be funded by public tax dollars in the posh conservative suburbs.

Engler Designed Devices to Force the Public Schools to Fail The crippled public school was designed by legislation, revenue limitation, and the creation of deregulated bootleg charter competition to fail.

Localizing the school code makes decentralization and fragmentation possible, thus furthering disruption and failure of the system. The support of the public will be lost.

Step by step, the coordinated editorial attacks unfold. The primary sources are the Detroit News and the Grand Rapids Press. Yet all of this is still but a dim foreshadowing of the darkside program laid out for Michigan and orchestrated by TEACH, the Mackinaw Center and the Foundation for Traditional Values and a dozen other national Hard Right groups were all joined in.

Their plan: destroy confidence in the schools, flirt with the racial issues. Project blame schools and teachers for the "punks and thugs," the "hounds of hell" that roam our cities. Then while there is a "moment," devise an unlimited charter system funded by a "direct grant to parents." Steal the tax funds for private purposes.
All the while, far rightist were to push ahead to a full blown voucher system of educational apartheid. Engler's announced intention to entirely remove the State School Code is just another clever calculated step in the process.

Engler's method of operation: Keep the offensive, keep the opposition off guard. Ignore the criticisms, just bully your way through.

Tomorrow we learn how the Nerd intends to re-invent public education. 

How much of the Engler influence remains, will soon be known.


Original Post.

Kalkaska ! Kalkaska ! Kalkaska ! Remember That Sad Event.

Michigan's Executive Branch is in a flat spin. In politics perception is everything. What has gone on in 3 months of Snyderism has been a total civic disaster: No Jobs, No Jobs, No Jobs.

It's become so bad, so quickly, PR/Spinmeister John Yob has been hired back to patch up the gapping rip in the fabric of the governorship by attempting to interpret Snyder's faux pas (which are highly embarrassing to the office of governor and his party) trying to put things back in a favorable way; The Executive Branch of Michigan is in a flat spin. A stiffly stubborn and defiant Tricky Rick is sure to take it down even further down to failure uncorrected.

Read Daniel Howes column: "Why' overlooked in Snyder budget plan" 3/31/11, and see where Howes points to the failure of Snyder's one word mission: FAIRNESS.

"KALKASKA AGAIN" SHOULD STRIKE REAL FEAR If you will note from the reference (in Repubteach's recent entry Water Cooler entry, the Kalkaska incident was raised by a third party, not Repubteach) Kalkaska is a signal "event." One of those milestones that shook and shaped the direction of the entire Engler Revolution and resulted in major changes in how Michigan schools are financed.

Eventual passage of Proposition A, which rectified many of the problems of school funding, was a direct outcome of the "Kalkaska Moment." Prop A did, for a period, meet the needs of many school districts, especially like those of rural Kalkaska. However, it was flawed. At the same time Prop A failed certian districts such as Rockford. But rather than build on its strengths, certain aggressive partisans during the Granholm years let it languish and fail. This crisis is fed and fueled by the "disaster capitalism" endemic to the demands of a radicalized GOP/Koch Brothers A.L.E.C. playbook.

In 1993 Powerful Corporate Lobbyists Circled Their Wagons The tremendous lobbying pressure from Consumers Power, the Mackinac Center, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, et al, produced classic media scenes like Speaker Paul Hillegonds (drawn away from his children brought to visit daddy in the House Chamber during one of those late-night sessions leading up to the rush to get school funding finished by Christmas Eve 1993. Under great pressure from Business, Hillegonds, called to the House foyer. There he was to be literally surrounded by these business-is-first lobbyists seeking a "good deal cut" into the pending school funding legislation. They surrounded Speaker Hillegonds in the manner wolves surround their quay, intense and demanding.

The outcome of such events,etched a vivid image; and convey something noteworthy of informing novice Rick Snyder as to the historic facts surrounding that crisis: Engler, with all his more than two dozen tax cuts and slick parliamentary/political shenanigans, acted in a very different manner than that of Snyder. JOHN ENGLER POURED MORE MONEY INTO PUBLIC EDUCATION, NOT LESS.

Engler's support for public education was to become much more over time. His generously in the second half of his tenure as governor would be considered, in this new coercive and negativist Teapartisan environment, totally rejected and fervently protested by the tax-haters who have inhabited the party and now the Legislature. Most notably the Know Nothing Leon Dorlet, daddy of the big pink pig metered at the capitol curb for weeks.

DID YOU GET THAT? JOHN ENGLER, THAT ICON OF GOVERNMENT AND TAX CUTS AND TOUGH TALK, ADDED MORE TO THE REVENUES GOING TO EDUCATION.

Yes, the teachers' professional association did pay a price in terms of loss of certain areas of their interests, but good things for Michigan's school children came out of it. Kalkaska's kids got their school up-and-going and from the looks of the present school plant, and newer community facilities built for youths, they have done reasonably well, until Snyder.

Among the lobbyists who haunted the halls of Lansing during this time ('93) was Dick DeVos. This scion to billions was developing his bitter antagonism to public schools even then; he, and wife Betsy, have gone wild subsequently. This divisive coulple has aggressively chosen to become a national scourge; spending millions of their children's hand-me-down inheritance to foster Republican against Republican, division and dissention, bitter rancor in many states; as far west as Utah and in the South in places like Missouri and Virginia.

If you recall, as surely you must, the Dick & Betsy push to pass the 2 to 1 rejected voucher proposal which was DeVos backed had large negative political effects. Their effort helped to undermine the national election for GOP president G.W. Bush by throwing Michigan to Al Gore and leading to Florida and the highly controversial Supreme Court's tragic decision that put GWB in the White House. The voucher campaign also caused Engler and Betsy to fall out with each other. Betsy, most recently, pictures herself arm by arm with Chris Christie of New Jersey, the nation's ponderous bully-boy provocateur and tormenter of public servants and teachers> This is Betsy's latest foray into destructive ideological warfare. Interestingly, The prototype for Christie was John Engler.

Kalkaska! How can any political party call for and support the undermining of public education?

Education in a neighborhood school supported and beloved by the community and guided by the traditional civic-minded school board members, who were often business people and professionals, were once respected and honored.

Not now, and not anymore. These Det/News blogs over the years have contained an unrelenting venom and countless vituperative rants for which the News' editor and his staff are guilty for exciting. These published sentiments reflect a systemic anti-intellectual strand that has destroyed the comrade of the commons and poisoned the politics of our entire state. The hatred and ill-will ginned up here is palpable. Now, at this very low moment, we cannibalize ourselves in our own toxic opines and dark-think.

Dwalt, I have seen what we have done to with "poison politics" to destroy our better selves. We are rank failures in art of good government. In politics, perception is everything. Now 100 and more Kalkasks await a clueless Rick Snyder. (Actually the latest count is over 140) All this as the nation looks on in disbelief and repulsion.

The nation's negative perception of our state's culture will hurt us mightily. Dwalt, you and I will live to deeply regret this outpouring of ideological distemper.

The high hopes and the sincere prayers of Michigan citizens is for a better Michigan, a place of peace and prosperity. But our darkside indulgences are pulling us back. We seem helpless to break ranks and resume the climb upward and onward.

Many of us had hoped what appeared to be a political outsider, clean from our mucky politics of the last decades, would point the way out. A majority of voters hoped Rick Snyder would truly unite us in an honorable and pro-active fashion. But, no, the appetite for "red meat" politics and reprisals has pulled us back and Rick Snyder with us; back toward the pit of our own destruction.

How sad. How disappointing and how hopeless a future for our children we are creating by degrading their public school heritage and children's futures with our mean-spiritedness and corporate greed..

We must repent and re-learn honest compromise and the goodwill evolving from a willing cooperation in our politics and legislation or we lose everything we value.

Original Post.

Snyder’s Going for the Ignoramus Title: Worse Than, More Disliked Than Engler

Michigan GOP'ers have seen the scope of the Koch Bros. attempted legislative coup that has swept the country and are beginning to distance themselves from both the Koch Brothers and the self-determined Nerd, Rick Snyder and his authoritarian CEO anti-public interest mindset; they do this purely out of political self-interest and a delayed, but growing sense of deep concern for the common people of their state.

Snyder is being taken down; note the following:

1) Approval rating dropping like a boulder: Snyder's approval may sink lower than that old pro-pol John Mathais Engler, who sunk to below 20% in public support, but Engler was a pro, he had the savvy and the backing to regain the upper hand due largely his superior cunning, strong arm political practices of the kind Snyder totally lacks.

2) Pushing ALEC "handout" legislation to appease the Koch Bros. et. al. has put Snyder in a very ugly national light and perspective. The precious Michigan Environment and natural assets are beset with undercutting legislative rollbacks which serve best the short-term interests of polluters, plunderers, and corporate developers.

3) Unable to speak in public places without protests or citizens with strong complaints, Snyder has cut himself off from the state's "work-a-day" citizens.

4) Snyder lost his ability to politically defend his huge business bailout; using school and retiree resources directly funneled to corporate buddies. There's no salable rationale for his BILLION PLUS GIFT TO BUSINESSES. Repeatedly asked to provide estimates of jobs that will yield from his radical tax shaft & shift, neither Snyder or Calley can give credible answers.

5) Snyder gained an enduring reputation as a CHAINSAW BANANA REPUBLIC STRONGMAN with his near dictatorial powers labeled "Emergency Financial Managers" over and against local affairs of government, even ejecting the voters and officeholders from their constitutional rights to elect and hold office.

6) Outsourcing the heavy burden of axing jobs, benefits, and programs on struggling local units. CEO Snyder is forcing the pain and disruption, and the failure down on the local communities, using the power of BIG LANSING GOVERNMENT.
7) Purposefully cutting schools and universities (20%), ENDANGERS THOSE REMAINING COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO ARE ATTEMPTING TO STUDY FOR A PRODUCTIVE CAREER IN MICHIGAN. These cuts most likely become part of a huge student loan payback schedule that saddle new professionals for near a lifetime.

8) Taxing elders, ESPECIALLY WIDOWS, out of their homes, BY CUTTING ELDER HOMESTEAD PROPERTY TAX RELIEF; MANY SENIORS WILL BE PUT ON THE EDGE OF FORECLOSURE.

9) Making the retirees and seniors consider moving to a "pension friendly" state; RETIREES ARE AN IMPORTANT SOURCE OF CONSUMER REVENUE AND SERVICES.

10) Under the thumb of hardened Englerites and tyrannical Koch organized Tea Party operatives; Snyder is displaying "stubborn" resistance to compromise or collaboration, and certainly excludes Democrat participation on any bi-partisan basis; with the exception of Michael Flanagan and Andy Dillon; two very curious bureaucratic holdovers.

11) RAISING TAXES IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO A LARGE GROUP OF TEA PARTY ADVOCATES who oppose new and higher taxes will undermine Snyder's appeal to rogue elements in Michigan and engender the hateful vengeance of no-new-taxes Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich.

12) FORCING 800,000 POOR MICHIGANDERS TO SUFFER AND GO WITHOUT from cut-off assistance in these hard times is unconscionable.

13) Gambling that no one cares if businesses get a "big gift" of 1.8 billion in tax breaks and relief: a gigantic business bailout. More and More citizens see the rank unfairness of this plot.

14) THE MACKINAC CENTER HAS BEEN GIVEN HUGE NATIONAL NEGATIVE MEDIA ATTENTION, for the first time. Now people everywhere know who the elites are who back this negativist anti-union, pro-privatizing/tax piracy propaganda mill. They are: Charles Koch, Amway, Wal-mart/Waltons, Elsa Prince Foundation, Heritage Foundation, and others. A COMPLETE LIST IS NOT AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC, It's a Mackinac Center SECRET. Transparency and full disclosure, no way!

15) FRITTERED AWAY IS THE ALL-IMPORTANT VOTER SUPPORT of cross-over Democrats, Independents, and Moderate Republicans; Snyder has no middle ground support left. Where's Snyder's base? Snyder is going to re-invent Michigan ex nihilo?

16) The newer members of the Legislature who came to Lansing to become personally involved and included in the decisions, as they thought their election entitled them to have a part, are being sidelined. THE CLEVER USE OF THE OMNIBUS STRUCTURE FOR BILL INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE LARGELY SHUTS THEM OUT of the process. The new members are disturbed by the manner in which the Snyder Team is gunning legislation through; without time for the newer members to have meaningful input and voice.

17) The radical cut back of UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE; WHEN OVER 300,000 WILLING WORKERS ARE WITHOUT JOBS AND MANY ARE TOTALLY RUNNING OUT OF RESOURCES TO LIVE AND MAKE BILL PAYMENTS is dastardly cruel. The Snyder lead GOP majorities in the Legislature are about to enact the most stingy and least supportive unemployment package in the nation.

Inside sources report: Michigan's hardheaded Nerd, Snyder, gives no any hint of mitigation or personal compromise from his original budget and legislative agenda; instead offers a "cold shoulder and is still pursuing full-bore his pension tax, despite limited support in the Senate GOP caucus." Snyder's Engler holdovers have collapsed in their attempts to talk political sense to the Nerd.

Legislative Republicans are growingly aware they have a giant problem with their back home voters. They have seen the massive blowbacks in Wisconsin and other places. There is a growing sense of creeping panic!

Michigan's Teapublicans are aware that Ohio Republicans are walking-back some of the harshest of the A.L.E.C.- fill in the blank, corporate pandering legislation that Ohio GOP'ers are caught up in.

Michigan GOP'ers have seen the scope of the Koch Bros. backed and heavily funded, attempt at legislative coup that has swept the country. GOP Legislators are beginning to distance themselves from both the Koch Brothers' American Legislative Exchange Council "carry out" bill making and the self-determined Nerd, Rick Snyder. Tough "Nerd" Rick with his authoritarian, anti-public interest, pro-business first, CEO mindset; has copped an attitude which is poisoning Michigan's entire political system.

Rick Snyder is well on the way to the ignominious title: WORSE THAN ENGLER.

Original Post.

John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan

Recently, John Mathias Engler has become a subject of renewed interest in Michigan media. Ousted one term U.S. Senator, Spencer Abraham made reference to his buddy Engler ("The Michigan Experience: Why Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans shouldn’t sweat their dip in the polls" in Weekly Standard Op-Ed on March 17, 2011- a better title might be "Former Gov. John Engler proved that Republican governors shouldn't sweat early, negative polls") recently as a way to encourage Snyder and company to hang tough in their hostile attacks on the public servants and ordinary citizens, both young and old, of a struggling Michigan.

Engler has been taken to task by state industrialists and regional editors as being vindictive, obstructionist and anti-Michigan manufacturing:

"Like a recurring case of Montezuma's Revenge, Michigan can't rid itself of John Engler. Gone "but unfortunately not forgotten" from state government for four years, Engler is now a lobbyist for the nation's major manufacturers and pops up frequently clinging to the coattails of Republican power brokers in Washington.

"After wreaking havoc on the state's budget, environment, human services and open government as governor for 12 years, Engler finally left Lansing, thankfully concluding his career on the public payroll, his only previous source of employment throughout his adult life.

"Known best for his vindictive meanspiritedness and bullying fear tactics, Engler did more to politicize public affairs at all levels in Michigan than any other politician in recent memory. Even members of his own Republican Party bitterly complained "privately, of course" about Big John. Many were not unhappy in the slightest when he packed his bags for private sector paychecks and corporate boardrooms.

"His scowling specter, though, returned on two fronts in recent days, sadly reminding us of the bad old days when Engler ran roughshod over anyone and everyone who had the temerity to oppose him."

Crain's Detroit Business reported that tooling companies in Michigan have had it with Engler's perceived coziness with the Chinese government on outsourcing and currency valuation.

The companies' trade group is distancing itself from Engler's National Association of Manufacturers, contending Engler and the NAM have "betrayed" domestic manufacturers in U.S. dealings with the Chinese.

"'Our own former governor has been completely blinded by the larger business interests that are running the NAM,'" Herb Trute, a downstate tool and die executive told Crain's.

"'And it's patently obvious to me that they (Engler and NAM) have done very little to help the plight of the small manufacturer'"

This editorial was chased by a follow-up letter from Joyce Braithwaite Brickley, who served as a long-time top aide to former governor William Milliken. She made this observation about the record and character of John Engler:

"No two people on the face of the earth are more familiar with the machinations and childishness of former Gov. John Engler. We put up with his small tricks, dishonesty and continuous negativity over our 15 years in the governor's office when Engler was in the state Legislature."

In 1994 Time Magazine referred to Engler as "something of a Republican hatchet man in the state legislature."

Sadly, it is former governor John Engler who presided over the beginnings of the future Mississippiafication of Michigan. It was a time when government was used against government to push agendas which harmed our state. With the help of radical tax haters like Patrick Anderson, Richard Headlee, et al, and the Senators Welborn and DiNello. These individuals with their wild libertarian rantings supported and abetted Engler in his cold-hearted revolt.

Using a surprise defeat of James Blanchard, who was seeking a third term as Michigan's governor, John immediately began his first term as governor with extremely harsh measures.

Voters, Engler declared, "are tired of the same old crap going on in Lansing." His mantra, Cut taxes! Throw the deadbeats off welfare! Take control of the schools! All this and more ... He became known as the Beal City Butcher. His campaign theme had been "cut and cap" state spending, but he went far, far beyond that even though he had not even won a majority of the votes cast in 1990 and had no clear mandate.

Engler chained the Lafayette clinic and closed mental health facilities around the state. Adolescents with mental problems literally had to be transshipped out of state for mental health care. Common Cause's Peter Overby described Engler's Revolution in the following manner:

"While Washington is busy reinventing government, Engler is intent on de-inventing it. His administration (was) like a radical expression of the free market he so admires:

Specifically, an outside takeover, like a leveraged-buyout buccaneer, he parlayed his thin victory into an unprecedented shake-out of state government, its budget and mission. He whacked away at two departments; shuttered a third; froze civil service pay; closed what he considered a costly, unproductive line (General Assistance); and announced plans to contract out or simply sell some other government operations."

Engler put nearly 90,000 welfare singles on "General Assistance, a state program that sent checks ($160 a month at the end) to childless, 'able-bodied' adults who were unemployed or working in low-wage jobs " out on the streets.

Engler never bothered to investigate, one quarter of those on GA were mentally ill and another quarter unemployable. Many of these went on the street scrounging for returnable bottles, many were made homeless. Engler wasn't afraid to play off stereotypes of welfare recipients as lazy inner-city residents--GA "subsidized (were) people who had simply chosen not to work.." 

Again Common Cause:

"(E)xtensive studies by universities, state and private agencies demolished the stereotype: The average age of GA recipients was 39. More than 40 percent were women. White men ages 26-40 outnumbered young black men 2 to 1. More than half had 'chronic or severe' health problems. Most had work histories. About 45 percent lived in Detroit, which lost some 44,300 manufacturing jobs in the previous decade.

"'There really just aren't options for these people,' says Sandra Danziger, a social work professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored one study. 'All the job growth is in high-skill or entry-level services.'

"Engler (had) no regrets about his incivility and inhumanity in regard to those on GA. 'I think we did the right thing,' he said, 'and the evidence is quite compelling that we did.'" But what actually was the impact of the cold-hearted GA cuts?"

"In its economic impact, the END OF GA HAS BEEN COMPARED TO THE LOSS OF TWO LARGE MANUFACTURING PLANTS. 'In spite of the facts that were coming forth, people didn't seem to care,' said social work professor Danny Thompson of Western Michigan University. 'Not just the politicians, but the public. It's a funny, spooky feeling.' Danziger wondered aloud why people sympathize with workers laid off by GM, but not with GA recipients who would have died for an assembly line job."

"The state budget was indeed balanced. But incalculable costs were shifted to local hospitals, jails and other facilities where homeless people might land.

"Other costs were quietly passed to federal taxpayers. One federal agency sent Michigan 194 percent more money for homeless shelters in 1992 while cutting funds nationally by 8 percent. Another shift occurred as former GA recipients applied for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the federal-state payments to the disabled, aged and blind. SSI budgets rose everywhere in 1992 (mainly due to a Supreme Court decision that made more children eligible), but in Michigan the burden shifted dramatically. Federal SSI payments went up 24 percent nationwide, 29 percent in Michigan. The states' share increased 6 percent, but Michigan's actually dropped 11 percent,"

The impact of Engler's draconian actions even put a pale on the free market glee often heard from Engler's own Mackinac Center for Public Policy Director, Larry Reed:

 "...once described the (GA) cutoff as 'conservative compassion,' (saying later) : 'I have been bothered from the start by a lingering need to stimulate more private initiatives to meet these needs. I hope that in hindsight we'll look back and say that one of the benefits of the elimination of General Assistance was to heighten the concern of people in the private sector, to get them off their butts and out there creating new initiatives to meet the need.'

"As he was attacking GA, Engler also started to dismantle another welfare system: an extensive network of business subsidies and aids built up by his predecessor, Jim Blanchard. But corporate interests had more political clout than welfare recipients and stopped him."

Engler simplistically continued to repeat his chosen line as he bulldozed ahead:

"... Lansing should just lower taxes, stand back and let the entrepreneurs go full-throttle. Despite the state's big-labor, big-government reputation"

Engler was now in charge. His mindset became the adopted mindset of most Republican officeholders and appointed state functionaries. Clearly for them it was go along or be shut out.

Engler had in mind radical re-directions and other ham-fisted measures. Engler applied to his brand of ideology, backed and supported by his self-invented Tonto, the Mackinac Center, Midland. John doctored the Michigan economy during a time which came to include an era of unparalleled national prosperity during the Clinton years.

Even today, Engler continues to be a background player. As the President of NAM, The National Association of Manufactures, Engler aggressively promotes outsourcing and defends the role of China in the market including China's unfair currency policies. While Lou Dobbs of CNN reports on the root causes and impacts of our manufacturing crisis, off-shoring, and outsourcing, Engler run a hate Dobbs website with scathing denunciations of Dobbs' findings.

Brought before a congressional committee recently, lobbyist Engler defended the kinds of K Street "Corporations first" lobbying that is at the core of the federal trade and foreign currency troubles with which Michigan manufacturers have been assailed and with which they cannot fairly compete.

It is directly from this mindset comes the brutal Lansing takeover of cities, schools, and local units. The seeds of an economic shakedown and the collapse of Michigan's economic future were sown by this insensitive and power hungry de-constructionist who thought of himself as the author of a personal revolution.

Revolutionaries always carry out their agendas by tacking things from their enemies and giving them to their followers. So under Snyder, his top aides being old Englerites, we see the continuation of a Engler-inspired steep decline in the state's quality of life and increased uncertainty for the future of Michigan.

John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan and his destructive efforts live on today in growing infamy. Rick Snyder appears to be a maven of Englerism, Snyder and his Teapublican legislative rabble are on a wildly destructive tare. Engler, by comparison, may end up looking like a flaming saint.


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Tricky Rick Snyder hopes he has strong support, but he doesn't

The people of this state aren't the problem. The richest people of this state are the problem.

The infamous Bullyboy Koch Brothers have been secretly stuffing the in boxes of the Michigan Legislators for far too long. Check out the growing number of good blogs which expose the A.L.E.C. attack (A.L.E.C., that deliberately mis-labeled entity that cranks out predigested/introduction ready legislation for lazy legislators), they're the American Legislative Exchange Council. It is a wholly controlled subsidiary of such radicals as The Heritage Foundation; and has been in the business of far right "seeding" of legislators thinking for decades.

The agenda A.L.E.C. promotes is that of the Wealthy Elites e.g. The Wal-mart Waltons, the Amway Clan, and Big Oil and various other corporate bullies. And so it is, The Brothers Koch, and this nasty herd of like-minded anti-worker greed grinch's from out-of-state write bills/formatted-style which Michigan' Teapublicans simply cut and paste into thoughtless, debate-less pro-corporate law.

What is happening here in Michigan is part of a well-designed and carefully orchestrated Anti-Middle Class Coup.

If, as Tricky Rick says, Snyder has the support of a sizable majority of silent citizens of Michigan, outside those select businessmen he's about to shower with $1.8 billion of our money wrestled away from school children, the retired, and the public employees, and add on a load of other perks.

Incidently, how can Snyder know they're supportive, as he says they're "silent?" Secondly, given the number of adults in Michigan and the number of votes(versus the total adult population) he received in last November's election, for Snyder to claim to have the Michigan majority opinion on his side is "whiskey talk"-the delusion of a novice pol.

Sit tight, stubborn Snyder. Stay at home in Ann Arbor, and don't come to your offical offices in the Capitol.
Plug your ears. Don't look out your windows, don't mix or mingle. Don't become political, as you say you won't. Then watch as your grand scheme to pawn off on Michigan harsh, imported A.L.E.C. legislation, cooked up and delivered on a silver platter to the desks of right-leaning, greenpea legislators takes both you and them down!

You may have thought you had the C.E.O. platinum card way to achieve the highest good for favored corporations, the tycoons, and the ideological elites-how wrong you and they are! 

Gov. Snyder you have sold the citizens of this state out. Your tenure as governor has set an all-time low for newly-elected, unknowns figures in Michigan's Governor's office.

You have a very short period to change course and regain your "moderate" reasonableness or your effectiveness and the deteriorating social and economic conditions in Michigan will grow much more dire.
If you're in this for yourself, or for all those "business firsters" you represent, and if you deliberately refuse to be a servant to Mr. & Mrs. Workaday & kids, Granddad & Grandma, and willfully neglect those 800,000 poor and needy, the unemployed, then you're soon history.

By comparison, as for first impressions, you, Rick nearly make John Mathais Engler esq. look like a saint.

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Michigan Gov Rick Snyder's Nerdonomics Gone Wild

It's easy to go loony in Michigan; it's so natural to turn on each other when the Bush induced Depression pulls us all down.

A willful and stubborn Nerdhead governor amplifies our desperation and the hurt.

Apparently this economic trauma is being felt everywhere, but not in the heart of our Novice Nerd Governor. The word is out: Snyder is stubborn, very set in his own ways; beyond reason and not inclined to compromise or collaborate. In a word, Tricky Ricky is not political. So many Michigan voters thought they saw a glimmer of hope that he was our Superman-mild mannered Clark Kent turned powerful helper.

Snyder appeared to be a businessman, a special man who is willing to give of himself, step down from his safe high place as a millionaire; become governor/statesman, let-the-chips-fall-as they-may and lead Michigan out of our troubles. Rick was to do this with a credible/honest set of best practices. It turns out Rick's got a character flaw. He doesn't play by the rules of the public governance game.

Snyder May Not Want to Be Political, But He Must He may hate the world of politics. He may know little or nothing about how to bring about consensus among and between folk over whom he no longer holds the power; that which he once had as an owner/CEO to "hire and fire at will."

Snyder insists he's the CEO of Michigan, "hired" to run Michigan as a business. Rick's vision of himself in this mythical role makes him insist that things run in his mind as a business. Michigan is not a business. The Governor is not a CEO. MICHIGAN HAS NO CEO!

Snyder is given the elected responsibility to oversee the other branches of governance and the departments of Michigan. He has a bully pulpit and very limited power as compared to an actual "CEO" of a corporation, his prior domain.

Snyder's Experience Advisers Can't Get Through to the Stubborn Nerd The word is out that his advisers, many very experienced Engler Men, can't get across to Snyder that he must give a much wider berth to the politics-the gentle art of persuasion. We are in a tough time. This time is made much worse by the battering of ideological, social, and raw "business-first-last-and-always" mindset of so many around Lansing.

The Engler Revolution's negative vibes still reverberate in the rotunda of the Capitol, Engler devotees still hunger for the power of political persuasion they once had when the Engler Revolution legislatively took from one group in order to "gift" those "takings" to cronies and others John Engler chose.

Engler was Devilishly Clever As his sidekick and facilitator, Richard D. McLellen has said his buddy, John M. Engler, was a master at pre-planning, mapping and strategizing his every move; first in political terms, then carried right out to the end of the political and legal process to his end goal. That's why we have a Englercentric State Supreme Court and so many programs stamped with the Engler Revolution empress.

Snyder, by comparison, is a Political Novice, in the Worst of Times, Attempting a Steep Learning Curve The Nerd is in the middle of a huge crisis. His inability, or should we say, willful insistence on his own way or the highway, is an extreme liability at this very time.

Some common sense, some sense of working together with the public needs to temper Snyder's stubbornness and angst.

Keep him in your prayers. Thoughtful people are alarmed. Here's Snyder; unknown in philosophy and intentions; having successfully dodged debate and interviews on his inner workings and real outlook prior to the election; now in command of the governorship a political office. He has been elected to the most difficult period of Michigan history in our memory and we don't know the man!

Snyder's Ability to Lead Successfully Depends Greatly on Consent of the Governed The Nerd insists on doing what "He sees fit;" damn the advice of political advisers and seasoned pundits. We're headed for worse trouble. Snyder is losing the confidence and support of the people of Michigan. His high-handed approach to the budget is but one example.

Tricky Rick has turned one faction against another. The poor are immaterial to his beancounting, just as those 85,000 able bodied but mentally ill and unemployables were "throwaways" whom Engler put on the mean streets in 1991.
Now we learn on radical moves such as the newly legislated "Emergency Finance Manager" (EFM) who is given unparalleled powers, dictatorial unlimited discretion to disband cities, school districts, etc. accountable directly back to Snyder himself.

The theory behind the new EFM fails to ostensibly improve the governmental unit's failed operations and financial conduct as we find corruption and malfeasance under the Detroit EFM headed by Robert Bobb.

More pointedly the EFM proposes to COERCE AND FORCE those units (put concurrently under new specifically Snyder induced revenue shortfalls ($470/student cuts in Foundation Grants, the summary end to Block Grants to local units from Lansing, etc. which exacerbate and compound the existing revenue shortages) into a loosely defined, but deadly "emergency status" leading to a sudden takeover and liquidation of assets and buildings, etc. Government take overs of local functions will be hotly resisted. Mark that down. And those employees targeted for loss of bargaining rights,etc. and those elected officials kicked out of office, and barred for years from future office, won't be taking this dictatorial coup sitting down! The public knows what is the hidden purpose of the EFM's and they aren't buying in.

Folks We Are in Deep Tabasco! 

It's now becoming clear that Snyder is so deep into his independence and (assumed) power, vested in a belief he truly has his former corporate prerogatives, that he has taken from, and undercut, a very subservient Teapartisan Legislature. Snyder makes the Legislature a victim via his big oversight grab: As the A.P. reports: "...Rick Snyder's move to make the state budget 'simple, fair and efficient' may instead be leaving the public in the dark about how its money will be spent." Furthermore, Snyder's "line items for programs and spending wouldn't be binding. That basically could allow UNELECTED DEPARTMENT HEADS RATHER THAN LEGISLATORS TO DECIDE HOW THE MONEY SHOULD BE SPENT, said Craig Thiel, state affairs director for the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council in Lansing.

"The lack of specifics concerns citizen watchdog groups such as Common Cause Michigan. PEOPLE REALLY HAD A SENSE OF WHAT WAS BEING FUNDED when they could see department budgets laid out program by program, said executive director Christina Kuo. DOING IT SNYDER'S WAY 'REALLY GOES AGAINST HIS COMMITMENT TO OPEN GOVERNMENT AND TRANSPARENCY.'"


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