I'm just not terribly excited about what is going on in Michigan.
First, legally: There are two bedrock levels of government in this country: The Federal government and state governments. State governments then delegate a lot of their power to counties, cities and towns. Those entities derive their power from the state. Without a provision in a state's constitution or laws to the contrary, the state government is free to restructure local governments as the state sees fit.[1]
States can abolish towns or merge them. Hell, some states should aggressively be doing this anyway.[2] For example, there could be a considerable benefit to many areas if town school districts were merged.
So while the way that Gov. Snyder is doing it is probably outrageous as all hell, I don't see restructuring local government as necessarily evil.[3]
The second reason is this: The voters in Michigan elected a far-right Teabagger. And part of the responsibility for that rests on those Michiganders who couldn't drag their dead asses to the polling station. You fuckers elected this turd. Now he's yours. As the line from the movie "Airplane" put it: "They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say: 'Let them crash'."
Did you really believe that these guys were bullshitting you? Did you really believe that they wouldn't do everything they could to fuck over the working people and the poor people so that the rich, the corporations and the Koch Brothers would reap the benefits?
If you did, then you in Michigan and Wisconsin were morons. And now it sucks to be you.
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[1] It was done in Connecticut at one time, which abolished county government.
[2] New Jersey is a prime example of a small state that has way too much local government.
[3] The point that "small government is good" Teabaggers are now abolishing small government in favor of larger state government is a bit ironic, though.
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Saturday, April 30, 2011
6 comments:
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Well, thing in Michigan is, the Snydinator is seizing those towns that *didn't* vote for him. In large part it's clear retaliation... "youse didn't vote for me? Fine. I'm gonna seize your town and sell all your town's assets to my buddies!" It's as if Obama seized control of the state governments of the states that didn't vote for him, dismissed all their politicians, and put in cronies who sold all the assets of those states to his cronies. Retaliation against people for how they voted is un-American, period.
ReplyDeleteRegarding states abolishing towns and merging them, granted. But if it's being done along partisan and racial lines, then very valid Equal Protection concerns are raised -- and what's going on in Michigan largely *is* being done along partisan and racial lines.
- Badtux the Retaliatory Penguin
BadTux: "Well, thing in Michigan is, the Snydinator is seizing those towns that *didn't* vote for him."
ReplyDeleteWhich ones? The only ones I see making the news are Benton Harbor and Detroit Public Schools. They were under control of EFMs when he took office. I assume you've got Benton Harbor in mind, since you referenced seizing assets and selling them to his buddies.
Well, the Benton Harbor EFM is the same guy Granholm appointed. I don't know much about him beyond that.
It's the same with DPS too. Snyder just put the same EFM in charge that Granholm did. In that case I see Snyder coming under attack, sometimes with the ZOMG RACIST angle, which is really odd because it's the same Granholm appointed EFM, his plan was put in place before Snyder was in office, it was approved by the MDE's Superintendant (who has held office since 2005) in Feb 2011 before Snyder could even renew or replace the appointment, and the EFM himself (Robert Bobb) is African-American.
I'm not sure the EFM thing is even a good idea. We've had it in the state for 21 years and it's been used 6 or 7 times by Democratic and Republican governors. I'm not even sure it's ever really even worked all that well. So, trying to 'tweak' the idea and give the EFMs just a little more power, which was already pretty expansive, probably isn't going to do much to help. Those are certainly debatable.
But I gotta laugh at the "fascist" and "partisan" claims. If he was all that radical would he really be putting the same people Granholm had put in charge and letting them roll forward with their existing plans? Is there anything more docile than that?
I'm looking at the other EFMs now. I don't believe there's currently one for Pontiac as their webpage says they're under the control of the Department of Treasury and the board is headed by Andy Dillon.
ReplyDeleteIf true that means Snyder made a change there and gave control to one of his appointees, Dillon, who was one of the Democratic Party members running against him for governor.
So, now we see he's cloaking his "partisan" ways by putting Democrats in charge of things. This guy is crafty!
Ecorse: Joyce Parker, appointed in 2009, is still serving as EFM as of this month.
ReplyDeleteAnother crafty move by partisan Snyder! Letting another Granholm appointee stay in power!
BadTux: "Retaliation against people for how they voted is un-American, period."
Yes, as we can see he's clearly punishing the Democrats by putting more, or the same, Democrats in power and giving them even more powers. That's just plain evil.
Actually, wait... can I get a liberal to explain this to me? I'm not getting something here. With all the outrage I would have expected him to do something "whacky" like put a Republican in charge of something. Are y'all really pissed that he's putting Democrats in charge?
EMF? Why isn't is EFM, which is what it would be if it stood for Emergency Financial Manager, which is what they claim. But it's not EFM, it's EMF, so it must stand for Emergency Melon Farmer, which may be what they need. Or not.
ReplyDeleteNJ has too much local government? I grew up in NJ, lived there nearly 40 years, and I can't say I ever thought that. In fact, I found that having a more involved county government - a level which in many states serves almost no function at all - to be a good way to address issues that affected multiple towns, such as, to cite two, mosquito control and parks.
ReplyDelete