Michigan Republicans cancel democracy

Jim Hightower reports on a cabal of corporate-funded, far-right extremists behind Rick Snyder, foreshadowing our future if Romney/Ryan wins.

There's Been a Dictatorial Coup -- Koch Bros. Have a Bunch of Czars...

Backed by bales of corporate cash, Snyder won the general election by ceaselessly running a series of "job creator" ads (never mind that he had been a top executive and director of a computer corporation that relentlessly shipped thousands of American jobs out of the country until 2007, when the corporation itself was shipped to Taiwanese owners). Snyder said he had a plan to "reinvent Michigan," the essence of which he expressed in one of his  campaign ads : "Eliminate Michigan business tax. Cut taxes on job creators $1.5 billion. Slash needless regulations. Help small business."

That's not a plan, it's a scam--essentially the same ... now being regurgitated by the Romney-Ryan duo.

 

... he had barely taken his oath of office before suddenly teaming with leaders of the Republican-controlled statehouse and senate to ram into law an astonishing measure of despotic rule.

... the LGSDFA Act... lets the governor seize control of any local government he deems to be in fiscal trouble, suspend the people's democratic authority, impose a corporatized version of martial law, and install his own "emergency financial manager"...

"It's about helping communities," Snyder dissembled, as he began installing EFMs.

Helping? This is the kind of "help" a fox brings to the henhouse:

• Emergency managers begin by usurping the power of all elected officials or simply "firing" them.
• They can then rewrite the public budget without any public participation, unilaterally eliminate various services, cancel contracts, seize and sell off public assets, privatize government functions, and dictate new laws.
• They can even dissolve a city's charter.

This isn't merely un-democratic--it's aggressively anti-democratic.

 

It's no accident that the cities presently under state siege (including Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, and Pontiac) are heavily populated with low-income, union, African American, Democratic-voting households.

... another major cause that Snyder & Company don't want discussed: His $1 billion cut in corporate taxes. This increased the state's budget hole, which he helped fill by slashing or eliminating state funds and tax credits that went to local school districts, low-income workers, and seniors.

The GOP slapped down even the most token gestures to local governance--for example, a little amendment that merely would've required EFMs to hold monthly public meetings--so locals could be told what changes their czar was making-- got crushed in the senate.

While corporate plutocrats rant about out-of-control government regulators, they do not really hate big, invasive, authoritarian government--as long as they can own it and use it for their own needs.

 

This is why such multibillionaire corporatists as Charles and David Koch have been pumping truckloads of money into dozens of front groups ... [emphasis mine]