I'm Done...
Friday, July 01, 2011
Nerd Rick Snyder continued his War on Michigan citizens with the passage of several bills that he wanted. One takes away the right of districts and unions to make their own agreements and caps how much districts are allowed to pay for employee health insurance. Several other bills make it easier to fire a tenured teacher and weaken the already shitty position of the teachers union to negotiate contracts.
In the interest of full disclosure, my wife is a public school teacher, so I have a financial interest in this legislation. I also have many friends that are public school teachers. Even if this weren't the case, I would still be pissed. Snyder (who I considered voting for, but thankfully didn't) campaigned as somewhat of a moderate who would do things differently and make our state great (or some similar populist bull shit). Thanks to a GOP majority in both houses, he has been able to ignore any semblance of moderation, restraint, common sense, and reason, and has forced through a whole bunch of significant changes to the tax system and state services.
Some fans of Dick Snyder are pleased that he is making the tough choices that he was elected to make. Thankfully, most do not agree. Over at Michigan Liberal, they bring up some polling data:
Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature may have passed a state budget in record time, but what they passed isn't popular with voters.
A poll shows 61 percent of voters say they're less likely to vote for Republicans in 2012 because of the budget that cuts funding to public schools but gives tax breaks to corporations.
I am sure the GOP is aware of this data. either they think that things will turn around and they can reap the success, or they just don't care and want to do as much damage as possible before the voters boot their asses in the next election.
Well, I am done. If the election were held today, I would vote straight party Democratic. The Democrats are by no means perfect, but even the worst of them in this state is a paragon of reason and good governance compared to Snyder et al. I don't think my beliefs have changed all that much in the past few years, but I suppose if the readers of this blog were relying on me to be the voice of the right, we will have to add another blogger. I doubt I will be able to vote for any of the current crop of Republicans in Michigan. That being said, with apologies to Ronald Reagan for borrowing and altering his quote, I didn't leave the GOP, it left me.
6 comments:
Well, you know I have been where you are for some time. Not only do I not see reasonable Republicans running for office, but I have little faith that even a reasonable one would be able to go against the craziness that is now the GOP.
As you say, the Democrats have a lot of problems. Those problems are the same as always--individuals making individual bad decisions or good decisions. Some are good and some are bad. But as a party, the Democrats are actually interested in good policy. They may not always make good policy, but they will try. I have no such faith in anyone on the GOP side.
"The Democrats are by no means perfect, but even the worst of them in this state is a paragon of reason and good governance compared to Snyder et al."
This deserves the quote of the year award. It pisses me off that my kids will have larger class sizes and inferior opportunities so Michigan's business taxes could be NEAR ZERO.
"...I suppose if the readers of this blog were relying on me to be the voice of the right, we will have to add another blogger."
You aren't the voice of the right, but you keep us super-lefty partisans honest.
In theory everyone is in support of "teacher accountability". In practice, I don’t know how you do that when the single biggest factor impacting student success is parent involvement.
I suppose imposing parent involvement is political suicide though.
I have a thought. If we are going to grade teachers on the test scores of the students, then lets throw out any student score that is low when the parents never show up for parent teacher conferences.
then lets throw out any student score that is low when the parents never show up for parent teacher conferences.
Word.
You aren't the voice of the right, but you keep us super-lefty partisans honest.
Bob said it all. We don't love you for your "conservativism," as it is. We love you for your balance. Otherwise, this blog would be choir practice.
BTW- I have been wondering if someone could estimate how big of a tax cut Snyder himself received. Did it reimburse the $12 M he sunk into the campaign?
Post a Comment