Up North Progressive

Snyder spokesperson Jarrod Agen told the Associated Press that a group of Snyder’s inner circle created a tax-exempt PAC to raise funds for Snyder to tour the country starting next month after the state votes against raising the sales tax. With that defeat over his head, Snyder will likely want to get out of the state for a while and pretend he’s doing a good job by talking to people who don’t live in Michigan and have no idea who he is.

There’s only one reason anyone would raise money to travel around in May of 2015, and that’s because you’re talking about running for president in 2016. In fact, there’s an unconfirmed rumor Snyder will make an announcement about that in the next few weeks.

So what is Snyder going to tell people around the country about Michigan and what he’s done to the state as CEO? I’m sure Republican voters want to hear all about him expanding Medicaid in the state, and implementing Common Core. Of course, there’s this sales tax increase vote coming up on May 5, but it’s a good bet he will probably not win that one. Dodging the “I’m a Republican and I raised taxes” never goes over well with the GOP voter base. Cutting $2 billion for corporations in taxes while raising taxes on poor people and old people will go over well with Republicans. Freedom to Freeload should also make Republican voters happy, because anything that makes the middle class and poor people poorer are things they like.

The big issue the religious fundamentalists will judge Snyder on is his stand on LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. While the state’s Attorney General Bill Schuette spends taxpayer money preparing for the Supreme Court case, Snyder quietly refused to challenge a judge’s order to recognize 300 marriages that took place in 2014 when the ban was lifted for 12 hours. You need to know the Nerd had no problem denying health benefits to domestic partners of same sex couples. Still, not being anti-gay enough might be a problem for him.

But then, there’s all of the other stuff that’s happened in Michigan these people will never hear about, like cutting a billion dollars from the education budget and raising taxes on poor people, old people and the middle class to pay for those corporate tax cuts, or the secret NERD fund that paid for his personal Общак, Richard Baird. Skunkworks, and Kevyn Orr’s luxury suite at the Cadillac Hotel he was barely ever in.

One thing Snyder will talk about is the “success” of the Detroit bankruptcy. First, Snyder lied about not putting Detroit through bankruptcy, then did it anyway. He also lied about an emergency manager for the city. The land grab between the pizza guy and the Quicken Loans guy in downtown Detroit you will never hear about, or that Snyder’s raiding the School Aid Fund to pay for a new Red Wings Stadium complex in midtown. People having their water shut off while businesses like golf clubs and sports stadiums owe millions for water usage and don’t pay won’t be mentioned either. Detroit is being turned into a rich people’s playground while the residents of the city are pushed away from the downtown area.

Emergency managers. This is something Snyder doesn’t talk about, but some parts of the state are still suffering under them. These people earn six figures, are only answerable to the governor and sell off the assets of the communities they’re forced on into private ownership. Flint has undrinkable water now thanks to an emergency manager. Benton Harbor’s public beach and park is now owned by an exclusive club for the wealthy. Detroit’s public school system has an oxymoron of a malignancy called the Education Achievement Authority. Snyder wants to spread this cancer statewide to the rest of our public schools. The fact about emergency managers is not one has accomplished any of the official goals they are set with when they get the job of depriving a community of their civil rights. Every city, township, or school district strapped with one of these emergency managers are still in the same bad financial shape as before, and Snyder appoints another one to replace them so they continue accomplishing nothing but receiving a large salary.

If Snyder is in your state and he mentions Aramark (highly unlikely), just know thanks to him our prison food service, once well-run by union employees is now a source of constant scandal. Along with bad food, Aramark employees also serve up drugs, sex, and contract hits, as well as rotten food, maggots, food nibbled on by rats and literal garbage.

The 400,000 private sector jobs Snyder loves to brag about are mostly union jobs saved by President Obama with the auto bailout that happened before Snyder was governor. We do, however have some of the worst roads in the state thanks to corporations not paying taxes to fix the roads. Instead, Snyder wants to raise taxes on the rest of us so those corporations can have new roads to destroy and not pay to maintain.

Listening to Rick Snyder talk is like a constantly annoying sound in the background that eventually makes you sick to your stomach. He has terrible speaking skills and it’s rumored he goes through hours of prepping before any public speaking. He literally sounds like the nerd he likes to call himself, because he’s an accountant and he used to be an executive for Gateway Computers, the popular computer company he helped run into the ground. If he’s looking for the millennial vote, bringing up that bit of history won’t do him any good.

Snyder’s chances are very slim he will ever be considered in the same tier of candidate as Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz or for some reason, Scott Walker, but always remember there is the veepstakes to win. Many candidates are actually in the race not to be president, but to be vice president. Either way, getting Snyder out of Michigan would be a happy event for the people of this state. Run Nerd, RUN!