Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganVoter’s Rejection of Proposal 1 About More Than Taxes
Wednesday , 6, May 2015 Nerd Problems 15 Comments
In 2011, Rick Snyder talked about shared sacrifice and raised taxes on poor people, the elderly and the middle class. He slashed spending on schools and gave corporations a big tax cut because they’re the “job creators.”
What do we have to show for this shared sacrifice? Crumbling roads, shuttered schools, “emergency management,” eliminated services, and outsourcing to private companies that provide service best described as criminal. After 5 years of Rick Snyder and the Republicans in Lansing in control, this state is a mess. Meanwhile, the Michigan legislature spends way too much money on luxury offices and strips the school aid fund to build a rich people’s playground in downtown Detroit.
Where did Michigan’s tax dollars go that Republicans thought we wouldn’t notice, and vote to increase taxes on ourselves? That is the most contemptible thing of all. Our government is too scared to do their jobs and come up with a real way to fund new road repairs, so they thought they would blackmail us into doing it to ourselves. We certainly haven’t had a governor in Lansing in years. Snyder had his hired goon, Richard Baird, running the state for him. Now he’s too busy with getting the rest of the nation to notice him to care what’s happening in Michigan. Elections have consequences. If more people had bothered to vote in November, we wouldn’t be stuck with the Nerd now.
The people of Michigan are fed up with Rick Snyder and his regressive taxes on the middle class, the poor, and the elderly. Our governor and state legislators need to go back to Lansing and do their damn jobs. Business doesn’t want to move to a state with roads in the condition Michigan roads are in. Business also puts the most wear and tear on roads. Make the businesses who got the tax cuts in 2011 pay more to fix the roads.
Of course, every time Snyder doesn’t get his way he retaliates by doing something even worse. We voted down emergency managers and he passed a new law so he could keep them. We tried to protect unions in the state constitution and he retaliated with Freedom to Freeload. Tonight we’re celebrating because we collectively told the Nerd to stuff it, but tomorrow the roads are still wrecked and who knows if anything will be done about it.
Evelyn Bolster Weatherholt says: Glad to see that others are figuring out what Snyder is about. This is becoming a state of paupers because of him. He has “punished” us in the past just like a king would do to his subjects. He needs to be dethroned.
Once again the lying weasels in Lansing think we’re stupid enough to fall for their BS. They’ve known for months Prop 1 didn’t have a chance of passing, but they don’t care. The a-holes that ruin the roads should be responsible for fixing them, but that’s never going to happen. Now we need to get prepared for our punishment for refusing to do as we were told. You know we will be punished by those lying morons.
eenny says: Sorry but Michigan house is Democrat and Michigan senate are both majority
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Neither the senate or the house is Democrat. Kevin Cotter(R) runs the house and Brian Calley(R) runs the senate. Neither one is a D.
Kevin says: Wouldn’t it be ironic if Obama put an emergency manager in charge of Lansing?
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Up North Progressive says:
Why would the president do that? Michigan is the only state with civil rights stripping emergency managers.
Just a message from Colorado. Well done people. It’s wonderful to see what happens when people get off their heinies and vote. WELL DONE!!
Patti says: Finally the people stood up for what is right. Mr. Synder did you think we were going to fall for this one. And by the way the people of this State should not be referred to as a sector because we are the ones that work hard live here. Can not wait for you to leave office and take your cronnies with ya.
Carl says: I emailed the area reps and the Gov and told them they should take the state sales tax collected at the pump and put it ALL on the roads NOT in the general fund where it now goes.
Charlie Mench says: The thing that troubles me now is what kind of idiocy will the spineless dweebs inflict on us next. You can’t convince me that they will do what’s right for ALL of us. They’re all too worried about getting reelected to have the guts to do the right thing. This ain’t gonna be pretty!
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They won’t do what’s right, and knowing they will likely do something worse the right choice for me was vote no. Tax cuts for business won’t mean much when the cost of doing business in Michigan includes replacing axles every few thousand miles.
Patti says: My no vote was based partly on all the above but I’ll add a few choice nuggets to the list. My family can NOT afford an increase in the sales tax, an increase in registration fees, and an increase in the other taxes in Prop 1 that were not called taxes. I do the budget in our house so I repeat – we can not afford it. Let’s move on to Snyder and his cabal of right wing nut jobs who decided they didn’t want to make any tough decisions unless they could soak it to the middle class and working poor so they decided to put in all on our shoulders. And we looked at that proposal and saw another shift of responsibility from the business community and their 1% buddies to the middle class and working poor and we told them collectively to take that prop and stick it where the shine don’t shine – with complete and full knowledge that they are arrogant enough to do something worse now that we voted overwhelmingly against the proposal. My answer has always been that Snyder can get the money from Devos and the creeps at the Mackinac Center and of course they wouldn’t do anything that sensible so we’ll see what horrific plan they come up with next.
Pamela Smith mcavoy says: I agree with everything that was said in this article.
Miss Fortune says: “Snyder acknowledged Monday that Proposal 1 exposed a level of cynicism about government among a sector of Michigan voters.”
Since when is nearly 80 percent just a “sector”?
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Lake County it was almost 87%.
We’re a sector as in the little people who don’t count nearly as much as rich, important people like him.