i have been called a number of names in my life. sometimes they were kind, you know, shortened versions of my name, various nick names. sometimes they were rude like the time i got called a "fag enabler." (and even though that is really rude, i kind of like that i was called it. my very existence pissed off one of the westboro idiots so much they had to say something to me.) as it has been made pretty clear, i am a liberal and while i know i said a couple posts ago that i was going to try and follow a theme, right now i need to veer away from that for a quick minute. mostly because current events in my home state and in the nation are so distressing that i have to say something. this is your chance to avoid it. this is about to be a political tangent.
let me start by saying, i absolutely love the wisconsin 14 that left the state when their governor was trying to shove union busting, anti-middle class legislation down their throat. i applaud you for being brave and standing up for what is right for america. i'm sure it was no easy task to do and i'm so glad you have the tenacity to do the right thing. it is truly upsetting to see what happened last night with this bill going through. i remain hopeful though that the voices of the many who are gathered in madison in protest and the many who will be affected won't be ignored.
in my beloved mitten state, the voters did a very bad thing in november. we elected a nerd to be our governor. we hardly seems far. i didn't vote for the guy. anyway, governor nerd rode in easily as a millionaire financing his own campaign who had a message of anti-washington, claimed to not be a political insider and claimed that he would use his business savvy from his time as a CEO to fix our state. and in 2010, that was a message that people wanted to hear. allow me to be clear for a moment. i believe that there is a big difference between a public servant and a politician and i think that politicians are usually the slimey people in politics who only think about themselves. i like patterns and following them and using them to predict behavior. let's look at some patterns of governor nerd together, shall we?
--governor nerd spends his campaign talking about how we need to invest in michigan's future. that we need to invest not only in education from k-12 but preschool through college graduation. then he presents a budget proposal that would cut funding for k-12 students by $470 a student, cutting funding to public universities by 15% while also threatening to take more funding from universities if they raise their tuition above a certain percent. he says we need to invest in education and our future, then he presents cuts to critical institutions.
--governor nerd says that we need to do more to keep our young people in michigan. we need to stop the "brain drain" from the state, referring to our young people that were educated in michigan to leave the state to find jobs. he also says we need to create jobs. it's all about jobs. then he presents a budget proposal that suggests we should cap the film tax incentives. the same tax incentive that has created countless jobs, brought a tv show based in detroit, filmed in detroit to the state and is generating $6 for each dollar that is spent here. he says keeping young people and building jobs is important, then he caps incentives that are working and doing good things for the state.
--governor nerd says that we need to work to cut the deficit in the state. this is why all the radical changes, right? then he presents a budget proposal that eliminates tax breaks afforded to low income workers and seniors. and rather than using the $1.7 billion projected revenue from these cuts toward closing our budget deficit, he plans to use them to create $1.8 billion in tax incentives for corporations. he says we need to fix the deficit, then he proposes spending the tax money he's taken from the poor and seniors on corporations.
--governor nerd says that the future of the state can only be bright if it involves revitalizing the city of detroit, that the city cannot be neglected. then the emergency financial manager for the detroit public schools decides to close half of the schools in the district, bringing classroom sizes to 60 kids in a high school class. he says we need an urban agenda. then he presents a budget proposal that cuts revenue sharing from the state to municipalities. and as cities and townships reach extreme financial hardship because of this devastation to their budgets, the house and senate have passed a bill to allow for emergency financial managers to come in and unilaterally take control of the municipality. break union contracts, tell school districts to merge, overrule local elected officials and even have the right to dis-incorporate a city or township. and it is governor nerd and his administration who have the authority to decide when a municipality has reached this point where they need to be taken over by this emergency financial manager. he says we need to save the city of detroit, then he basically rolls out the red carpet to destroy not just detroit, but other cities as well as he hands them over to corporations.
does anyone else remember in 2004 when john kerry was called a flip flopper? governor nerd seems to be taking a page out of that book. in fact, for as much as he might claim otherwise, his profound ability to say one thing then do another is exactly what people don't like about politicians and what, in my book, makes you a dirty one. in the short time that he has been governor, governor nerd has done a good job of learning how to talk out of both sides of his mouth and for that, we should all be a little afraid.
one of the most upsetting things about all this to me is he doesn't seem to care. i get it, he's not "politician" so he doesn't care if he gets elected again and he doesn't care who he pisses off along the way because these changes are for the long term benefit of the state. this just in, dude, in order to get to the long term, we have to survive the short term. and just because when he is done having his turn as governor for whatever reason he decided to run, he can pick up and move. like he did to gateway when he was CEO. i hear china is lovely. but there will be lots of us who are still here, cleaning up the mess he created. thanks for that, jerk. governor nerd keeps talking about "shared sacrifice" which i can completely support but i have yet to see a single part of his budget proposal that in any way impacts him. that's what sharing means, governor nerd. please go ask any four year old. they will explain it to you. he expects me to continue to watch my peers move out of the state for work, watch young people not further their education because they can't afford it, watch cities fall apart, watch citizens lose control if they can't vote for their elected officials and what is he going to do? i would love for him to explain how this is shared for him and his fellow middle aged, wealthy, white males.
things are a mess right now and it's exceptionally difficult to not be mad. i am tired of being told that because we are in a financial crisis, the government should just take over everything. am i high or isn't it the republican party that is against big government interference? i thought that was one of their things. i guess maybe the rules and ideology changes when it's their rules. i'm not sure.
from the girl who is trying to think of the best way to fight.
until next time...
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