by Mike Hall, Apr 13, 2011
Thousands of Michigan workers, students, seniors and others are heading for the state capitol in Lansing today for a massive rally against Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) proposed budget that cuts $900 million from education, taxes pensions, raises taxes for low-income families and slashes vital services–all while, cutting business taxes by $1.7 billion.
The budget battle follows last month’s fight over Snyder’s “financial martial law” bill.
The new law allows Snyder to declare a “financial emergency” in a city or school district and appoint a manager with broad powers, including the ability to fire local elected officials, break teachers’ and public workers’ contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and even eliminate entire cities or school districts without any public input.
Also last month Snyder signed a new law that cuts state unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks.
Snyder and Republican legislators are expected to try to push the budget through as quickly as possible, says Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney.
They’re hurrying to get this done and the result of that is they’re not listening to everyone involved enough.
In a joint statement, Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer and House Democratic Leader Richard Hammel said the Snyder plan balances the budget on the backs of
seniors, working families, and students while giving billions away to big corporations… It does nothing to resolve the concerns and frustrations that have brought people to the Capitol by the thousands in recent weeks to voice their opposition to his agenda. We also question the amount of revenue this plan will actually generate since the bulk of the revenue raised from the pension tax comes from hitting the lowest pensions.
