Get ready for a snow job
Tonight Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to will give his final State of the State address of his first term in office. In it, we’re sure to hear many platitudes about his “relentless positive action” to create “more and better jobs” and ensure that Michigan remains “the Comeback State”. When it comes to marketing, our CEO governor is among the best and his pithy catch phrases have become something of a trademark.
What the catchy phrases won’t tell you is that our state has been given away to corporate interests. While record numbers of schools and municipalities have failed under Governor Snyder’s watch and our state’s unemployment rate still wallows in the mud of second worst in the country, our governor and his colleagues in the legislature have given massive tax breaks to corporations, privatized our schools to for-profit businesses, and given away contracts for public services to private businesses to extract profits from, as well. Meanwhile, they’ve raised taxes on over half of our state’s residents, slashed education, and eliminated most of the tax breaks that help Michigan’s working poor families.
THAT is the state of our state in 2014.
Our friends at SnyderFails.org, a project of Progress Michigan, have put together a video that spells out how things stand in Michigan right now under Rick Snyder’s “leadership”:
Sam Inglot, project director of SnyderFails, had this to say about their “Real State of the State” effort:
While political satire like the Real State of the State from the Fake Rick Snyder can be seen as funny or entertaining, it also communicates a very serious message: Governor Snyder has the wrong priorities for Michigan. Under Snyder’s supposed ‘leadership,’ Michigan has given billions in unaccountable tax cuts to big corporations, while systematically raising taxes on working families and seniors. Snyder’s hollow promise of ‘more and better jobs’ has fallen woefully flat as Michigan suffers America’s third worst unemployment rate. Snyder will try to gloss over this fact during his State of the State address tonight, but we’re here today to set the record straight.
Don’t be fooled by Rick Snyder’s marketing scheme tonight. He will trumpet “accomplishments” that mean little to the average Michigan resident and will glibly skip over the pain and struggle that many of our fellow residents continue to deal with every day thanks to his policies and lack of action. Meanwhile, our roads and other infrastructure crumble beneath the wheels of our vehicles because Governor Snyder lacks the ability to convince his Republican pals in the legislature to take action now before it becomes a financial disaster too large to solve.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter tonight as well as SnyderFails where we’ll be live-tweeting the State of the State address.
UPDATE: At a press conference held by Progress Michigan/SnyderFails this morning, House Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) had this to say:
For the past three years, Gov. Snyder has shown his loyalty to the rich and powerful. He’s handed out massive corporate tax cuts and paid for it by raising taxes on low-income and middle-class families. He’s raided billions of dollars meant for schools, driving up class sizes and putting a college degree out of reach for many.Gov. Snyder promoted the interests of corporations over people at every turn, doubling down on the same trickle-down economics that led our nation off a cliff during the Bush administration. Now, he’s hoping that a flood of cash and glitzy television ads will help the voters forget all of this so he can obscure the truth: Rick Snyder has raised your taxes and cut your schools so that CEOs can pay less.
