Michigan Governor’s Power Grab
E.D. Kain at Forbes has an important post about the new midwestern governor that is slipping under the radar, Rick Snyder. Look at what he’s proposing:
Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That’s right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.
Holy crap! Is that kind of law even constitutional in Michigan? There’s been some huge protests in Michigan over the last few weeks, and protesters took over the state capital last night.
How can this be constitutional anywhere! this is what fascism looks like.
It is odd that this isn’t getting more attention. It is as if the public imagination only has room for one teabag Governor hell bent on turning his state into a shit hole at a time.
It actually is constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled a while back that its up to the states to oversee local gov’ts as they see fit (not saying its right).
Muni Bond Fundamentals are ‘Horrifying’: Bond Manager
CNBC 15 Mar 2011 Gennine Kelly
“Fundamentals are horrifying: unfunded pension liability [is] growing from $7 trillion this year to $11 trillion next year to $15 trillion in two years. Health care costs going up at 9 percent a year, inability to raise taxes … headline risk is predominant,” Albrycht said. “You need to have aggressive reform, like we are seeing in New Jersey. You need to have governments dealing with the situation, like we’re seeing in Wisconsin and Illinois,” he added. If over the next 24 months there is not pension reform, the munis are in trouble