Same as the old boss

Post title in honor of the beautiful boy's beautiful obsession with the 'oo....

Oh that Rick Snyder--Michigan's new guv is just so peachy. Brian Dickerson seems to think that Snyder's Michigan Dashboard (supposedly to provide a metric to those issues of the most importance to Michiganders) is a real game changer (hell, he wrote about it twice--thinks Obama should do it, too). He's either naive or incredibly dense to believe that a) this isn't a political idea (there's a sop to just about every political stripe), b) the Snyder administration won't spin the numbers to put itself in the best light (as will his republican cohorts--"Too bad poverty's still above the national average, but look what we did on obesity!"). or c) that any more than a handful of Michiganders will ever look at the damn things. Exactly how this helps our biggest problem--a lacks of J-O-B-S--is a mystery.

Old Nolan seems to think that the powers that be threw out the (political) mold after Snyder's entrance into the political world. Because Snyder threw a couple of crumbs to the left (education from pre-school to college--why this isn't an issue supported by both parties shows how irrelevant the republican party is--and the fighting obesity challenge), he's just, you know, dreamy. Puh-leeze--had a Democrat done the same old Nolan would have his panties in a twist about how little respect the Dem had for republicans. This thread that somehow Snyder is different from other politicians is bullshit: Snyder is a republican through and through and is hell bent on continuing the destruction of the middle class and the further enrichment of the wealthy elite. This piece is all you need to see: Snyder speaking to "business" leaders about how overpaid state workers are. Why isn't he speaking to a group of state workers about this (hint, probably not a friendly crowd)? The pay of state workers is not, and never has been, the cause of Michigan's budget problems. A lack of good paying jobs is. What Snyder is saying, in essence, is that because Michigan's corporations can't create good paying jobs, not only do Michigan's poor and middle class have to have a lower standard of living, they also will be receiving less governmental services. This is a republican goal. My guess, though, is that Snyder's main reason for his speech to Michigan "business leaders" was to get out this figure (which by the way, is completely misleading): that the average wage of a state worker in Michigan is roughly $87,000 (supposedly 55ish in pay, 30ish in benefits). One can see this figure being used in countless editorials, letters to the editor, and right wing radio (amazing that conservatives will tell you, when it comes to tax cuts, that $250,000 a year isn't that much money for a family, but when it comes to state workers, $87,000 in wages and benefits is overpaid) , but never debunked the way it should be. To wit: the average wage at the store I work at is approximately $18,000; less than one third of the people who work at the store make as much or more. The average wage is greatly skewed by the vastly superior pay of those at the top. Snyder's aim is to get that $87,000 figure out there (especially in a state with 13%+ unemployment) to try and win the spin, regardless of its accuracy. This is a republican tactic.

You can paint a turd gold, but it doesn't become a gold ingot. It's still a turd. Much the same can be said of Rick Snyder and his aims.

Peace,
emaycee