Hey, Mike Bishop!
| By Angela - Jan 20th, 2010 at 4:04 pm EST |
| Also listed in: staffblog |
Like most Michiganders, I have watched as your last round of "reforms" contributed to growing hardships and deficits in schools, more of our needy getting sick and dying for lack of health care services, and public safety being slashed, all so you can claim to have never raised taxes on Michigan's hard working families.
But my mom always said (well, she still says it), "Angela, even God gives us second chances," so I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt when I heard you unveiled a new "reform" plan.
So when I finally got my trembling little hands on your "reform" plan yesterday afternoon, the first words out of my mouth were curse words. In fact, Mr. Bishop, I was so upset that as I gestured wildly in a display of "WTF? Again?" to the person nearest me, your "2010 Year of the Reform" cover page slashed my pinky finger wide open.
This bleeding heart liberal started bleeding on your handout before I made it to the stash of bandages in the office.
But back to your strangely sharp, thick-edged cover sheet. Your "reforms," as you have taken to calling your budget cuts (nice use of doublespeak, by the way) are disappointing, at best. At worst, they're exactly what I'd expect from you.
$1.2 billion from public employees, some of which can't be accomplished without a popular vote? Another half billion from Medicaid which evidently you feel didn't shoulder enough of the burden last fiscal year, as you now plan to cut more "optional" services. Obviously, you learned nothing from the elderly woman in Alpena, who died for lack of dental coverage.
Then there's your "school reforms," which is Bishop-speak for "outsourcing jobs," meaning bus drivers and janitors will be asked to take a third or a fourth of their current wage for their same job with worse benefits. That's great for the economy.
You, Mikey Blue Eyes, already know the kicker, but I'm going to type on my still-smarting Spiderman Band-Aided pinky anyhow. You and yours will take a hit of $5 million. In the form of pulling the lifetime benefits of only some lawmakers. And that "some," making a sacrifice so laughably small it just has to be your best joke yet, doesn't even include you.
Oh, Mike, I haven't the heart to finish this letter. But just so you'll have plenty of letters from people like me, who listened to their moms and gave you even the most ill-considered of second-chances to at least, for heaven's sake, say cuts when you are making cuts, I told all my friends to write to you, too.
But my mom always said (well, she still says it), "Angela, even God gives us second chances," so I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt when I heard you unveiled a new "reform" plan.
So when I finally got my trembling little hands on your "reform" plan yesterday afternoon, the first words out of my mouth were curse words. In fact, Mr. Bishop, I was so upset that as I gestured wildly in a display of "WTF? Again?" to the person nearest me, your "2010 Year of the Reform" cover page slashed my pinky finger wide open.
This bleeding heart liberal started bleeding on your handout before I made it to the stash of bandages in the office.
But back to your strangely sharp, thick-edged cover sheet. Your "reforms," as you have taken to calling your budget cuts (nice use of doublespeak, by the way) are disappointing, at best. At worst, they're exactly what I'd expect from you.
$1.2 billion from public employees, some of which can't be accomplished without a popular vote? Another half billion from Medicaid which evidently you feel didn't shoulder enough of the burden last fiscal year, as you now plan to cut more "optional" services. Obviously, you learned nothing from the elderly woman in Alpena, who died for lack of dental coverage.
Then there's your "school reforms," which is Bishop-speak for "outsourcing jobs," meaning bus drivers and janitors will be asked to take a third or a fourth of their current wage for their same job with worse benefits. That's great for the economy.
You, Mikey Blue Eyes, already know the kicker, but I'm going to type on my still-smarting Spiderman Band-Aided pinky anyhow. You and yours will take a hit of $5 million. In the form of pulling the lifetime benefits of only some lawmakers. And that "some," making a sacrifice so laughably small it just has to be your best joke yet, doesn't even include you.
Oh, Mike, I haven't the heart to finish this letter. But just so you'll have plenty of letters from people like me, who listened to their moms and gave you even the most ill-considered of second-chances to at least, for heaven's sake, say cuts when you are making cuts, I told all my friends to write to you, too.
As government and corporations slash the wages paid to employees and their jobs, whether through layoffs or outsourcing, no one (meaning Republican businessmen who Bishop considers to be his constituency) has examined the impact that reduced wages and of workers will have on the sale of goods and services by those people and the people with whom they did busines (barbers, bars and restaurants, department stores, auto manufacturers, schools and the state itself through reduced income and sales taxes. There is a ripple effect that has not been factored. Already a large part of the state's present is caused by a significant reduction its revenue from these two sources.
Based on the negative impact ofBishop's "reforms" to date, the state government, local governments and school districts as well as its residents and businesses can ill afford any more. There is a serious ripple effect to the state's economy that is being left out of abishop's version of reform.
May heaven save us from any more of his reforms. The republican senate which Bishop leads, has done its dead level best to destroy the things that make Michigan a great state to live in.