Snyder’s First 100 Days: Killing Jobs, Shifting Taxes to Seniors and the Middle Class, Attacking Public Education

 by John Tramontana 

LANSING – This Sunday marks Governor Rick Snyder’s first 100 days in office, a traditional benchmark to assess an officeholder’s performance. Measuring Snyder’s performance against his own standards – bipartisanship, shared sacrifice, and leaving no one behind – his first 100 days have been a failure.

Snyder’s first 100 days include:

• Repeal of Michigan’s Item Pricing Law which will eliminate retail jobs throughout the state.
• Elimination of film industry tax incentives which has caused TV and film projects to pull-out of Michigan, taking jobs with them.
• A budget proposal that severely cuts public education and public safety, and unfairly raises taxes on seniors, middle-class families and low-wage workers to pay for a record windfall for big corporations, big banks, insurance companies, and wealthy CEOs.
• The proposed closure of 21 Michigan State Police posts.
• The anti-voter, anti-worker Emergency Financial Manager law which gives dictator-like powers to a manager appointed by the administration, takes away power from local governments and school districts, and takes away the right to collective bargaining.

“These are just a few of the so-called ‘accomplishments’ of Snyder and the Republicans in the first 100 days of the administration,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said. “These policies are not ‘reinventing’ Michigan, they’re ruining Michigan.”

“We need to be creating jobs not eliminating them,” added Brewer. “Snyder has refused to focus on creating jobs and moving our economy forward. Instead, he’s pandering to the extreme right of his Party, with tax cuts for the wealthy and attacks on public education.”