Why isn’t anyone else seeing Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s latest move – limiting the amount of cash poor people can receive from the state to four years – for what it is: an attempt to recapture revenue lost when he cut taxes for his business buddies earlier this year?
The same politician who decided back in May that corporations in Michigan deserved a $1.7 billion tax cut has now decided to slash $60 million in public assistance payments.
The same politician who exempted around 100,000 businesses from paying any corporate income tax at all has decided to add to the burden shouldered by low-income families.
The Michigan League for Human Services estimates that 41,000 people will lose their cash assistance payments on October 1 when the state’s new budget year begins. This includes 29,700 children, according to the Michigan Department of Human Services.
Almost 30,000 poor kids will have less so that Rick Snyder’s pals can have more.
Consider this:
- Snyder’s plan represents about $30 in corporate tax cuts for every dollar saved in welfare benefit cuts.
- Michigan’s July unemployment rate was 10.9 percent, tied with South Carolina for third-highest in the nation.
- About 23 percent of Michigan’s children lived in poverty in 2009, compared with 20 percent nationally.
- Things have gotten worse. In 2000, only 14 percent of Michigan children lived in poverty.
- The average age of a child in a family receiving cash assistance is around seven years old.
- The Michigan Catholic Conference is among those objecting to the four-year limit. The conference said the effect will be felt for years by society and by children who lose services.
One of the few substantive utterances Snyder made on the campaign trail last year was that he intended to make reducing the number of children living in poverty a priority of his administration.
Finally! A politician making good on a campaign promise!
I’m so tired of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment