Howes: State Dems, political class, and other problems plaguing Michigan
Howes
Daniel Howes’ latest is so full of accurate assessments that excerpts seem almost insufficient; so many points are worth spreading far and wide. A few salient ones, however, include criticisms of the Democratic Party chairman:
The latest comes from Mark Brewer, the state Democratic Party chief who never met a cheap publicity stunt he didn’t like….proving that the long downward spiral of misery (led by the implosion of the Detroit auto industry) has done little to improve the real-world economic literacy of what Brewer & Co. figure to be a plurality of the voting public.
and quotes from the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce president on Andy Dillon’s plan to pool public employees in one health care plan:
“Give the guy credit for having the guts to do something because he knew he’d get nailed by the MEA… These are the type of creative ideas we ought to get behind. Because of union reaction to it, it’s probably not going anywhere.”*
Howes also makes clear who he thinks the enemy of Dillon’s proposal is — i.e., the people who scream bloody murder to stop any sort of cost-saving measures — by pointing out that “bureaucrats, union leaders and members of his own House Democratic caucus [are calling] for his head.”
Those who never see the desirability of giving taxpayers a break are what Jack McHugh has called the political class. He doesn’t have flattering things to say about this group:
true representative government has been supplanted by an inbred, self-serving, self-perpetuating political class that does not represent the people….
The elected officials who grant [lavish public employee benefits] and their beneficiaries are all members of the same political/government class, which protects its own above all else.
this class serves as handmaiden to what has become the nation’s most powerful interest group: the government class, comprised of the permanent welfare/regulatory state bureaucracy and the legions of direct beneficiaries who sup at the same tax-laden table.
It’s a little terrifying that McHugh’s points are gaining more and more evidence to support them. But hopefully ideas like Dillon’s latest, the one that caused “a senior Michigan Education Association official this week to declare: ‘We are at war,’” prove more popular with the voters than they have with the legislature. (We say ideas like this one because, e.g., Leon Drolet’s “Rescue Michigan” offers a similar reform with incredibly more benefits to taxpayers than Dillon’s proposal. And because Dillon’s plan could still prove to be awful, once its details are released. But half-steps toward relief from the burdens of the political class certainly beat out not taking any steps.)
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*Just because a good idea is “probably not going anywhere” doesn’t give us a good excuse not to fight for it. To a point.
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