What to make of a bill making its way through Michigan’s assembly:
Michigan lawmakers are on the verge of approving a bill that would enable the governor to appoint “emergency managers” — officials with unilateral power to make sweeping changes to cities facing financial troubles.
Under the legislation, the Michigan Messenger reports, the governor could declare a “financial emergency” in towns or school districts. He could then appoint a manager to fire local elected officials, break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services – and even eliminate whole cities or school districts without any public input.
The measure passed in the state Senate this week; the House passed its own version earlier. The two versions of the bill are expected to be reconciled next week, and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has said he will sign the bill the bill into law.
On the one hand, concentrating that much executive power in a governor’s office is almost certainly unprecedented — and probably undesirable as well.
On the other hand, what’s going on in Michigan economically is unprecedented. A major industrial state has seen its manufacturing core become a hollow shell of itself, while the population flees for everywhere — anywhere — else. We’ve seen many states in relative decline as the West and South steal businesses and people from the Northeast and the Midwest. But I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything like Michigan’s absolute decline — it’s eerily like Dagny and Hank’s road trip through the ruins of the midwest in Atlas Shrugged.
What’s most striking is that the new state government seems, at least for now, to be more concerned with managing Michigan’s fall instead of trying to reverse. And, for now, maybe they should be.
I can’t say that I’m a big fan of this.(I live just across the border in Ohio.) The Dems are bound to demagogue this the same way they went after Walker in Wisconsin with all the hysterical references to a “War on democracy.” In fact it’s already started. Higher government takes away the power of local government at it’s peril.
However – What choice does Snyder have? Both the state and a large number of it’s cities and counties are broke and facing bankruptcy. (A bankruptcy receiver would do most of the things proposed in Snyder’s legislation.) The population is fleeing and the state unions are going to fight to the last ditch. At least Snyder is trying to break the decades-long political deadlock in Michigan and do something positive. Look for a major challenge in the courts if this passes.
Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and I will tape a Trifecta segment for PJTV tomorrow on this very subject. I won’t give too much away, but based on our conference call this afternoon, Bill leans more to your argument, Scott is worried about the centralization of power, and I’m both repelled and captivated by the self-induced decline of a once-great state.
I dunno, the Wisconsin thing only blew up cause the national media and DC dems got a hold of it, nobody is really talking about Michigan, except for the people with an actual connection to the state. The legislature had brought up a right-to-work law, which would apply to all unions, public and private, though Snyder wasn’t a big backer and they might have put it aside like in Indiana. Right-to-work combined with this legislation could quickly halt the decline. Put it together with University of Michigan and a population of underemployed skilled factory workers willing (but without right-to-work, unable) to work for lower wages than workers in other states, and the decline could indeed be reversed in just a couple of years. Free markets work like magic, and are most effective when they have been most absent, but where previous prosperity left behind usable assets to build on. In other words, places precisely like Michigan.
I hope they didn’t dump right-to-work, without it there is little hope of doing more than managing the decline, which probably isn’t what Republicans were elected to do.
Michigan is example number one in how much union power really helps the little guy. That line about unions balancing the power of businesses thereby helping the middle class is a complete and total croc, even if it weren’t true that BIG government, BIG labor, and BIG business are all in league together against the regular folks.
“And, for now, maybe they should be.”
The problem with such exigent mandates is that they inevitably persist whether or not the targeted emergency is either successfully or unsuccessfully addressed.
One does not simply “appoint an emergency manager,” one must institutionalize emergency management! This requires funding, offices, staff, consultants or in-house specialists to create standards, design and implement remedies, oversee both their own internal operations and those of the communities whose governance and whose elected officials are superseded by their own — not to mention putting legal enforcement mechanisms at the disposal of the manager and his delegates.
Before you know it, this newly empowered bureaucracy will rebrand itself the Department of Fiscal Responsibility, and who knows, perhaps decide that green jobs will cure all ills.