"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety"
Benjamin Franklin
Michigan's governor, Rick Snyder, belongs in a padded cell, along with the rest of the state Assembly and Senate. This poverty skolah has lived on social security for several years without a COLA (Cost of Living Allowance) raise. The government of Michigan wants to double pension taxes, abolish the Earned Income Tax rebate, and pass the "savings" to the state and corporations. They really want to be thought of as "business-friendly".
All inspections of dairy products (by state officials) have been cancelled, all philanthropic donations to state and local colleges and universities will be taxed, and city governments under extreme financial pressure will be dissolved by the governor and pub under corporate receivership. This is the Robocop future of the city of Detroit, MI, owned by a mega-corporation.
Imagine Detroit being renamed Blackwater-ville (Blackwater changed its name to "Xe Services LLC"..imagine Detroit renamed "Xe"...). The Controller of the corporation managing the receivership has the power to declare all contracts null and void. The Board of Directors (especially the Chair) will have feudal power over citizens of their fiefdom, acting as Barons over serfs.
Get ready, people of Detroit, for the new. improved. feudal ages. Your Barony of Neo-Detroit may well go to war with Amwayville over property and water rights. The governor, your King, will sit back and watch the end of Democracy.
Snyder was probably inspired (in part) by Sandy Springs, Georgia, which voted to incorporate itself in 2005. Incorporation isn't a bad thing, but what the leadership of the town did after that is questionable at best, even if they truly did want to reduce the cost of being a town or city in 21st Century America.
Sandy Springs signed a $32 million contract with CH2M-Hill, a multinational corporation, to perform "...all the public works, all the community development, all the administrative stuff, the finance department, everything is done by CH2M-Hill", the Mayor, Eva Galambos, said in a 2006 newspaper article written by Leonard C. Gilroy of the Reason Foundation.
The argument for doing this was couched as saving money ($32 million is just over half what Fulton County charged Sandy Springs in taxes for services rendered) and working to do the job of governance better and more efficiently. Those are good goals to shoot for, but will everyone who sees this solution to the high cost of running a city be so magnanimous? The citizens of the City of Oakland, CA, have endured years of poor management of resources, nepotism in City Hall, strong mayors (like Jerry Brown) who were more business-friendly than people-friendly, weak mayors like Ron Dellums (embarrassed by a nepotism-minded city administrator who appeared to be stronger, certainly more stubborn...), and more.
Michigan and Wisconsin are leading the way to the deconstruction of our communities--we thought California was bad!
This nightmare has a solution. Recall the entire government of Michigan. To paraphrase one of the Founding Fathers of this country, freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, you'll be led like sheep to the slaughter. Don't be sheep.