By Joel Thurtell
When our new Michigan governor, Rick Snyder, announced his support for a government bridge between the U.S. and Canada at Detroit, bucking many of his own Republican legislators and a powerful billionaire, I was hopeful.
It was a display of leadership from Republicans — or at least one Republican — that has been missing in that party for a long time.
But I just can’t swallow the governor’s line that his proposed budget includes shared sacrifice, and that it will somehow benefit even the poor.
The new governor comes from business, where he was a big success. In theory, his business acumen would help him cut through alleged government bureaucracy and get things done that needed doing.
Michigan’s economy certainly needs jump-starting.
But I don’t see how giving business a $1.8 billion tax cut and making up the difference by raising taxes for everyone else equates to shared sacrifice.
I don’t buy the “trickle-down” theory that businesses will invest their tax windfall in new jobs. That line of guff was a recipe for disaster under Herbert Hoover, and the outlook hasn’t changed since the Great Depression.
It looks to me like one businessman giving his brother and sister business people a windfall.
The term for that is not “shared sacrifice.”
It is “cronyism.”
