Snyder’s sagging agenda (the Michigan View 3.27.11)

Posted by hpayne on March 27, 2011

bilde (1)Less than four months after a landslide election swept Republicans into power in Lansing, the party’s agenda is gravely ill.

In a stunning rebuke to their own governor, Senate Republicans introduced an alternative budget last week that takes a big swipe at Governor Snyder’s cornerstone plan of tax simplification. This is the sort of rebuke you would expect from Democrats if they held the Senate. But the governor’s own allies?

Led by squishy moderate Randy Richardville, Senate Republicans have always been suspect as a reform ally. And their counter-proposal is a retreat from their mandate for change. Rather than pushing their governor – who has courageously offered a new direction – to be even more aggressive on tax reform and bloated union benefits, the GOPers backslide towards politics-as-usual higher taxes and special interest loopholes.

But the self-proclaimed One Tough Nerd really has himself to blame for this mess.

By proposing a flat tax that did not significantly lower the income tax rate or pare public employee union excess – while targeting the pension tax break of a politically-powerful seniors lobby – the Guv made a crucial political mistake. As a result, Snyder finds himself fighting his own party. Contrast that with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who successfully rallied his Republican base for his reforms.

“It’s certainly true that Snyder’s fiscal initiative is receiving far less heat than Walker’s,” wrote Leon Drolet in a prescient article for The View March 8. “But Walker’s proposal has done something that Snyder’s will likely never do: united the state Republican House to vote for it. Walker’s plan will probably pass the senate and become law.

Drolet argued that a more aggressive stance by Snyder to pare union collective bargaining privileges would have rallied Republicans. Wisconsin-like union protests against the union reforms Snyder has proposed failed to united GOPers behind him.

Drolet says Snyder needs to go back to the drawing board. “Compare the possible $380 million Snyder may be asking in government benefit cuts to the $900 million he is directly demanding from the pension tax hike,” he wrote in arguing for a change in focus to budget cuts. “Governor Snyder must regroup and re-launch.”

For a governor who champions the fairness of his plan, the unfair sacrifice of taxpayers vs. union fat cats is hard to stomach. Snyder could redraw as Drolet proposes, or. . . .

Snyder could turbo-charge the growth agenda he has laid out. He says he wants a flat tax. A true flat tax would lower rates to say, three percent – numbing the pain of closing all tax loopholes. And, most importantly, it would unite Republicans.

Snyder campaigned as a bipartisan governor. But union-patsy Democratic allies are nowhere to be found. The governor is learning the hard way why his Republican base is so important. Without GOP unity, Snyder’s agenda is suddenly very much in trouble.

Comments are closed.