Gary Peters represents Michigan’s richest district (Oakland County) and John Conyers its poorest (Detroit). Yet both men voted for the light bulb ban this week that will eliminate the most affordable option for Michiganians’ most common household item.<\/p>\n
Why would John Conyers join his Democratic colleagues in voting as a bloc for a government edict that will do demonstrable harm to the state’s poorest and most Democratic district? The answer tells us a lot about where the Democratic Party is today.<\/p>\n
It’s not about constituent service, it’s about power.<\/p>\n
The development is hardly new. Conyers & Co.’s support of a variety of government regulatory edicts from a ban on household pesticides to federal auto miles per gallon rules have disproportionately impacted their constituents in recent decades.<\/p>\n
Detroiters today are feeling the pain of bed bug infestation that is the direct result of the Clinton EPA’s ban – against the advice of the sciencific community – on the common household chemical Dursban in the late 1990s. While suburban leaders like Peters might justify the ban because their rich constituents can afford the Orkin man, poorer communities cannot.<\/p>\n
Without Dursban on the shelf, lower-income Detroiters are defenseless and the bed bug infestation has swept the city, especially harming children.<\/p>\n
“Hardest hit will be lower-income families in cities like Detroit, who can ill afford a weekly house call from the Orkin man,” warned Michigan writer Diane Katz when the ban was passed. Shame on Peters for discriminating against Detroit, but the real shame here is Detroit’s silent rep.<\/p>\n
The prize for both men is more power for Washington \u2014 and by extension, themselves.<\/p>\n
So too the bulb diktat. While House GOPers tried to preserve the incandescent bulb choice of 85 percent of Americans this week, Democrats voted in lockstep to eliminate 40-cent incandescent starting on January 1 in the name of global warming. In an Orwellian twist of language, Democrats claimed the bulb ban would expand consumer choice.<\/p>\n
But the looming ban has already sold Democrat-leaning blue-collars down the river as GE and other bulb companies have shifted production to China to make the more expensive replacement CFL bulbs.<\/p>\n
None of those factories were in Michigan, yet Conyers has also sentenced his poor constituents to paying up to ten times more for light \u2014 $2 to $5 for CFLs instead of the 40 cent incandescent. What will they do now? Likely be forced to choose between food and bulbs \u2014 or take refuge in the black market. Again, while Peters punishes his constituents for their global warming sins, at least they can afford to light their Birmingham palaces with CFLs (even as it burns a hole in his alleged concern for Michigan’s needy).<\/p>\n
Which brings us to the Obama Administration’s proposed 56 miles-per-gallon-by-2025 auto mileage regulations. While Governor Rick Snyder has written a (tepid) letter expressing concern over an edict that will force Americans into smaller, more expensive hybrid-electrics, Peters and Conyers have once again sacrificed Michigan workers at the altar of power.<\/p>\n
Yet while they will benefit from more campaign contribution from automaker lobbying for regulatory loopholes \u2014 not to mention playing broker to the billions in government battery subsidies – Peters and Conyers will perversely jeopardize the Detroit Three’s lock on the truck market.<\/p>\n
The resurgence of Chrysler, for example, has been due almost entirely to the production of the Chrysler Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV built in Detroit’s Jefferson North plant. Yet as the Democrats’ mileage edict makes vehicles smaller and more expensive, those profits will diminish, hurting both workers and Michigan’s bottom line.<\/p>\n
The question is not just why Michigan Democrats like Conyers and Peters put their interest before their constituents, but why are those constituents still voting for them?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gary Peters represents Michigan’s richest district (Oakland County) and John Conyers its poorest (Detroit). Yet both men voted for the light bulb ban this week that will eliminate the most affordable option for Michiganians’ most common household item. Why would John Conyers join his Democratic colleagues in voting as a bloc for a government edict […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7931"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7933,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7931\/revisions\/7933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}