Michael Barone has some advice for his fellow Michiganians:
I think it would be possible to improve Brewer’s proposals, to provide even more aid to beleaguered Michigan. My alternatives:
● Mandating all employers to provide health insurance that covers everything for all employees and dependents or face a penalty of life imprisonment without parole. (Michigan’s Constitution has banned capital punishment since 1855.)
● Raising the minimum wage from $7.40 per hour to $100 an hour and covering all workers or people who apply for a job.
● Increasing unemployment benefits by $1,000 a week, making all workers and job applicants eligible and adding 10 years to the time one can receive benefits.
● Cutting utility rates by 99%.
● Imposing a 100-year moratorium on home foreclosures.
Let the last Michiganian who leaves turn out the lights.
One of the problems that the Republicans have had is that by conceding the principle, they are always playing near their own end zone. They have to start arguing against these things on principle, rather than (as the old joke goes) haggling over the price. This kind of reductio ad absurdam can be effective in waging that battle.
They have to start arguing against these things on principle, rather than (as the old joke goes) haggling over the price.
Thus the reason I no longer call myself a Republican. Socialism at 65 mph under the Dems or 35 mph under the Reps is not a choice.
When House Republicans were being led by Bob Michel, Republicans were known as “tax collectors for the welfare state.”
Fifteen years after the Michel era was put on hiatus, we have now seen that the GOP is more comfortable as collaborators than as winners. Vichypublicans.