Tag Archives: Rick Snyder

A Step In The Right Direction

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The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services reinstated work requirements for people who receive taxpayer-funded food assistance. The change in the law will impact about 70,000 people in 69 Michigan counties.

The article reports:

Wheaton (Michigan Department of Health & Human Services Public Information Officer Bob Wheaton) said that these work requirements had been in effect before 2002, but were lifted because of high unemployment. With the economy improving, Wheaton said, the MDHH decided it was time to reinstate the policy.

Holly Wetzel, communications coordinator at the Michigan-based, free-market think tank the Mackinac Center, supports reinstating work requirements.

“Work requirements benefit the individual, taxpayers and the economy because they realign incentives within our welfare system that encourage, reward, and restore the dignity of work,” Wetzel told Watchdog.org.

Former Democratic President Bill Clinton incorporated work requirements in his welfare reform package in the 1990s, which Wetzel said were a great success. These policies, she said, preserve the food stamp system and ensure access to the most needy while incentivizing a sustainable lifestyle. Along with a more sustainable food stamp system, she said she expects that employers will see “a more vibrant and enterprising labor market,” which will help them fill positions in an economy that has brought more jobs to the country.

“[Food stamps] exist to help the truly vulnerable,” Wetzel said.

In addition to food stamp work requirements, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is currently seeking to add work requirements to his Medicaid expansion program, called the Healthy Michigan plan. If Snyder succeeds, this will have the same work requirements as are currently required for food stamp recipients.

Putting a work requirement on food stamps provides incentive for those receiving food stamps to find employment. The fact that the state is referring people to programs where they can receive job training is also helpful. Part of human nature is not to appreciate things that you didn’t have to work for. Putting a work requirement of public assistance and training people for jobs helps the recipients of food stamps climb out of the poverty they are in. This worked in the 1990’s when it was first tried, and it will work successfully again.

Common Sense Comes To Michigan

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Today’s Washington Times is reporting that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has signed a law putting in place a new drug-testing program for welfare recipients.

When you read the details of the program, you realize that it is intended to help those on welfare who have drug dependency problems, not penalize anyone. The article explains:

Welfare recipients or applicants suspected of drug use will be required to take a drug test. Anyone who refuses to take the test will be suspended from welfare benefits for six months.

If a person tests positive for drugs they will be referred to a treatment program and required to submit periodic drug tests. Refusal to participate in the rehab program will result in a termination of welfare benefits. But benefits can be restored after a person submits a clean drug test.

Welfare in many cases has been abused and used as an excuse to stay drugged and not work. This program is a step toward helping people end drug dependency and become working members of society. This needs to be done in all states.

Yes, We Are Bailing Out Detroit

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Yesterday the Daily Caller reported that despite denials by the White House, Washington is bailing out Detroit. The bailout of $100 million is being described as “blight remediation.”

The article reports:

…it (the $100 Million) allows the city’s new managers to reshuffle more cash into the city employees’ pension funds, which were looted by city and union officials for several decades.

The stealth bailout was exposed by the Detroit Free Press, which said the $100 million would be taken from the so-called “Hardest Hit Fund.” That fund was created by the administration in 2010 to counter the disastrous implosion of the federally-inflated real estate bubble.

Evidently the “Hardest Hit Fund” had been drained over the years by unconventional practices, including the periodic payout of funds to employees in years when the funds’ value were boosted by Wall Street investments.

Keep in mind that the stock market has been in fairly good shape over the last few years due to the influx of money from quantitative easing. That should have kept the funds viable had they been handled properly.

The article further reports:

Detroit has been under Democratic control since the departure of Louis Miriani in 1962, when the city’s residents had the nation’s highest per capita income.

The city crashed in the 1970s, amid racial acrimony and incompetent management at the city’s vital auto plants.

Many other cities and states face severe pension difficulties. They’re led by Chicago and Los Angeles, where Democratic control has boosted the pensions of government employees.

Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, has promised to send $350 million in state funds to the city.

It matters who runs your city. Part of the problem is unfunded liabilities (large pensions promised to union government employees). In order to get our cities and states under financial control, we need to make sure that the promises we make to our municipal and state employees are paid for at the time the promises are made. The federal government can print money–states and cities cannot.

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Detroit Goes Under

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The Washington Examiner is reporting today that the city of Detroit is filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

The article reports:

According to the bankruptcy filing, Detroit now has more than $18 billion in unfunded liabilities. The city’s population has dwindled from 1.85 million in 1950 to under 700,000 today, and its tax revenues have shrunk accordingly even as the average tax burden has risen to the highest level of any town in the state. A deficit estimated at $237 million in June was too much for the once-mighty industrial town to handle.

A website called Pensions & Investments posted the following on July 11:

Mr. Orr (Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency fiscal manager) has proposed that city employees with less than 10 years of vested service be taken out of the defined benefit plan and be moved to 401(k)-style savings plans.

There’s no way employees or unions will bargain away pension benefits, said Michael VanOverbeke, a lawyer for the general employees retirement system, after the meeting. Michigan‘s constitution prohibits changes in accrued pension benefits, Mr. VanOverbeke said. Mr. Orr has said that a bankruptcy filing would negate the state protection.

This is a problem a lot of cities, states, and municipalities are going to be faced with in the very near future. For years unions have negotiated contracts that included retirement plans that were totally funded by taxpayer money. As private companies have converted to 401k plans where employees contribute to their retirement, public employee unions have not followed suit. The bankruptcy of Detroit is not really a surprise to anyone. You can’t continue to spend more than you take in without running out of money at some point. As the jobs left Detroit, the city had no way to make up the lost income. It attempted to raise taxes to generate income, but that simply drove people out of the city.  It’s just a shame that the leadership of the city couldn’t have done more to avoid the problem.

 

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The Battle For Union Reform Moves To Virginia

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about the next battle in reforming unions. In Virginia, the Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee has passed a bill to guarantee voter privacy in union elections. This is a preemptive strike in case the Obama Administration passes card check–a union election procedure that takes away the secret ballot.

The article reports:

Held over from the 2012 General Assembly session, the bill is expected to come to the Senate floor in the session that opens Jan. 9.

“This amendment is essential if we are going to preserve voter integrity and privacy,” said Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania), who introduced the measure. “No citizen should be forced to reveal how they voted in any election, be it a federal, state, local or a union election.”

Unions have a place in the American workforce. Ideally they protect the rights of the individual worker and provide a way for grievances to be resolved. However, unions have become a cash cow for the Democrat party, and an excuse for their leaders to live in luxury at the expense of the average worker. Union leaders are no better than the corporate fat cats they condemn. It is time for the unions to remember their original purpose–protecting workers–and begin to focus on that.

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