Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Detroit)
When Governor Snyder raided Michigan’s School Aid Fund to pay for his $1.8 billion tax handout to big business, he heard the message loud and clear from teachers, parents and students that those cuts to Michigan’s public education would have disastrous consequences for the quality of our schools throughout the state. Now that summer break is over and our students have returned to the classroom, those consequences are quickly becoming a reality.
The Senate Democrats have heard stories from parents throughout Michigan about class sizes growing 50% this year, bus services being eliminated and after school programs being cancelled. These are the consequences Governor Snyder chose to ignore and are directly impacting the ability of our students to receive the quality education they will need to compete in the job market of tomorrow.
We will be hosting a series of Town Hall meetings over the next several weeks to give you the opportunity to share your stories with us about the negative changes already taking place as a result of Governor Snyder’s actions and engage in a dialogue about how to improve our K-12 education system. They will take place as followed:
Detroit
Monday, September 26
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Kettering High School
Genesee County
Tuesday, September 27
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Carman Ainsworth Middle School
Kalamazoo
Monday, October 3
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Linden Grove Middle School
Marquette
Friday, October 7
4:30pm-6:00pm
Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum
Westland
Tuesday, October 18
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Dyer Senior Citizen Center
We hope you’ll be able to join us at one of these events and help us tell Governor Snyder that Michigan’s schools and Michigan’s students deserve our support!
Governor Snyder spent part of his afternoon today signing the new fiscal year budget into law, treating the event with great fanfare and even inviting the media to watch him put the final stamp on the severe and callous cuts to our schools and public safety that are included in that budget.
While the Governor was eager to celebrate the “success” of passing this budget, the real effects of it will unfortunately soon be seen. He has put in place a system that asks seniors and working families to give more so big businesses can give less. He has established a complex, confusing and inequitable three-tiered tax system on retirees. He has left school districts across Michigan teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Worst of all, he has done all of this without creating a single job in the process.
Governor Snyder explained the burdens he was placing on our working families and seniors as “shared sacrifice” and necessary evils if we were to balance our state’s budget this year. Unfortunately, his own Budget Director John Nixon seems to disagree. In a speech Mr. Nixon delivered to the Jackson Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Club only yesterday, he stated,“We could have balanced the budget without taxing pensions.”
I’m sure as Governor Snyder signed the budget into law today he’d rather nobody ask him about that statement his Budget Director made yesterday, but the question simply must be asked: If it is true that we could have balanced the budget without taxing pensions, why didn’t we? Why did the Governor make a choice to burden our senior population in order to pay for a tax handout that simply has no promise of creating jobs?
Unfortunately, that question will likely go unanswered.