Tag: Ficano

Alas.

The Lansing State Journal tells the governor's dirty little secret this morning - a full 1,000 of those at-risk employees are corrections workers on the front lines of the battle to keep violent criminals behind bars.  

How, you're asking, could the state fire 1,000 of the brave men and women who daily supervise career criminals, rapists and murderers to keep them from wreaking havoc on each other and Michigan families without serious consequences?  And the answer is, they can't.  

The administration isn't without their own creative solution, though.  Yesterday, while everyone in the press was distracted by the budget they took another under-the-radar action whose consequences could be disastrous.

As many as 3,500 to 4,000 prisoners could be paroled by October under an executive order Granholm issued Thursday. The governor ordered the State Parole Board to review the status of 12,000 prisoners who already have served minimum sentences for potential release.

(Mel) Grieshaber (executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization) urged state officials to be cautious about early releases.

"We think there are a lot of bad guys in there who potentially are going to get out," he said.

Bad.  Idea.  And we know that, at least privately, Michigan Democrats admit as much.  Remember, it was less than two years ago that every Dem in the state, from the regressisphere to the Capitol to the local county organizations made the forceful argument that Michigan state government had "cut to the bone."  There was nothing left to cut.  Nothing we could eliminate.  Tax hikes or bust.

Now, suddenly, we can release 4,000 convicted felons early and fire 1,000 law enforcement officials without serious, potentially violent consequences?  C'mon now.

Read on...

For the record, because I know you're curious, NO, 1985 was neither John Engler, George W. Bush or Dick DeVos's fault.  Engler was still years away from being elected Governor, Bush was just the Vice President's kid and DeVos was a young entrepreneur in the process of becoming one of the great job makers the state of Michigan has known.  None of them, though, were running the show in Lansing or Washington, DC.

Blanchard was the Democrat at the helm in the Capital City and Ronald Reagan had the national economy kicking into gear as it recovered from stagflation and the devastating recession of 1982.

This year Michigan remains the only state with double-digit unemployment and the freefall continues.  But I mentioned hope.  Haglund continues:

Economists expect the state and national unemployment rates to rise this year because consumers are spending less in a deepening recession.

Mackinac Center senior economist David Littmann said he expects unemployment to hit 12 percent by July.

"There's really no better time for government to reduce the tax and regulatory burdens on the private sector and spark the long-awaited turnaround in Michigan's economy," Littmann said.

To that end, here comes the calvary.  Maybe.

Read on...