For those unfamiliar with it, SMART is the transportation system used around the Metro Detroit-area (not to be confused with D-DOT, a separate and totally independent transportation system that operates in much of the same area as SMART). SMART employs full sized buses to drive around town empty most of the time and charges what few riders it does have a ridiculously low percentage of what it actually costs to operate the system. To make up for this business "deficiency", SMART shakes down local taxpayers to make up the difference.

"Now, waitaminit?", you may interject.

Remedial Business 101 here; to remain viable, you must at least charge your customers the cost of providing a good or service in order survive.

No one should be able to compel someone to support something that they do not want or use.

Well, there is one republican didn't get that memo, and here he is:

{Now, you will give generously so that my union friends will survive!}

According to the Citizens for a SMART Future website, listed among its board members is none other than L. Brooks Patterson himself.

Listed among organizations supporting this tax are local unions such as the Michigan AFL-CIO, Teamsters Local 247, and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1564 (take a wild guess as to whom they represent).

No word yet on if LBP recently suffered some sort of blunt force trauma to his noggin or he has been replaced by a life-like simulant answering only to Mark Brewer.