Detroit Bankruptcy Claim Ruled Unconstitutional

It's no secret that the corporations are setting out to become the only ruling faction of every state in the

nation.  While one can easily see them doing the same thing in state after state, sometimes they employ different tactics, depending on state rules and other factors.

In Michigan, we see this with the implementation of Fiscal Emergency Managers.  These emergency managers would be the same as a hatchet man in the private sector world - someone whose sole job is to shut down the company so that that the vulture capitalists can gorge themselves.

Last week, the emergency manager for Detroit said that he was going to file for bankruptcy immediately because he couldn't or didn't want to pay the city's bills, including the city's workers pension.  In other words, it was a blatant raid on the pension system, stealing from the workers to give to Governor Rick Snyder's corporate masters.

Too bad for them that their pension raid is unconstitutional:

An Ingham County judge says Thursday's historic Detroit bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn.

But Attorney General Bill Schuette said he will appeal Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s Friday rulings and seek emergency consideration by the Michigan Court of Appeals. He wants her orders stayed pending the appeals, he said in a news release.

In a spate of orders today arising from three separate lawsuits, Aquilina said Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr must take no further actions that threaten to diminish the pension benefits of City of Detroit retirees.

“I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Aquilina said.

“Plaintiffs shouldn’t have been blindsided,” and “this process shouldn’t have been ignored.”

Lawyers representing pensioners and two city pension funds got an emergency hearing with Aquilina Thursday at which she said she planned to issue an order to block the bankruptcy filing. But lawyers and the judge learned Orr filed the Detroit bankruptcy petition in Detroit five minutes before the hearing began.

Aquilina said the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees, including those in the City of Detroit. Snyder and Orr violated the constitution by going ahead with the bankruptcy filing, because they know reductions in those benefits will result, Aquilina said.

“We can’t speculate what the bankruptcy court might order,” said assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin, representing the governor and other state defendants.

“It’s a certainty, sir,” Aquilina replied. “That’s why you filed for bankruptcy.”

The Michigan Attorney General has already said that he is going to file appeals on this ruling and on other cases which are in front of the judge. Apparently his argument is that the state and federal constitutions are unconstitutional.

I wish the people of Michigan the best as they take on this latest fight against the corporate overlords.

I would also like to mentally shake each of my fellow Milwaukeeans and Wisconsinites if they don't think that the same thing could and would happen here.

The Red Herring Referendum

In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about a controversial legislative bill written and being pushed by the Greater Milwaukee Committee (GMC)* and being sponsored by Teapublicans Joe Sanfelippo and Alberta Darling.

The GMC and their sockpuppets are pushing this piece of offal as a chance for taxpayers to "stick it to the man," by voting to slash the salaries of the Milwaukee County Supervisors.

What they aren't telling the voters is that this is a double edged sword and as they slash the board's pay, they're delivering the coup de grâce to themselves in a relatively meaningless vote.

The original referendum was to ask if the county board's salary should be cut from it's current $50,000 a year to $15,000 (which would make it minimum wage) and to cut the board's operating budget from $6.5 million to $1 million.  That would effectively wipe out all the support staff, including clerks, receptionists and analysts.

Sanfelippo has since removed the budget part of the question from the referendum, meaning that even if the board's salaries would remain in tact, they're would be no one to record the meetings, track the votes or do the research on the cost and impact of any proposed budget or other piece of legislation.  They would be forced to go on the word of Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who has proven himself to be just as dishonest and unscrupulous as Scott Walker ever was, and in some ways, Abele's even worse.

Now, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Sanfelippo is planning on introducing a second bill which would delineate the duties, responsibilities of the county board and the county executive.  Sanfelippo wouldn't give any details, but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will consolidate power in the hands of the county executive.

All of this fits in very well with the GMC agenda, which has an eerie resemblance to that of the ALEC-controlled Republicans.

We saw the ALEC version in Michigan when they introduced the concept of Fiscal Emergency Managers, which was a sort of fiscal martial law.  The state would claim that a school district, a city or a county was in a fiscal crisis and then would literally take over the entity by deposing all the elected officials and having the governor put in one of his political appointees.

As one might imagine, this proved to be rather unpopular with the people and was ultimately abolished through a populist, grassroots movement.

Two years ago, GMC came out with their own ALEC styled agenda for Milwaukee County.  This included privatizing many services, such as the airport, the zoo and spinning off whatever parks they couldn't sell and the transit system.  They had other items on their wish list, as we had listed at Milwaukee County First:

Other ideas are not as responsible, but are politically popular among certain factions, such as creating a regional authority for transit and one for the parks.  The demand for a transit authority as opposed the the dedicated sales tax that the people wanted has led us to where we are now, with a transit system that is on the verge of collapse and will suffer severe cuts as it is.  We’ve also seen the dangers of taking away public control of the parks, thanks to the New Yorkers who have lost theirs.

Some of their other initiatives include:

• Severely slash the number of supervisory districts (which would also slash representation for minorities and create an unfair balance on the board, reduce the quality of representation and not save any money).
• Balance the leftover deficit from Scott Walker on the backs of workers as well as the poor, the disabled and elderly.
• Outsource most services to either the municipalities, the state or to private vendors, all of which will further reduces services and/or raise taxes.
• Replace the treasurer with a comptroller
• Severely alter mental health services (endangering the entire community as well as those requiring in patient treatment)
• Merge benefits such as the retirement and health care systems with the state (which, under the current administration, is extremely unstable – much better would be to join with the municipalities in the county.

But their most notorious initiative is calling for a statewide “Local Government Flexibility Toolkit,” which would include putting Milwaukee County under a “fiscal stress test.”

They have already started cutting services and have far exceeded the cuts Act 10 called for. Likewise, they've already gotten their comptroller and are well on their way to closing the mental health complex even though they don't have the resources to protect the patients or the public.  In his last budget, Abele tried to abdicate his duties by subcontracting the park patrols to the City of Milwaukee.

In other words, they're well on their way to taking over Milwaukee County absolutely so that they can finish it off - death by austerity.

And as Ed Garvey pointed out two years ago, GMC had already retained the services of the law firm Foley and Lardner to draft this bill.  Although the terminology is toned down from the Michigan law, the principles are the same.

What the GMC is trying to foist upon us through Sanfelippo and Darling is a modified version of a fiscal emergency manager.  Even worse, they are trying to get us to put the last nail in our own coffin.

And this should matter to everyone in the state, whether they live in Milwaukee County or not.  The bill cannot specify Milwaukee County, so they get around that by saying counties with a population over 500,000, which is only Milwaukee County.  But Dane County is very close to that threshold and when they surpass it, they will also be subject to the same laws.

Furthermore, there is nothing to say that the Republicans wouldn't tweak the law to address other things, such as a town or a county that, let's say for discussion's sake,  doesn't allow mining in their area.  Why, then the state could just declare them in a state of fiscal emergency and take it over to get whatever they want approved.

For all practical purposes, this is a move to usurp local control and put it squarely in the hands of the well-moneyed special interests.  In other words, this is a modified version of the fiscal emergency manager scheme.  Call it what you will, but that is only arguing semantics.

But I can guarantee you is that when you have such a partisan bill that is supported only by Republicans, the plutocrats and those beholden to them, it is a bad, bad bill.

*By the way, did you know that Michael Grebe - head of the Bradley Foundation and Walker's campaign chair - is also on the board of the GMC.  Lovely group, aren't they?

Michigan: Malfeasance, Malarkey and Motivation

By now, I'm sure the gentle reader has heard the tragic news that Michigan is no longer a free state. Through an act of great malfeasance, the lame duck state legislature passed the Right to Woe law. Within hours, the feckless Governor Rick Snyder signed this odorous piece of legislation into law.

It's not a law that the people wanted. This is evident by the fact that many of the reprobates who did this vile deed had lost their election in November after the voters rejected their malevolence. It is also evidenced by the fact that Michigan's Right to Woe law is written verbatim from ALEC's playbook.

But the madness didn't end there.

Shortly after the legislature did their nefarious deed, this video appeared and went viral among the RWNJ community:



Holy mayhem!

Of course, the likely suspects, aka the paid propagandists like Charlie Sykes and James Wigderson ran with it. I really got a chuckle from Wigderson's bluster about the video:

I’m looking forward to reading on leftwing blogs a) it never happened, b) Americans for Prosperity deserved it, and c) the Koch brothers faked the whole thing to make unions look bad.

But as one might expect, there is a problem with this scenario. A couple of problems really.

As the blogger emptywheel adroitly points out:

All this, in spite of the fact that witnesses say the Americans for Prosperity people were trying to provoke union members to violence, and witnesses reportedly saw AFP people loosening the ropes on the tents so they would come down. And in spite of the fact the place was crawling with cops (shipped in from around the state) who didn’t do see anything amiss. (Cops are as we speak arresting people engaging in civil disobedience at the Romney Building, where the Governor’s office is.)

And we know all too well that the state police has not been hesitant to abuse their authority and use force even when it's not needed. If there was something criminal happening, does anyone thing that the police would idly stand by?

They also have another problem - eye witnesses:



At the same time this is going on, some putz from Faux News was going around trying to agitate union protesters. He finally got someone to go after him. Funny thing is, even with all the police around, he never reported it and they never responded to it.

It's pretty safe to say we can chalk this one up in the same category as Sean Kedzie and Kyle Wood - playing the false victim. I can't wait for Christian Schneider to tell us he interviewed and verified everything before taking his post down and trying to bury it.

And as for the faux Faux News story, well, I'm also waiting to see if they show Lansing's palm trees:



The ALEC zombies think that they have it all sewed up in Michigan. They even added a fiscal note to the bill to keep the new legislature from overturning the law next year.

But things aren't as airtight as they'd like to think.

One, the Michigan law exempts police and firefighters. That's the same mistake that Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans made and which got Act 10 overturned.

Secondly, even though the legislature might have their hands tied, the people don't. They will have to ride it out for a year, but they can do for themselves what the government can't (emphasis mine):

However, labor unions believe they have found a way to challenge these bills at the ballot box, even if they would be allowed to remain in place for a while in the interim. As first reported by NBC News, an analysis by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan shows that labor would have recourse to put the right to work laws up for a citizen initiative. Republicans thought they short-circuited this by including an appropriation of funds in the legislation. By virtue of a state law, this means that the legislation cannot be challenged at the ballot box, they contended. However, the CRC of Michigan analysis shows that this is only true for one type of initiative. Here’s the full language of the analysis.

There are four methods whereby a proposal can be placed on the statewide ballot in Michigan: (1) statutory initiative, (2) voter referendum, (3) legislative referendum, and (4) constitutional amendment.

STATUTORY INITIATIVE is defined by Section 9 of Article 2 of the Michigan Constitution as the power which the people reserve to themselves “to propose laws and to enact and reject laws.” The power of initiative extends to any law the Legislature may enact and is invoked by filing petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal in number to at least eight percent of the total votes cast in the last election for governor. The Legislature is required to enact, without modification, or reject any proposed initiative within 40 session days. An initiative not enacted by the Legislature is placed on the statewide ballot at the next general election. A law that is initiated or adopted by the people is not subject to gubernatorial veto and one adopted by voters cannot subsequently be amended or repealed except by the voters or by a three-fourths vote of the Legislature.

VOTER REFERENDUM is defined by Section 9 of Article 2 of the Michigan Constitution as the power “to approve and reject laws enacted by the legislature.” Referendum must be invoked, within 90 days of final adjournment of the legislative session during which the law in question was enacted, by filing petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal in number to at least five percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last general election. The effect of invoking a referendum is to suspend the law in question until voters approve or reject it at the next general election.

LEGISLATIVE REFERENDUM is authorized by Section 34 of Article 4 of the Michigan Constitution, which provides that “[a]ny bill passed by the legislature and approved by the governor, except a bill appropriating money, may provide that it will not become law unless approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon.”

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT is authorized by Sections 1 and 2 of Article 12 of the Michigan Constitution and may be proposed either by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or by filing petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal in number to at least ten percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last general election.

The question of CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION is required by Section 3 of Article XII of the Michigan Constitution to appear on the ballot automatically every 16 years after 1978.

Only the legislative referendum is short-circuited by the appropriation of funds. Labor could use the voter referendum or the statutory initiative to put right to work on the ballot, for example. This will take more signatures than the legislative referendum, but that just represents an organizing opportunity.

I hope that the good people of Michigan don't make the same mistake we made. Instead of marching in circles or yelling a building, they need to get all boots on the ground now to start collecting signatures.

The corporate special interests might have one this round in Michigan, like they did in Wisconsin, but they have in no way won the war.

POSTSCRIPT: I keep seeing comparisons between Michigan and Wisconsin and how similar they are. Does this mean that Snyder has a secret router and a legal defense fund too?

This Is What Fascism Looks Like!

Today, in Michigan, the Teapublicans showed their true colors.

The lame duck fascists introduced a Right To Bust Unions Law and passed it through both houses, all within hours.  They did so because some Republicans were breaking ranks and they had lost a lot of seats in the last election, so they felt it was now or never.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who said he wouldn't sign it, already has his pen out and will sign off on it the minute it hits his desk.

To keep the people from having a voice in the matter, they took a page from Scott Walker and the Wisconsin fascists by locking down their capitol and assaulting people exercising their Right of Free Speech.

David Dayen at FDL has a very good break down of what happened and how it happened.

Or, for the illiterate (see Teapublicans) here it is in a nutshell:

So where do they go from here? Who knows?

Odds are that this has been done illegally and that they already have attorneys digging into it looking for every possible way to take it down. 

I just wonder if the people will wait long enough for it to work it's way through the courts.  This is exactly the sort of fascism that causes open revolts and general strikes.

At the risk of speaking for my co-authors, Cog Dis stands in Solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Michigan.

Also, take this to heart.  If you haven't realized that you cannot trust the Teapublicans by now, you're either one of them or a fool, but I repeat myself.  You can fully expect that Walker and his cohorts in corruption and crime will not only pass Right to Bust Unions Law, but also end same day registration, dismantle the GAB, allow the mining companies to rape the land and pollute the waters and air, and just about any other nightmare you care to name.

Are you ready to do what is necessary when that time comes?

A Victory In Michigan

The people's fight for freedom and against the corporate takeover has not been just in Fitzwalkerstan, but has been happening all over the country.

One of the biggest and most under-reported battles is taking place in our neighbor across the lake, Michigan.

Michigan's corporate-controlled governor, Rick Snyder, has rammed through many oppressive laws, with the most egregious among them is to impose fiscal martial on certain communities that don't past their fiscal fitness tests. Under this law, Snyder would be able to appoint agents of the state to utterly take over a community, stripping elected leaders of their powers and imposing their rules upon the people, including the unilateral, arbitrary demolish of bargaining rights for the local unions. Snyder's official name for these agents is Emergency Financial Manager, but the people refer to them simply, and more appropriately, as "local dictators." It is unsurprising that Snyder is imposing his fiscal feudal lords on predominately black neighborhoods, like Benton Harbor.

As in Ohio, Maine, and here in old Fitzwalkerstan, the people of Michigan stood up and protested and fought back.

They started the motions to do a petition drive to repeal this hateful and oppressive law. They wanted to get enough signatures to have this law put to a referendum vote. However, the corporate-backed front groups challenged the people's petitions, claiming that the petitions themselves were illegal because they were - get ready for this - using the wrong font size!

This fight actually made it up all the way to the Michigan State Supreme Court.

And it was there that justice and common sense prevailed. The people of Michigan will get to vote whether this oppressive law falls or stands. With the supreme court's decision to uphold the people's rights, the dictatorial law is suspended. But even this has led to disagreement:

To implement the court’s ruling, the State Board of Canvassers must certify the ballot question. That’s likely to happen next week, and once it does, Public Act 4 will be suspended pending the repeal’s outcome in the November election.

Gov. Rick Snyder and his appointees say all actions taken under the law since it took effect early in 2011 will stand, and current emergency managers will revert to the powers they had under the former emergency manager law, passed in 1990. The big difference: the old law does not permit managers to unilaterally amend or scrap collective bargaining agreements.

Others disagreed. Members of the board of Detroit Public Schools were talking publicly Friday about dumping emergency manager Roy Roberts and killing a plan to transfer certain schools to a special statewide Education Achievement Authority for low-achieving schools set up under the act’s powers.

School board president LaMar Lemmons II said the suspension of Public Act 4 will mean there is no emergency manager law – therefore no emergency mangers or emergency financial managers – until voters decide in November.

Once the ballot question is certified, the school board should be in charge and that means Roberts should step down, he said.

Roberts fought back through his chief of staff, Kevin Smith, sending a message to employees.

“Mr. Roberts has directed that all staff continue with your duties without interruption in conduct of the affairs of this district unless and until directed by him otherwise,” a portion of the letter read in bold, capital letters. “The board of education has no authority to direct DPS personnel to take any actions to the contrary.”

Treasurer Andy Dillon said he doesn’t believe the board has the power cited by Lemmons and he expects the new education authority to be the subject of another court battle.

Currently, polls show that support for this oppressive law is up by as much at 10 points, but with 25% still undecided. The Unions and other pro-citizen groups are fighting to get people educated before the November vote.

I just hope that Michigan isn't being quietly having their voting machines replaced by the easily tampered ones we have in Fitzwalkerstan.

Near and Far, The People Are In Full Voice

My, but the pendulum is swinging back to the people but in a mighty way.

In Mississippi, the people shot down the proposal trying to take away a woman's right of choice.  There is no word about the referendum to have an acorn defined as an oak.

In Maine, voter rights were maintained when the elimination of same day registration was flatly rejected.

In Michigan, anti-union and anti-worker State Representative Paul Scott was ousted in a recall.

In the Great State of Ohio, the union-busting bill, which was brought to referendum by more than one million petition signers, went down in flames as the voters restored sanity by firmly and loudly voicing that people come before profits.

And here in Wisconsin, with possibly more significance that even the Ohio vote, Jill Billings overwhelmingly defeated her opponent who had placed himself deeply in Scott Walker's camp.

Overall, it was a pretty sounding rejection of corporatism and the Republican agenda, which has nothing to do with creating jobs or fixing the economy, but only with centralizing their wealth and their power.

Finally, I am still working on confirming the rumor that Walker is having Maalox delivered in tanker trucks.

Michigan's People Move To Save Their State

And it's about time:

A longshot effort to recall Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder began Monday with the filing of proposed petition wording by a group upset about the Republican’s proposals related to the state budget and a new law related to emergency financial managers.

A group called Michigan Citizens United filed its paperwork in Washtenaw County, Snyder’s official county of residence. A hearing on the petition language is scheduled for April 29. If it’s approved by county election officials, recall supporters could begin collecting voter signatures as early as next month.

The group would need 806,522 valid signatures of Michigan voters to make the ballot in November.

The proposed petition language cites a Snyder-approved law that gives broad new powers to emergency managers appointed by the state to run financially struggling local governments and schools. Those powers include the ability to toss out union contracts and strip power from locally elected officials.

The proposed petition also references what it labels “tax increases” on retirees and lower-income Michigan families and “tax cuts” for corporations. Snyder has proposed eliminating tax exemptions for some retiree income and getting rid of an earned income tax credit for low-income working families while seeking lower overall taxes for businesses.

“I believe a lot of people in Michigan are angry at him,” said Tim Kramer, a resident of Oakland County’s Waterford Township and spokesman for Michigan Citizens United. “He wants to come in and do what he wants. That’s not democracy.”

Bully for the people in Michigan. Here's to hoping they succeed and set the precedent as one state after another, and most definitely Wisconsin, take the actions need to take their states back.

Scott Walker and Fiscal Martial Law: Should He? Would He? Could He?

Last weekend, Ed Garvey made an astounding claim that Scott Walker was planning to introduce a bill that would bring Fiscal Martial Law to Wisconsin, much akin to the one that Michigan is currently dealing with.

I will admit that I was rather skeptical and considered it to be alarmist to say the least.  This feeling was fortified by his claim that the GMC front group "My Milwaukee" was behind it all, which I found even more unlikely.

Scott Walker denied this, of course, which, given my experience with him, raised the first red flag.  There have also been other citizen journalists, aka bloggers, who have reported things that would contradict Walker's claim.

UPDATE: It does not appear that the GMC/Martial Law issue is so clear after all.

But the whole specter of Fiscal Martial Law possibly coming to Wisconsin brings up three natural questions:

1. Should Walker try to pass such a law in Wisconsin?
2. Would Walker try to pass such a law in Wisconsin?
3. Could Walker pass such a law in Wisconsin?

Let's take a look at these separately:

Should he?

The answer to that is a resounding NO!  In fact, the answer should be HELL NO!

Let's be honest about it. This has nothing to do with fiscal issues. These types of maneuvers are nothing but pure power grabs.  They are attempts to gain permanent control of the country through economic, societal and yes, even racial, means. 

This law is about as unAmerican as one could imagine.  As evidenced in Benton Harbor, MI, the governor can single-handedly decide that a municipality or a county is in dire fiscal shape and decide to put in a "manager." Said manager would then come in and strip the duly elected leaders of all their authority and duties and unilaterally start making decrees about everything from what services are provided, how said services are provided.  (I highly doubt that the fact that the first town they launch this offensive against a town whose population is 92% African American.)  Not to mention that this would be taking a political maul to the unions in the state, further denying people their workers rights.

This is a complete violation of everything this country stands for and belies all of the typical conservative talking points.   It completely denies the citizens of  their basic rights by denying their votes and their rights to be represented by whomever they choose to represent them.  And if you thought I was being over the top with my claims of it being a power control issue, look at what they did in Detroit. They closed the only school for pregnant teens, with an amazingly high graduation level, and then arrested the pregnant teens and other peaceful protesters for exercising their constitutional freedoms.  They're also expecting to close their school for the deaf soon.  

Basically, this law would violate almost everyone's rights.  It is unfathomable that this thing would stand up in court, but it would rack up a mountain of unnecessary legal bills in trying to defend it, burning up any savings that might have occurred, which is questionable to begin with, and them some. In the interim, it would also run the real risk of spur a general strike and/or set off riots.

Would he?

There is no doubt in my mind that Walker would actively pursue this if he thought it had a chance of passing.  

His first four months in office has been nothing but one power grab after another.  Walker and his allies in the legislature have passed laws that eliminate much of the legislature's power in setting policy for the state.  He has also managed to have dozens of positions taken out of the auspices of civil service code and made into purely political positions in which he and he alone controls who fills in said positions.

Given his proneness to overreaching, disregarding the law (including the Constitution itself) and favoring profits over people, there is little doubt that Walker would want to do this in a heartbeat.

Could he?

This is the most significant question and the one that we need to pay the most attention to.

As recently as two and a half months ago or earlier, I think this bill might have passed easily.  Instead, the Republicans decided to go with the Budget Disrepair Bill, aka the Union Busting Bill.  This bill was so foul that they couldn't even pass it under normal means, and had to violate open meeting rules to ram it through.

This bill set off a firestorm never before seen in Wisconsin, in which hundreds of thousands of people marched to the Capitol and demanded that they be heard.  When the Republicans refused to pay attention to the people, the people decided that it was high time to replace them with people that wanted to be their representatives, not the special interests'.

This has created a different dynamic than before, when the Republicans thought they could do whatever they wanted unilaterally.  Now you can see that some of them are starting to, rather belatedly, realize that it is the people who control Wisconsin.  You can see this by the way Senators Alberta Darling and Randy Hooper, who have pushed for Walker to drop his proposed cuts to SeniorCare.  Republican senators are also trying to distant themselves from other bills of Walker's, such as the cutting the funding for the state's recycling program.

Assuredly, if Walker were to try to ram such a bill though now, there would be some die hard politicians who would still stand with Walker no matter what. But I question if Walker would have enough votes to get such a polarizing bill through.  Every politician that would vote for this bill would recognize that they would be ending their political careers with a vote for such a monstrous bill. 

The thought of that possibility should be all the incentive anyone needs to do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't.

One Republican Governor Gets It -- Almost

Rick Snyder, the Republican governor for the Great State of Michigan, almost gets it:

Amid days of protest in Wisconsin over legislation to limit collective bargaining, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said he won't "pick fights" with the state's employee unions.
"We're going to go negotiate with our unions in a collective-bargaining fashion to achieve goals," the Republican governor said in an interview. "It's not picking fights. It's about getting people to come together and say here are the facts, here are the common-ground solutions."

The article goes on to say that Snyder is looking for cuts in employee health benefits, especially those for retirees.  Which is why I said he almost gets it.

Snyder, like every other elected official, regardless of party, claims that a bulk of their budgetary problems stem from the cost of health care.  But every single one of them wants to take it out on the workers, even though they have nothing to do with the price of health care, but not one single politician that I'm aware of (with the exception of President Obama and the late Senator Ted Kennedy) actually wants to do anything to fix the real problem, the cost of the health care.