April 16, 2016

Flint Is a Casualty in the Right Wing's War on Local Democracy

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13064/flint-casualty-right-wing-government-experiment
"the real culprit in the debacle: Governor Snyder's "emergency manager" law that stripped Flint of any local democratic control and put its fate in the hands of unaccountable executives hand-picked by Snyder. "Did that emergency management system fail under your leadership in this matter?" asked Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), demanding a yes or no response from Snyder. "That would be a fair conclusion," Snyder eventually conceded. "This is a failure of a philosophy of governance you advocated," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). "A city in America... is on its knees because of your emergency manager's decision to save $4 million. And now it's going to cost a lot more to clean up." Is this really happening in the world's leading republic? Governor Snyder's controversial emergency manager law is a cornerstone of the right wing's war on labor and local democracy in Michigan, which has been orchestrated by a network of "think tanks" and committees backed by the billionaire DeVos family, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Kochs, and other conservative politicos."