Susan J. Demas: Under Republicans, the Center Doesn’t Hold

Last week, yet another troubled man armed with an AR-15 assault weapon committed mass murder.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17, mostly children, is the 1,607th mass shooting since a gunman blew away 27, mostly first-graders, in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.

Gun control debates typically go nowhere afterward. Most Republicans roundly reject mainstream, popular and common-sense ideas like universal background checks, banning assault rifles and regulating online, private and gun show purchases.

It’s not a mystery why.

The powerful NRA has become completely unhinged, routinely releasing violent, apocalyptic videos urging people to embrace “the clenched fist of truth” against the “madness” of progressive protests against President Trump and ominously warning the New York Times: “We’re coming for you.”

And so the mainstream conservative position is now to reject nearly any regulation on personal gun ownership. In Michigan, Senate Democrats couldn’t even get domestic abusers and those on the no-fly list banned from the GOP’s “guns everywhere” concealed carry expansion legislation.

There’s hope for some small changes after Parkland, as student survivors like Emma Gonzalez are speaking out, even as some right-wing lunatics spread disgusting conspiracy theories about them.

“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS,” Gonzalez declared at a gun-control rally just two days after her classmates were murdered.

But Trump is already pushing cockamamie ideas like arming teachers, which doesn’t inspire confidence.

The problem is GOP has veered so far right on issues that reasonable reforms seem like pipe dreams. It’s almost impossible to win Republican primary today supporting abortion rights and it’s fashionable to say you don’t even believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s life. The President Reagan approach to immigration is now “amnesty” and most Republicans say nothing as ICE tries to round up parents dropping their kids off at school. The market-based approach of Obamacare was derided as socialism.

Perhaps this ideological inflexibility emerged from how the GOP approaches taxes. After winning lower taxes in the 80s and revitalizing their party, Republicans now see this as the prescription for any economic circumstance.

It doesn’t matter if the stock market is booming or crashing, the economy is growing or shrinking or unemployment is rising or falling. It doesn’t matter if people are hurting, roads are crumbling or schools are failing. Cutting taxes is the only way to go. Those who say maybe enough’s enough are shunned.

So realistically, the only way to enact what used to be considered moderate policy on pressing moral issues like guns, immigration and health care is to elect Democrats in Washington, Lansing and other state capitols.

The center doesn’t hold right now.

We need to stop pretending that it can, just because U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) did the bare minimum of his job and met with his constituents after a massive tragedy at the CNN town hall. We need to stop pretending that vague tweets from the president about saving the Dream Act, which protects undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, mean anything after he unilaterally killed it last year.

I know and like many Republican legislators personally. I’ve sometimes been one of those “both sides” columnists. But the GOP, as an institution, has shown little ability for compromise and moderation in the last decade. And its embrace of Trump’s nativism, sexism and corruption will go down as a very dark chapter in our country’s history.

As the mother of two teenagers who I pray never experience anything like Parkland, I say enough. As the mother of an LGBT high-schooler who was mercilessly bullied by Trump-supporting upperclassmen after the election, I say enough.

And as someone who believes in those quaint notions of liberty, equality and justice for all, I say enough.

Dante famously wrote that “the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.” That’s where we are right now. No one should pretend otherwise.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan Punts on Flint and Nassar Crises

Susan J. Demas

Just after Barack Obama’s election during the dawn of the Great Recession, his future chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, caught some heat for this observation:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Republicans like U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have claimed Emanuel was arguing for Democrats to exploit tough times to ram through their agenda. In reality, Politifact notes Emanuel “specifically urged addressing longstanding problems with ‘ideas from both parties’ when a crisis presents the opportunity.”

This controversy, like so many of the Obama era (remember the right-wing roil over his “Between Two Ferns” appearance?), seems downright quaint today. We routinely careen from one Trump administration firestorm to the next, from Trump’s lawyer claiming he paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence on her alleged affair with the president to Trump taking a week to condemn domestic violence after allegations surfaced against two senior aides.

But here in Michigan, there just may be a lesson in Emanuel’s words. It’s tempting to feel some moral superiority about our politics compared to the gauche circus in Washington. However, we’re still grappling with a host of problems, as national headlines on the Flint water crisis and the Michigan State University Larry Nassar scandal can attest.

Both crises deserve a number of policy prescriptions to ensure they never happen again. Unfortunately, there are huge ideological barriers in dealing with the mass poisoning of a largely African-American city during the tenure of a GOP governor and a sexual abuse scandal that ESPN reports could ensnare a Big 10 university’s sacred football and basketball programs (an idea apparently so unfathomable that interim MSU President John Engler and several Michigan reporters have gone on the attack).

Hoping that our GOP-controlled state opts for stricter environmental regulations or mandates on sexual abuse reporting appears to be a pipe dream. That fact alone is a powerful testimony that Michigan needs some real change in this next election.

But there are a couple of common-sense legislative actions that should be able to net bipartisan support: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reform and a process for appointing independent special prosecutors.

One of the reasons why the Flint water crisis has dragged on much longer than it had to is people living there couldn’t get basic information about their water and serious health effects. Neither the governor’s office nor the Legislature is subject to FOIA in Michigan, making us one of only two states with such restrictions.

There have been a couple attempts to expand FOIA, but they’ve stalled. Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) last year sneered to journalists: “You guys are the only people who care about this.”

I’m pretty sure that parents of kids with lead poisoning and the families of 12 people who died of Legionnaires’ disease would have appreciated access to more government information.

Now some of the legislation proposed isn’t perfect and would set up a Byzantine process for getting information from legislative offices. But FOIA reforms should be the lowest of low-hanging fruit and a top priority.

MSU’s handling of the Nassar scandal is now being investigated by former Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth. Attorney General Bill Schuette, who’s running for governor, is directing the investigation, the Detroit Free Press uncovered (thanks to FOIA!), although he had claimed that Forsyth was an “independent special prosecutor.”

As the AG’s office charged Nassar with sexual assault crimes, this is an obvious conflict. Not to mention the fact that Schuette has strong ties to Engler, who appointed the AG to his cabinet while he was Michigan’s governor.

That’s led Lt. Gov. Brian Calley to propose legislation establishing a new class of independent special prosecutor in state law to avoid conflicts of interest.

Now Calley has a clear political interest here. He’s facing Schuette in the GOP gubernatorial primary this year. After watching Schuette snag endless headlines for prosecuting high-profile members of the Gov. Rick Snyder administration over Flint, Calley isn’t eager to see a replay so close to the August election.

Of course, in the Nassar investigation, it’s doubtful that the AG probe will target Calley’s colleagues again, as the focus should be on MSU administration. However, it’s easy to see how Schuette’s likely general election opponent, Gretchen Whitmer, could become a focus for her role as interim Ingham County prosecutor.

Calley argues that there are cases that deserve a truly independent prosecutor and he wants to give the courts that power. Alas, with Republicans running the Legislature divided in their loyalties between Calley and Schuette, this reform will probably get even less traction than FOIA legislation.

It seems that the Legislature is following the same dysfunctional pattern we’ve come to expect from the GOP-led Congress where gridlock isn’t just the byproduct divided government anymore.  

Don’t be surprised if voters demand better this fall.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Will We Learn Anything from the Nassar Scandal

“You play word games saying you didn't know because no one believed. I know that. And the reason everyone who heard about Larry’s abuse did not believe it is because they did not listen. They did not listen in 1997 or 1998 or 1999 or 2000 or 2004 or 2014. No one knew, according to your definition of ‘know,’ because no one handle(d) the reports of abuse properly.” — Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Dr. Larry Nassar of sexual abuse, taking on Michigan State University in her victim impact statement.

Most people had never heard of the largest sex abuse scandal in U.S. sports history until Olympic champion gymnasts Jordyn Wieber and Aly Raisman made it an impossible story for national news outlets to ignore.

It’s a reminder that even as prominent men — and some women — engage in predictable public handwringing whether the #MeToo movement highlighting sexual harassment and sexual assault has already gone “too far,” too many women’s stories still aren’t being heard.

Armed with their 2012 Olympics gold medals, Wieber and Raisman brought star power to a scandal involving a women’s sport most people only care about once every four years (if America has a decent Olympic team).

They were among the 163 women who gave victim impact statements in an Ingham County courtroom during the trial of Dr. Larry Nassar. The former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor has since been sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexually assaulting his patients.

Nassar is clearly a monster, having written a letter to Judge Rosemarie Aquilina that he was a “good doctor” and his accusers were just “seeking the media attention and financial reward,” adding, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

After suffering for years in silence, Raisman found her voice as she addressed her abuser: “Larry, you do realize now that we, this group of women you so heartlessly abused over such a long period of time, are now a force, and you are nothing.”

But the problem is bigger than Nassar. Raisman and other women unflinchingly described the complicity of the leadership at MSU, USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee and the Lansing-area Twistars Gymnastics training center.

Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar, emotionally eviscerated MSU for playing “word games” with its public denials and said its officials “did not listen.” The Detroit News confirmed this in a blockbuster report, “What MSU knew: 14 were warned of Nassar abuse.”

The 14 officials included President Lou Anna Simon, who finally resigned Wednesday after her remarkably tone deaf response to the abuse scandal. She was outdone, however, by MSU Trustee Joel Ferguson, who this week said that Simon was “by far ... the best president we’ve ever had,” adding “there’s so many more things going on at the university than just this Nassar thing.” (Needless to say, no one bought his subsequent apology).

Three USA Gymnastics officials have also stepped down. But there remains much more to investigate about the coverup, especially at MSU, a public institution receiving taxpayer dollars.

And it’s fast becoming a political flashpoint this election year. On Wednesday, the state House overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for Simon’s resignation, which came within hours.

But let’s be honest. Most politicians ignored the scandal until recently, as MSU is a sacred cow in Lansing (aside from cutting state aid, which is considered a noble conservative goal). The Capitol is filled with proud alumni. Basketball coach Tom Izzo is revered like a Greek god — which is why he’s gotten so little flak for saying of the Nassar case, “I hope the right person was convicted” — and football coach Mark Dantonio is quickly rising to that level.

The Nassar scandal now seems destined to play a role in the 2018 governor’s race. Attorney General Bill Schuette, the GOP gubernatorial frontrunner, has said he’ll be reviewing MSU’s role. But the conservative Detroit News editorial page ripped his record, arguing his “indifference borders on dereliction of duty,” prompting Schuette to ask for a retraction.

On the Democratic side, businessman Shri Thanedar grabbed headlines for crassly calling for Gretchen Whitmer to drop out. He accused Whitmer, a rape survivor herself, of mishandling the Nassar allegations when she served as interim Ingham County prosecutor. But Bridge Magazine has reviewed the record and concluded that “Whitmer’s mantle as an advocate for sexual assault victims remains intact.”

Nassar’s victims deserve to know the truth. They don’t deserve for investigations to be twisted for political gain. And it’s up to us in the media to be a watchdog.

It’s also up to us to listen to victims. As Aquilina noted this week, it was investigative reporting by the Indy Star that finally shattered the decades-long institutional silence about Nassar’s crimes. Good journalism has the power to bring justice.

Right now, many reporters probably know of other sexual abuse allegations. But some outlets fear getting sued, even for reporting the truth. Some reporters may find it hard to report allegations about someone who’s a respected member of the community or a good source. Women know all this. That’s why so few of us ever come forward.

But the 163 brave women in that Ingham County courthouse have told us, over and over again, how devastating it is not to be believed. We all need to do better for them and countless others.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan Republicans Face Landmines with Trump Tax Hike

Right before Christmas, President Trump signed a Republican tax bill that will raise taxes in Michigan by about $1.5 billion every year.

That’s because the law eliminates the personal exemption, which is $4,000 in Michigan. It’s true that blue states like California and New York have been gouged the most by the plan. That’s by design, as even The Hill declares that red states are using blue states “as their new piggy bank in the GOP Congress.”

But sadly, even newly minted Trump states like Michigan weren’t spared in the tax bill. So that’s left GOP Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican-controlled Legislature to scramble to fix what the feds have done.

It’s somewhat unusual for Michigan Republicans to try and reverse their Republican brethren in Washington, but it’s a political necessity. The bill has consistently been unpopular, with a majority firmly opposed in several polls. The fact that the Senate rammed it through in the dead of night with handwritten changes scratched in the margins probably didn’t help. (Remember Republicans’ adorable cries of “Read the bill!” during the Obamacare debate?)

Arguing that people aren’t particularly swift and don’t get it probably isn’t a winning argument for the GOP in an election year.

But Republicans — particularly gubernatorial candidates Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and Attorney General Bill Schuette — have to do a lambada-like dance around the fact that their proposals are fixing what Trump has done.

Because if there’s one thing we know about the Trump voters needed to win the August GOP primary, it’s that they don’t take kindly to questioning anything that Dear Leader does. No matter how many times the president erratically speaks, threatens nuclear war over Twitter, or tries to meddle in the federal investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, the Trump diehards still support him, as we know from the countless media sojourns into flyover country. (The pro-Trump Michigan Conservative Coalition even deploys a Trump lookalike to cultishly trot around events around the state, which is definitely not weird).

On the surface, the tax fix shouldn’t be hard for Snyder, who refused to endorse Trump. But his No. 1 mission to salvage his badly damaged legacy after the Flint water crisis is to get Calley elected. And nobody is going to win a GOP primary by taking on Trump.

So while proposing his plan to restore the personal exemption in Michigan, Snyder made some references to Congress but has carefully tried to avoid the “T-word.” His treasurer, Nick Khouri, gave an assist by arguing that the exemption elimination was an “unintended consequence” of the GOP tax bill.

Snyder’s proposal is simple and makes some economic sense. But the politics are always trickier, so he’s sweetening the deal by increasing the exemption to $4,500 in 2021. That way, the GOP can bill it as a tax cut. And conveniently, any hit to the state budget will be a problem for the next governor and Legislature to solve.

Meanwhile, Schuette, who has won Trump’s endorsement and has sought to tie himself to the president’s hip, is taking the D.C. tax plan lemon and trying to make lemonade.

The centerpiece of Schuette’s campaign is that he’ll kill the Jennifer Granholm income tax hike. A few quick facts: The Democrat hasn’t been governor since 2010 and the tax increase passed the GOP-led Senate during her tenure. Furthermore, Michigan has had a Republican governor and Legislature for the last seven years. Instead of killing the income tax, they enacted in 2011 a $1.4 billion tax hike on individuals to help pay for an almost $2 billion corporate tax cut.

The Trump tax plan would seem to put Schuette in a bind and undermine his core message. But never underestimate the AG’s political skill.

First, he blithely celebrated Republicans for cutting taxes at the federal level. Then he pivoted by calling for Michigan Republicans to “finally eliminate the Granholm income tax increase.”

It’s a pretty ingenious play. Schuette doesn’t just manage to avoid criticizing Trump and congressional Republicans for their tax hike on Michigan. He actually turns this political liability into an opportunity to return to his campaign message of bashing the Granholm boogeyman. This strategy, of course, ignores objective reality, but Schuette benefits from an environment where many reporters fret that they’ll be accused of bias just for performing the simple act of fact-checking.

Schuette proposes rolling back the state income tax from 4.25 percent to 3.9 percent, which Khouri pointed out would disproportionately favor the wealthy (on top of what the congressional tax bill already did). Naturally, Schuette’s GOP allies in the Legislature think that’s a fine idea.

It seems clear that the tax cleanup debate will devolve into a proxy war between Calley and Schuette. So we can probably expect that politics will trump good policy.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan Republicans Have a Bannon Problem

Alabama Republican U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore was supposed to win the special election this week — the Deep South state, after all, is scarlet red. And far-right strategist Steve Bannon was supposed to get all the credit.

Instead, the Heart of Dixie will have its first Democratic senator in 25 years, Doug Jones, a former prosecutor who put KKK members away for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black little girls. He fittingly won thanks to a swell of African-American support at the polls.

Moore, who Atlantic columnist Michelle Cottle charitably describes as “a bit of a loon,” was twice booted from the state Supreme Court for ethics violations and has said Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to serve in Congress. Moore referred to Native Americans and Asian-Americans as “reds and yellows” at a September campaign rally, where he also waxed nostalgic for America under slavery because it was “great at the time when families were united.” He’s also partial to conspiracy theories that Sharia law is spreading in America and former President Obama wasn’t actually born here.

President Trump didn’t endorse his fellow birther in the primary, instead stumping for the establishment GOP pick, U.S. Sen. Luther Strange. That irked Bannon, a former Trump campaign strategist who had recently been fired from his White House senior adviser gig. When Moore handily won the primary, Bannon claimed victory and Trump quickly endorsed the winner.

Bannon has returned to running Breitbart News, whose ties to Nazism have been exposed, and has been busy stoking his reputation as an “evil genius.” He headlined a Nov. 8 Macomb County GOP “Unity” dinner, crammed with 2018 Republican hopefuls eager to see and be seen.

The day after the event, a Washington Post story broke that Moore had allegedly sexually abused teenagers, including one who was 14. A former prosecutor who worked with him at the time said it was “common knowledge” that Moore dated teenagers and the New Yorker reported he had even been banned from a mall for skeeving on girls.

If you were trying to create a horrendous Republican candidate in a lab for an elaborate social experiment on what it would take for Alabamians to finally vote for a Democrat for major office, you really couldn’t do better than Roy Moore.

But the conventional wisdom was that it’s Alabama, man. And in these polarized times, Republicans would come home.

Bannon was already being set up in coverage as the nihilistic mastermind, having convinced Trump to re-engage in the Senate race. The president held a rally in nearby Pensacola, Fla., but it was Bannon taking premature victory laps on stage at Moore’s official events. No one can ever accuse Bannon of lacking an ego. He’s griped that Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie lost his race (by 9 points, mind you) because he refused Bannon’s offer to hold a rally.

Bannon also gleefully cranked up the right-wing outrage machine against Moore’s accusers. Bloomberg News’ Josh Green, who Bannon frequently confided in about strategy during the ‘16 campaign, noted that his Moore rehabilitation playbook took page from Nazi and Soviet propagandists:

“Bannon worked to create a counter-narrative that ultimately would change many Republicans’ perception of the scandal. A former filmmaker, he’s long been captivated by the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi filmmaker, and the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein for their power to shape public sentiment. Earlier this year, Bannon told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer his 2012 anti-Obama film ‘The Hope and the Change,’ had consciously mimicked Riefenstahl’s infamous, ‘Triumph of the Will.’ Her film, he added, ‘seared into me’ that unhappy voters could be influenced if they felt they were being conned.”

Let’s not gloss over this. In 2017 America, the president’s chief strategist freely admits that he appropriates tactics he admires from the most barbaric regimes of the 20th century, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

This is real. And three Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidates — Attorney General Bill Schuette, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and state Sen. Pat Colbeck (R-Canton) — made sure they were at Bannon’s Macomb soiree. Colbeck even made a public stink that he was bumped from a speaking slot in favor of Schuette. Others attending included U.S. Senate hopefuls John James and Bob Young; Secretary of State candidate Stan Grot; and House Speaker Tom Leonard (R-DeWitt), who’s running for attorney general.

Not surprisingly, Democrats have widely shared photos of top Republicans at the event on social media, which is probably just a preview of 2018 ads to come.

Playing up Bannon ties may still be smart politics next year for those in tough GOP primaries and especially for SOS and AG candidates, who are nominated at party conventions.

But the moral cost of embracing someone who tried to use Nazi agitprop techniques to try to get an accused child molester elected to the U.S. Senate simply cannot be understated or overlooked.

Some days, it’s hard to believe these are the times we live in.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan Becomes the Model for Washington Whiffing on Tax Cuts

“Well, at least I’ll get a tax cut.”

This was the common refrain I heard on the campaign trail last year from reluctant Donald Trump supporters, those who tended to live in the suburbs and wouldn’t be caught dead in a cheesy red #MAGA hat.

They were uncomfortable with the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women and didn’t care for his racialized language, particularly about immigration (which only hardline conservatives care about in Michigan, a state that’s had little population growth in decades).

But a tax cut sure sounded appealing, especially since millions of Michigan families are actually paying more taxes now after seven years of Gov. Rick Snyder and Republican rule in the Legislature.

Yes, you’d never know it by listening to GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette’s ads, but it’s true. The attorney general casts former Gov. Jennifer Granholm as the liberal supervillain who singlehandedly raised your taxes a decade ago (somehow forgetting she struck a deal with the GOP Senate to end a government shutdown).

Schuette also manages to overlook that Republicans in 2011 raised taxes 23 percent for individuals ($1.4 billion a year) to cut taxes for corporations 83 percent ($1.6 billion). Why is that necessary? Because unlike the feds, states can’t run deficits. So with less money coming into the state from businesses, the shortfall had to be made up somewhere else. So in addition to cutting funds for schools, universities and local governments, Republicans also socked individual ratepayers with higher bills.

Most people assumed they’d be getting a healthy tax cut based on GOP promises (and the decades-long branding campaign of Republicans as the tax-cutting party). So plenty of Michiganders were shocked when they had to pay their first tax bill under the GOP “reform.” Deductions people had counted on for their homes, charitable donations, college tuition, retirement and even their children were gone.

In 2015, Snyder and Republicans hatched a half-baked scheme to fix the roads by raising gas taxes and Secretary of State fees. Tl;dr, Michigan’s roads are still terrible and your taxes shot up even more.

State tax increases have disproportionately hit the poor and middle class, while Michigan’s wage growth and per-capita income have lagged behind most states.

So it makes sense that Michigan voters would be eager for some tax relief from Washington, which is one reason why Trump won the state.

Because Congress doesn’t have to worry about balancing the budget, it’s pretty easy to hand out tax cuts like candy, even if the GOP’s top priority is giving them to the rich. I fully expected Trump and the Republican Congress to follow this playbook and devise a modestly popular tax plan.

But instead, they’ve used the Michigan model of catering to corporations and the wealthy at the explicit expense of the poor and middle class. The $1.5 trillion package speeding through Congress eliminates the alternative minimum tax benefiting those making over $200,000.

And it permanently chops the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent (even though big companies already enjoy huge loopholes), while any middle-class tax cuts are temporary.

No wonder a Fortune columnist called the bill the “largest wealth grab in modern history.” Almost 40 percent will pay the same or more taxes out of the gate. Within 10 years, just 16 percent will see a tax cut of $100 a year or more.

Only 36 percent back the tax plan being rushed through Congress at breakneck speed in the latest Politico/Morning Consult poll.

It gets worse with the fine print, as even Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow admits the plan will “hurt a lot of different people.” That includes 5.2 million seniors, the most reliable GOP voting bloc.

Millions in Michigan and nationwide take the state and local tax deduction (SALT) to offset some of their federal taxes. The Republican tax plan scraps it, which essentially means successful higher-tax blue states will be subsidizing low-tax red states.

You can forget about the student loan deduction, which is the only way millions of middle-class families can afford the exorbitant cost of college these days. The House-passed plan would devastate 145,000 graduate students who would see their tuition waivers taxed as income. In other words, they would have to pay taxes on $35,000 or $50,000, without ever seeing the money, which would likely cause thousands of students to drop out.

And it gets worse, with 13 million losing health insurance by axing Obamacare’s individual mandate. Because the bill is a budget buster estimated to balloon the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, Republicans are looking to chop Medicare, Social Security and other programs, which will devastate seniors even more.

The argument that making tax cuts so lopsided for corporations and the super-wealthy while leaving almost everyone else behind is that businesses will hire more people.

“Frankly, I think they are bonkers,” David Mendels, former chief executive officer of software firm Brightcove, told Politico. “It really doesn’t work that way. No CEO sits there and says, ‘When my tax rate goes down, I’m going to hire more people and pay them more.’”

But those of us in Michigan already knew that.  

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Inside the Quest for the Democrats Great White Male Hope in Michigan

Michigan politics has taken an ugly turn since 2016, and it’s not just on the Republican side.

Our state helped elect President Donald Trump — after he kicked off his campaign by calling immigrants “rapists and murderers,” animatedly mocked a disabled reporter at a campaign rally, and admitted to sexual assault on the “grab ‘em by the pussy” “Access Hollywood” tape that came out weeks before the election.

If you’d like to believe that a plurality of 10,000 voters plunked for Trump solely because they dig lower taxes, that’s fine. But no other Republican managed to win Michigan since 1988 — and they all promised mondo tax cuts — so perhaps that take is a bit myopic.

Many Democrats have naturally been concerned about how to win back areas that went big for Trump, mainly Macomb County and the Upper Peninsula.

The public discussion has focused on how to hone the party’s economic message and how much of Bernie Sanders’ democratic socialist populism to incorporate.

But the private, knee-jerk response of some Dems after Hillary Clinton’s loss is that the party needs to run more straight white men, especially at the highest levels. This idea has currency with a faction in the unions, but there are a number of white-glove, cocktail-party circuit intellectuals who subscribe to this strategy, as well.

What’s absent from the discussion is how Barack Obama, the first African-American president who frequently joked about his “funny name,” managed to twice win landslide victories in Michigan not too long ago, including those areas some are convinced will only vote for white dudes.

As things currently stand, the Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner is former Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing), who served for more than 14 years in Lansing. Her top competition is Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit Health Department head who’s in the Sanders mold and would be the nation’s first Muslim governor. There’s also businessman Shri Thanedar, who immigrated from India, and former executive Bill Cobbs, who’s African-American.

Most Democratic leaders and voters are fine with the field, which, after all, is pretty representative of the party.

But for the forces utterly convinced that a woman, Muslim, immigrant or African-American absolutely cannot win the top job in Michigan next year, the mission is clear: Find the Great White Male Hope.

That quest began in earnest after U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint), who rose to national prominence after the Flint Water Crisis, announced in May that he wouldn’t run.

The problem is that big-name candidates aren’t interested and time is running short. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan insists he won’t run. No one thinks Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel wants to give up a job he’s got for life next year. And no one wants attorney Geoffrey Fieger, the party’s 1998 nominee, to run except, well, Geoffrey Fieger.

University of Michigan Regent Mark Bernstein, who’s also a big metro Detroit lawyer, seemed like the best prospect this summer. But he ultimately said no and promptly endorsed Whitmer to boot.

That leaves Andy Levin, the son of U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Southfield) who worked for Gov. Jennifer Granholm and ran an unsuccessful 2006 state Senate campaign. He’s spoken to a number of Dem groups about possibly running for governor or Congress.

The smart money is on Levin keeping his powder dry until his father retires, which could be next year. The Levin name would be almost impossible to beat in the district covering Macomb and Oakland counties. And it’s awfully late to mount a gubernatorial campaign, as he’ll need to raise serious money against some well-funded opponents (in both parties).

Besides, does Levin really want his campaign to be defined by being the last white guy left standing? He already feels pressure to emerge from the shadow of his father and uncle, former U.S. Sen. Carl Levin. There doesn’t seem to be much upside here.

And here’s the truth. Anyone who thinks a white male Democratic gubernatorial nominee will be insulated from racialized and bigoted attacks on social media or from shady SuperPACs is living in a dream world. The culture wars have kicked back into high gear, with everything from an immigrant teenager seeking an abortion to black NFL players kneeling during the national anthem becoming major political flashpoints.

Buzzfeed did a thorough investigation of the connection between the Mercers, who are big Trump donors; white nationalists; and Breitbart News, which is run by former Trump senior adviser Steve Bannon who’s looking to play hard in 2018 races. Even if these big forces don’t get involved with Michigan elections, there are plenty of copycats who will after seeing Trump’s ‘16 success here.

Now the hits might be more personal against some candidates. Right-wing forces will probably try the same gendered attacks against Whitmer that bloodied Clinton. For a sampling of the likely stealth campaign against El-Sayed, you can just check out the rants against Sharia law former GOP National Committeeman Dave Agema frequently posts on Facebook.

But this battle is coming no matter what. This isn’t the time for Democrats to run scared. It’s time for them to fight for the kind of Michigan they believe in.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Republicans Would Like You To Kindly Forget They’ve Raised Your Taxes

History, as we all know, is written by the winners. And in Michigan, Republicans have been on a nearly seven-year winning streak, controlling all three branches of state government.

So Republicans, led by Attorney General Bill Schuette, the likely 2018 gubernatorial nominee, have been spinning a pretty convincing horror story about the diabolical Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm tax hikes a decade ago. The only way to destroy them is to elect Schuette and Republicans next year, of course.

This is a very smooth talking point. Plenty of people will believe it just because everyone knows Democrats are tax ‘n’ spend fiends while Republicans despise taxes more than venereal disease.

There are just three big facts that annihilate this premise: The 2007 tax hikes were a bipartisan affair; Republicans under Gov. Rick Snyder raised taxes even more in 2011 and again in 2015; and the GOP has been in power for seven years and could have chopped your tax bill at any time.

If any of this is news to you, that may be because most of Michigan’s political reporters didn’t cover the ‘07 theatrics and plenty weren’t even there for Snyder’s ‘11 tax hikes. Most lawmakers from those sessions have been term-limited and even many knowledgeable staffers have departed the Capitol.

But facts are stubborn things and shouldn’t be forgotten. And as someone who has been around for all of this tax drama, I’ll volunteer to be the annoying voice of intellectual honesty.

Let’s start in 2007, a frenzied time of a short-lived government shutdown and all-night sessions when lawmakers (and even a few reporters) were reduced to sleeping on the Capitol floor. Michigan was dead broke, thanks to a recession that actually started on the watch of GOP then-Gov. John Engler.

Granholm struck a deal with then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) to temporarily raise the state income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent. As the Senate was GOP-controlled, the plan had to have R votes to pass, and it did. So Bishop, now a congressman, can truthfully state he wasn’t one of them, but he certainly did sign off on the tax hike deal.

They also made a mess of the sales tax and eventually fixed it with a Michigan Business Tax (MBT) surcharge. Fun times.

So when Snyder was elected three years later, the Republican’s first order of business was to slay the MBT. Most economists agreed it was a terribly structured tax, so that was all well and good, but Snyder’s plan for a $2 billion corporate tax cut did have a rather big problem.

You see, unlike the federal government, Michigan can’t run a deficit. So in order to make up for the $2 billion hit to the state budget, Snyder proposed budget cuts and — get this — a $1.4 billion tax increase on individuals. The income tax stayed locked at 4.35 percent the first year and then would stick at 4.25 percent.

But the real hit to taxpayers’ wallets was getting rid of tax deductions for basic things like owning a home, having kids, donating to charity, saving for retirement, and paying for kids’ college. Suddenly, plenty of people used to receiving tax refunds in April were socked with bills for thousands of dollars.

That was fun, too.

But because Snyder and Republicans weren’t ready to quit their tax-hike addiction, they followed all that up in 2015 with the first gas tax hike in 20 years. By upping the tax from 19 cents to 26.3 cents, Michigan vaulted into the top five states, per the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

In return, we were supposed to get better roads and bridges. Now maybe you’ve met someone who thinks they’re driving on fewer potholes now; I’ve yet to interview anyone who does.

Since Jan. 1, 2011, we’ve had a GOP governor, House, Senate and Supreme Court. The GOP could have cut taxes for folks at any time. But even this winter, the Republican-led House failed to pass an income tax cut.

Now Schuette wants us to believe that Democrats somehow are to blame for all these tax hikes and only electing Republicans in ‘18 can save us.

Republicans have failed to protect taxpayers time and time again in the last decade. That’s their record. They can’t rewrite history.

If they want us to believe that things will be different this time around, they should have to answer for their record.

But they’re probably banking on a weakened and neophyte media and a demoralized Democratic Party to save them from tough questions. And to be honest, that’s not a bad bet to make.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Snyder Decides It’s Necessary To Destroy His Legacy To Save It

Some days, it feels like Gov. Rick Snyder is just going through the motions, running out the clock until December 31, 2018.

Gone are his peppy promises of working in “dog years” on his agenda, complete with PowerPoint-heavy special messages on problems he’d quickly dispatch with “Relentless Positive Action.” His zest for playing the “One Tough Nerd” persona that got him elected has certainly faded.

Snyder isn’t the first governor to get worn down by the job. Running a state home to 10 million people and a $57 billion budget is no easy task.

And many critics, myself included, noted Snyder’s predecessor, Jennifer Granholm, seemed to be looking for the exits in her last two years. As the Great Recession barreled through Michigan, she was constantly tormented by rumors the Obama administration would tap her for a cabinet or Supreme Court slot.

Snyder isn’t looking for his next political gig, however. Oh, there was a time when he was the belle of the pragmatic conservative ball. Detroit News Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley started breathlessly banging the Snyder-for-president drum in the summer of 2014. A fews months later, Ron Fournier, now of Crain’s Detroit, tweeted: “Watch this Snyder guy in 2016. He gets stuff done.”

But now, in a time when the national media churn out endless speculative candidate stories, Snyder’s name is never mentioned to challenge U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) in ‘18 or for any other high-ranking job. And no reporter even bothers to explain why.

Because everyone has heard of the Flint water crisis. And no one waxes eloquent about Snyder’s decisive leadership and innovative data-driven approach anymore.

Of course, President Trump has never been one to hold failure against anyone (the thrice-bankrupt real estate developer has seen fit to hire several alumni of Goldman Sachs, which helped cause the aforementioned Great Recession). But Snyder shot himself in the leg there, as he refused to endorse Trump. So Snyder can’t really pin his hopes on an administration post, no matter how many people quit.

Flint has irrevocably diminished Snyder’s governorship. But the curious thing is that he seems content to finish the job himself.

Snyder could have helped rehabilitate himself by leading the conservative opposition to Trump’s authoritarian nativism, as I noted after the election. He already made himself a powerful enemy by withholding his endorsement, so why not stick to core principles and send a powerful message as a Rust Belt governor?

Naturally, that was expecting too much of Snyder. But he did manage to surprise even some cynics like me by backing away from two big fights that defined him in the media as a “moderate” governor: immigration and health care.

After declaring himself to be the “most pro-immigration governor in the country” back in 2011, Snyder refused to condemn Trump’s Muslim ban in a mush-mouthed statement. He also said nothing when ICE agents raided a restaurant (after enjoying breakfast there first) in his hometown of Ann Arbor.

And the governor has failed to lead the fight against deporting Chaldeans, Iraqi Christians who fled their war-torn homeland for metro Detroit. That decision is a humanitarian travesty, but it’s also politically perplexing one, as Chaldeans are a fundraising force in the GOP.

Perhaps Snyder’s biggest success was getting the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare through the hostile GOP-led Legislature. Not only has that made it possible for almost 700,000 more Michiganders to have health insurance, but it’s also generated more than $550 million for the state budget in 2016, according to a University of Michigan study.

Medicaid is under attack from Republicans in Washington desperately trying to repeal Obamacare. So where’s Rick Snyder?

He’s been conspicuously absent from the bipartisan group of 10 governors working on health care solutions. They most recently opposed the Graham-Cassidy bill, while Snyder was still hemming and hawing. Studies show the plan would cost Michigan $8 billion, but that won’t really hit until long after he moves out of the governor’s mansion.

So should we conclude that Snyder has just given up on his legacy?

Actually, I believe it’s quite the opposite. Snyder’s lieutenant governor, Brian Calley, would like nothing more than to succeed him. But most politicos doubt he can win. In the GOP primary, he would face Attorney General Bill Schuette, an ace fundraiser and politician who likely started to practice his inauguration speech during kindergarten recess.

Calley is weighed down by Snyder’s dismal poll numbers and has his own problems with the base, as he unendorsed Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape. The LG is trying desperately to prove his conservative cred with his part-time legislature gambit, but he has a lot of ground to make up.

If Calley can somehow pull it off and become Michigan’s 49th governor in spite of Trump, Flint and a restless electorate, that would be quite the vindication for Rick Snyder.

So no, he’s not going to tangle with Trump. He’s not going to stand up against ICE raids and 700,000 people losing health care. He’s not going to do anything that will hurt Calley.

Snyder has decided that’s the way to salvage his legacy — even if it means sitting back while many of his accomplishments unravel.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

Susan J. Demas: Michigan Politicians Should Face the Trump Test in 2018

“Why won’t the president condemn white supremacists?”

That was the question that dominated cable news and social media after a white power rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned violent on Saturday with one of the attendees allegedly mowing down a crowd of anti-fascist protesters. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 others were injured.

President Trump, who’s never been one to shy away from criticizing anyone or anything — U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as “Little Marco” for his lack of gravitas; actress Rosie O’Donnell for being “a pig”; and even Nordstrom’s for dropping handbags made by his daughter, Ivanka — issued some vague, underwhelming tweets.

Then in his first public remarks, he condemned the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.” Now it’s quite fashionable in D.C. journalism to blame both sides — it’s a well-paying schtick, no doubt — but even some of the top purveyors of that brand of conventional wisdom like David Gergen and Chris Cillizza tore into Trump on a CNN panel for “both-sidesing” Nazism.

On Monday, Trump issued a half-hearted statement finally calling out the KKK and white supremacists, but no one was buying it. So on Tuesday, Trump lost it at his infrastructure-themed press conference and said there were some “very fine people” at the white power rally. And he told us more about what he really thought:

“What about the alt-left? You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.”

Nope. Nope. Nope. No Nazis were killed in the protest.

White supremacists showed up in paramilitary garb, waving Nazi and confederate flags. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe described in disturbing detail how the police were outnumbered and outgunned by the white power forces.

And then James Alex Fields, 20, allegedly rammed his car into anti-racist protesters, which Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, says meets the legal definition of terrorism.

There doesn’t seem to be much mystery about what Fields believed or was trying to do. His high school teacher describes him as idolizing Nazis (he “thought they were pretty cool guys.”) While at the Dachau death camp during a post-graduation trip to Europe, Fields allegedly said, “This is where the magic happened,” according to two classmates.

Trump’s disgusting remarks did get rave reviews from the likes of David Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK and wannabe GOP politician, who tweeted his thanks for the president’s “honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM [Black Lives Matter]/Antifa[cist].”

In other words, we have our answer as to why Trump wouldn’t denounce white supremacists. He didn’t want to. And he’s willing to defend them, even when one of their own allegedly killed a woman in cold blood.

Elected officials, however — Democrats and Republicans alike — have been blasting Trump and the neo-Nazi movement. It’s important to have politicians on the record about this.

I would go further, however. During the course of the 2016 campaign, Trump said dozens of outrageous things — calling Mexicans “rapists”; insulting gold star father Khizr Khan, whose son was killed in Iraq; urging people to check out the sex tape of a Miss Universe he had called “Miss Piggy” and more.

Reporters asked many Republican officeholders and candidates about these statements and often got pushback that it was unfair and “biased” to even ask. Now that Trump is president, he’s still tweeting attacks and blasting enemies at his rallies.

But reporters don’t ask Republican officials much about this anymore. Unhinged rants by the leader of the free world are just the new normal. And besides, he won the election (even if 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton), so that means the American people have endorsed this, right?

Well, with all due respect to my colleagues, that’s crap. But here’s something I think is far more important to ask Democrats and Republicans running for Congress, statewide office and leadership positions in 2018: Where do you stand on Trump’s policies, which will certainly impact Michigan?

Given where Trump stands on white supremacists, his proposal to drastically limit legal immigration, build a wall with Mexico, call for police to be “rough” with suspects and his Muslim ban have to be viewed through that lens. Those who want to hold key offices in Michigan deserve to be questioned about these policies and more.

And if these candidates whine that the “fake news” media are being mean, well, then they’re probably not up to the job.

Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. Her political columns can be found at SusanJDemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here.