Last November, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) told Republican presidential candidates to stop second-guessing the rescue of the automobile industry that saved thousands of jobs in his state. “I would have had some differences on how they did it, but I’m not going to second-guess it,” Snyder told the New York Times. “The more important thing is the results. And the auto industry is doing very well today.”

Today, Snyder endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), a candidate who opposed the auto bailout at the time, second-guessed it as it was happening, attempted to take credit for it when it was working, and finally second-guessed it again this week. But in his Detroit News editorial endorsing Romney, Snyder never mentioned the auto rescue or his and Romney’s conflicting stances on it, even though Romney had published an editorial on the topic in the same paper just three days ago. Instead, Snyder suggested voters focus on Romney’s business acumen and his ties to the state:

A little more than a year ago, Michigan voters put their trust in a businessman to serve as their governor. They were looking for someone who understands the private sector and has a plan for reversing the economic decline that had befallen our great state. [...]

He has deep ties to our state. Mitt understands the challenges confronting Michigan as few Americans do.

With the Michigan primary approaching, Romney has played up his ties to the state and its auto industry. But his editorials about the auto rescue — the first, from 2009, was titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt“; the second published Tuesday — raise questions about whether he understood the circumstances surrounding the rescue or how many jobs the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler would have cost the American economy.

Romney called for the two automakers to go into managed bankruptcy handled by the private sector. As Yahoo! Autos reporter Justin Hyde points out, though, the private sector wasn’t willing to make the loans necessary to keep the companies in business through a managed bankruptcy. Had they followed the Romney path, the companies likely would have liquidated, healthier automakers like Ford and Toyota (and their suppliers) would have been threatened, and an estimated 1.3 million Americans would have been out of work.

Instead, the auto industry is healthy, hiring, and posting record profits. The difference in those two paths is significant. To Snyder and Romney, however, it apparently isn’t worth mentioning.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) spent his first year in office drawing up substantial tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy while shifting the tax burden onto Michigan’s most vulnerable. In a state where the poorest 20 percent of Michiganders pay a tax rate of 8.9 percent and the richest one percent pays 5.3 percent, Snyder’s tax reform plan will only make the disparity worse come fiscal 2013.

In fact, according to the Michigan League for Human Services, Snyder’s tax reforms will “hit poor families 1,000 times harder than wealthy households”:

The League released a report that says the tax plan will hit poor families 1,000 times harder than wealthy households. Families making less than $17,000 a year would pay one percent more in taxes in 2012, while families making more than $334,000 would see their taxes go up by only .001 percent, the report states.

Gilda Jacobs, president and CEO of the League, wants to see a fair tax structure that doesn’t hit the poor harder than the wealthy.

“We want to be sure that we have shared sacrifice.” she says. “If you’re making $17,000 a year, this is going cost you about $100. That’s a lot of money to these people. That’s a car payment, that’s a winter utility bill. It’s huge.”

Indeed, state revenues will now rely more heavily on the middle class as the new tax code will generate $1.4 billion more from personal income taxes while dropping nearly $2 billion in revenue from businesses. And though Snyder insists that such corporate income tax cuts are sure to create jobs, the economic evidence proves otherwise. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes, such corporate tax rates fail to produce a net short-term stimulus, tend to cause a near-term drop in in-state economic activity because corporations are unlikely to spend the full amount of the tax cut, and actually creates “little or no added incentive for corporate investment in the long run.” At best, it produces a boost in economic productivity and jobs by only 2 to 3 percent.

But when it comes to programs that do provide a verifiable boost to the economy like unemployment insurance and food stamps, Snyder went straight for the ax. Indeed, he cut the Earned Income Tax Credit, funding for school districts, and vital aid for 11,000 low-income families and nearly 30,000 children. And with nearly half of Americans one financial shock away from falling into poverty, there’s no question that Snyder’s giving Michiganders a future that is 1,000 times more insecure.

Despite an unexpected budget surplus for this fiscal year, Michigan may drastically underfund its School Aid Fund, which is the primary source of dollars for K-12 school districts that educate nearly 1.7 million students.

Last year, the School Aid Fund ran a surplus (much like the overall budget for this year). However, GOP Gov. Rick Snyder siphoned off the School Aid Fund’s money “to plug a shortfall in the state’s General Fund.” To assuage infuriated educators, he agreed to a one-time payment of $200 per student, $100 of which was only received if the district adopted “financial best practices” — including school employees paying at least 10 percent of their health insurance premiums.

But now Republicans say that one-time payment is up, and K-12 schools will not have enough money to make up for the loss come next year. Why? As the Kalamazoo Gazette reports, while Republicans were gutting the School Aid Fund, they also passed a $1.6 billion tax cut for businesses that is costing schools $700 million per year, or $500 per student:

New revenues will offset about $1.3 billion of the $1.6 billion business tax cut, said David Zin, an economist for the Senate Fiscal Agency.

But almost all revenues are going into the state’s General Fund rather than the School Aid Fund, which is losing more than $700 million a year from the business tax cut.

In short, while the General Fund gets new revenues to replace money lost from the tax cut, the School Aid Fund does not.

Thus, the School Aid Fund will see its lowest revenues since 1994, according to the state Senate Fiscal Agency. Kalamazoo Public Schools superintendent Michael Rice said that the decrease in funding means “school districts have seen their revenues eroded by about one-sixth since 2005, when taking inflation into account.” “It’s not simply that the School Aid Fund is at its lowest level,” he added. “It’s also that $1 given to us today buys one-sixth less that it did five years ago.”

Of course, prioritizing the wealthy over working Michiganders is nothing new for Snyder and his colleagues. While enacting $1.7 billion in tax cuts for corporations last year, Snyder also “shaved billions of dollars off future health care and retirement commitments,” ended the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, enacted a regressive increase in personal taxes, and cut aid for 11,000 families and nearly 30,000 children.

Surveying this field of foregone responsibility, Mattawan Public School Superintendent Patrick Bird said Republicans “[have] given a huge tax break to corporations, but where are they taking those dollars from?”

Last year, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed into law a drastic expansion of the state’s emergency manager law, which imposes what critics have dubbed “financial martial law” on local governments the state deems to be mismanaging finances. The emergency managers, who are appointed without input from local communities, have the power to effectively depose elected officials, break collective bargaining agreements, and unilaterally dictate decisions about city operations, finances, infrastructure, and public safety.

Today, the Flint Journal points out that the managers receive six-figure salaries, set by the state and paid for by the local communities, which are all cash-strapped (or else they wouldn’t be subject to emergency managers in the first place). In Flint, in fact, the manager earns more than the mayor earns:

By law, the pay of Michigan’s five emergency managers — ranging from $132,000 to $250,000 — is set by the state, but the money actually is paid by the local communities they’re in charge of. [...]

Mayor Dayne Walling’s was Flint’s highest-paid elected official, receiving $91,800 before [Flint emergency manager Michael] Brown eliminated his pay and benefits and those of city council members.

Brown on Tuesday partially restored Walling’s pay to $55,000 and council members each will receive $7,000 a year.

The Journal points out that law has dictated that local communities pay the salaries of emergency managers since 1990, but Snyder’s expansion of the law means that many more communities have become subject to it than ever before. Activists are working to repeal the law via referendum of through a court ruling.

In the last few weeks of 2011, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) rounded out his concerted campaign against Michigan workers with a few final laws. In a prejudicial move against the LGBT community, Snyder signed a measure prohibiting all public employees from providing benefits for their unmarried partners. In considering his state’s 10.6 percent unemployment rate, Snyder also signed a law forcing some of Michigan’s over 400,000 unemployed workers to take low-wage jobs after 10 weeks of benefits, even if those jobs pay less than they were making before:

The measures require some unemployed workers to take new jobs after 10 weeks of benefits even if the available work is outside their previous experience or pays lower wages than they were making before. They also make it harder for someone to collect jobless benefits if they’re fired for cause or leave a job voluntarily.[...]

Snyder disagreed with critics who say requiring jobless workers to take a job paying 120 percent of their weekly benefit could trap them in a low-wage position by leaving them little time to look for work in their area of expertise.

“It’s to encourage people to work. It’s not to have them go backward,” Snyder said of the legislation. “It’s easiest to find a job when you’ve gotten a job.”

This new requirement comes in addition to Snyder’s decision to cut the availability of unemployment insurance from 26 weeks to 20 weeks starting in 2012. The measure also encapsulates Snyder’s priorities over his first year in office — placing the burden on the most vulnerable for the sake of the state’s bottom line. In 2011, he “shaved billions of dollars off future health care and retirement commitments,” proposed ending the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, cut funding for school districts by eight to ten percent, cut aid for 11,000 low-income families and nearly 30,000 children, and enacted a regressive increase in personal taxes — all in the name of the deficit.

Naturally, not all Michiganders were asked to share in such sacrifices — namely, corporations. While more than 1.5 million of his constituents faced poverty, Snyder enacted a $1.7 billion tax cut for corporations, or about “$30 in corporate tax cuts for every dollar saved in welfare benefit cuts.” Indeed, Snyder pushed to cut the state’s business taxes by nearly $2 billion, or 86 percent.

In enacting such preferential treatment for those who need it least, Snyder did earn an impressive recognition in 2011. For his first year in office, Snyder ranked as one of the most unpopular governors in the country.

If you’re poor and live in Michigan, you just can’t catch a break from the current Republican administration under Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI). Beginning next month, many Michigan residents on food stamps will lose their benefits under a new law that tightens eligibility requirements.

Seizing on any excuse to kick people out of the program, Republicans have mandated that recipients’ assets be scrutinized, in addition to their income, which has traditionally been the only measure that was considered when deciding eligibility. People with cars worth over $15,000 could be disqualified:

Michigan has determined food assistance eligibility based only on income for roughly a decade. A new policy will include a review of certain financial assets starting Oct 1.

The requirements will affect new applicants right away and existing recipients when their cases come up for review, which typically happens once every six months.

Those with assets of more than $5,000 in bank accounts or some types of property would no longer be eligible for food assistance. Other assets that would count against the cap include vehicles with market values of more than $15,000 and second homes, depending on how much is owed on the properties.

Nearly 2 million people — or 20 percent of Michigan’s population — depend on food stamps. The number of recipients has increased by more than 40 percent since the recession started.

Opponents of the new requirements point out that they punish poor people who try to save up money in their bank accounts and discourage them from saving more, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty. Gilda Jacobs, CEO of the Michigan League for Human Services, said the change may “force some deserving families to sell assets, like cars, they bought when times were better.” “If we’re trying to make sure people are viable and can stand on their own, why are we going backwards?” she asked.

The stricter requirements also unfairly impact the staggering number of Michigan residents who are essentially trapped by their homeownership and are struggling to get by because they owe more in debt on their homes than the houses are worth.

The Associated Press notes that Snyder’s administration has been trying to kick people off the food stamp rolls since taking office, as “the state removed about 30,000 college students from its food assistance program earlier this year when it began enforcing federal guidelines.”