Pure Michigan Politics

September 24, 2010

If somebody offered you three dollars back for every dollar you invested, you’d jump at it.

Hello, Republicans in the Michigan Senate. Hello.

That’s exactly what the GOP senators had a chance to do, but instead they unceremoniously scrapped a plan to raise badly needed dollars to keep the Pure Michigan fall advertising schedule alive.

Unless you’ve been in Ohio for the last few years, you have seen the wonderfully written and beautifully produced pictures of the Michigan we know and love. And with Tim Allen’s melodic voice-over, the ads have not only won national awards…they have actually worked!

Viewers who saw them in other states actually came here and spent their money on our stuff, from fudge to cheese.

And for every buck the state poured into the ads, those out-of-towners pumped three dollars into our economy.

But TV advertising is expensive, and months ago the warning bell was rung. “We are going to run out of money unless some action is taken,” the tourist industry warned.

The governor, who is not deaf, heard the bell and crafted a nifty little scheme to raise the bucks — but not on the backs of her constituents.

It was a fee, call it a tax, on rental cars at airports.

Quick. When was the last time you rented one of those?

Exactly. Never.

So this would have hit visitors to the state, making it a twofer. We got their money on the rental and then bought more commercials, which brought even more folks into the state.

But the spendthrift GOP senators wanted no part of that. They rebuked the 3-for-1 return on investment.

Isn’t this the same bunch that says it wants to grow businesses?

Problem was, for them this was a tax hike. And right there in the GOP manual it is written: “In an election year, under no circumstances, should anyone with an ‘R’ after his or her name vote for anything that even remotely resembles a tax increase, even if it is in the public interest to do that.”

Now, we know how rigid Republicans are about following the rules. So they killed the rental car fee, and state tourism officials killed the fall-color-tour Pure Michigan campaign because there’s no moola.

This was pure politics trumping good public policy. Senate GOP folks are more interested in winning back their seats than pouring more money into the economy.

If that is not a dereliction of duty, what the heck is?

But give them credit — the Republicans have not wandered from the manual.

When the business community suggested a new tax policy to increase the sales tax and expand it to services, the governor got on board and some economists chimed in, too.

Some of that new money could have been used to erase the state’s mushrooming deficit that is about to be passed on to the next administration.

And the Republicans are complaining the loudest about not fixing the “structural deficit.” But given a chance to side with their friends in business and create a better tax system, they said nope.

As always, they want it both ways. Gripe about the problem, reject any sensible solution to it, and then blame the other party for messing things up.

That, of course, is Pure you-know-what.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s Senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

Now Boys…

Obviously, GOP governor hopeful Rick Snyder has had his challenges with Democratic opponent Virg Bernero. But how about the ones he has had with Mike Bishop in his own party?

Bishop, of course, is the GOP leader of the Senate, and they have not always seen eye to eye.

“I think we have a little culture clash going on here,” observes Oakland County’s Bishop. Translated: Snyder is from outside Lansing, and Bishop and his guys are deeply imbedded in the Capitol culture that Mr. Snyder seeks to turn on its ear.

No one is quite sure when this problem began, but it certainly was evident when Bishop appeared on Off the Record weeks ago and suggested the Snyder business tax scheme would result in a “tax increase on small business.” He labeled it “pie in the sky.”

Snyder did not see the original broadcast, but he sure as heck read about it and wasted little time in contacting Bishop. The senator explained that he was not trying to be mean, he just felt the Snyder proposal needed some work. Call it, if you will, constructive criticism. Apparently the candidate was not amused.

To make matters worse, the aforementioned Mr. Bernero is running around the state blasting the Snyder business tax and quoting, who else, Mike Bishop in his blast. It goes something like this: not even the Senate GOP leader likes the Snyder tax. Betya they don’t like that in Nerdville.

This was followed by a dust-up between Snyder’s spokesperson and Bishop’s mouthpiece. It was an ugly exchange from two guys who have had issues in the past.

Asked about all this the other day, Bishop dismissed it as “much to do about nothing.” A bit of a stretch, but then who’s keeping score?

“We’ve got to stop sniping at one another,” he said, and then immediately corrected himself with, “we aren’t sniping at each other.”

Which is it?

Regardless, he says he and the candidate have been exchanging text messages and peace apparently is at hand…for the moment?

One Shot Only

It only took Gov. Jennifer Granholm one debate to slice and dice her GOP opponent in 2006. Now that Democrat Virg Bernero is getting only one debate shot at his opponent, his supporters are wondering: can he get the job done, too?

After a nasty round of back and forth over doing or not doing debates, Mr. Bernero and Mr. Snyder finally sat down in a Lansing hotel room on Wednesday and did something they could have done weeks ago: they agreed to one debate.

“Why just one?” Bernero wondered out loud, moments after the ink was dry on the deal.

Then he answered his own question with, “My opponent is afraid” to participate in more than one debate.

“That’s not the reason,” retorts Mr. Snyder. He says it was all about timing, in that he wanted to squeeze debates in before the absentee balloting was over.

The two will agree to disagree on why there is only one, but what Mr. Snyder has now successfully done is get the media monkey off his back. It was doing its own slicing and dicing, because he unilaterally shutdown the debate talks.

A disgruntled Mr. Bernero is left to hope that the public will still take points off Mr. Snyder for not doing three debates. That is a stretch, in that the public hardly gave a hoot that there weren’t going to be any.

So Mr. B., who has begun to narrow the gap from 20 points down to 13, will get a shot at his opponent, but only one. Can he pull off a Granholm?

We’ll all know on October 11.