Let me just begin this by saying that I don’t just like Alma Wheeler-Smith’s politics; I love her politics. I haven’t always agreed with her political strategy. On February 5, 2009, she voted against a 10 percent reduction in pay for state legislators. She was the only legislator who voted no. On the one hand, she was making a brave political point: the House Concurrent Resolution 3 was political composted horse manure. As Smith explained on her web site: ”…The people of the State of Michigan are looking to the Legislature now, more than ever, for true leadership. This vote was a game played at the citizens’ expense,” Smith said. “There is no language for implementation in this bill. To decrease the salaries as proposed requires a constitutional change, which consequently requires a public vote.” The Emperor had no clothes, and Alma was the only legislator to point this out. Even Smith’s own daughter-in-law Rebekah Warren, who represents Ann Arbor as the 53rd District House Representative (and is a current wanna-be for Liz Brater’s State Senate seat), voted for the totally duplicitous and meaningless resolution.
You gotta admire a politico who’s willing to stand alone against political games they’re playing in Lansing. Either that, or she’s so sure of her base she just figured a vote against cutting her own pay would not cut her own political throat.
At the moment, Wheeler Smith is running a stealth campaign for governor. She launched her campaign, but has not been nearly as visible as, say, Ann Arbor Republican Rick Snyder or the Democratic Dauphin John Cherry. Wheeler Smith was at Washtenaw County Commissioner Jeff Irwin’s November launch party for his bid for the 53rd Dsitrict House seat. Rebekah Warren spoke. Jeff Irwin spoke. (Both badly, and with surprisingly little ability to deliver a rousing stump speech.) Alma? Alma didn’t say anything to the crowd gathered. She circulated, smiling, but I have this feeling that had John Cherry, Rick Snyder or any of the boys running for governor been in attendance, they would have elbowed their way to the front of the room and spoken to the captive audience.
Wheeler Smith recently came out with her very own Papal Encyclical calling for a massive overhaul of the Michigan tax system. AnnArbor.com covered Wheeler Smith’s proposal here. The comments on the AnnArbor.com site were almost uniformly critical of Smith’s proposal to, in short, tax Michigan residents according to their income, and not simply by using a flat rate. The top proposed rate of 9.75% for those in the highest income bracket elicited this comment: “Also she advocates a 9.75% top tax rate for individuals. I read the article and thought I was at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The only possible explanation for this plan is that Alma is running a stealth campaign to elect Mike Cox. Alma should be on Saturday Night Live with this routine.” Another AnnArbor.com reader wrote, “Politics is this lady’s family business. When she runs out of road in the state House next year, we should introduce this lady to the concept of retirement. “Term limits” is voter-speak for Go find something else to do.“
Flat rate taxation versus graduated rate taxation. Well, Hells Bells, at least Smith is talking about the fact that the current system of taxation in Michigan isn’t working. Rick Snyder’s blathering on about his “plan” that includes fiscal policies he promises to implement in Lansing. These are policies that he never implemented in the three years he spent in Ann Arbor as the CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK. Snyder will start by getting input from the taxpayers about how public money should be spent, along with implementing policies that would increase transparency so the public can see just where their tax dollars are going. (Yes, that’s snorting you hear, and it’s coming from me.) Under gubernatorial wanna-be Snyder, Ann Arbor SPARK was run with the “transparency” of a CIA covert operation, just like every other crony capitalism scheme.
Here’s Snyder’s bullet point on Michigan’s Tax System from his web site: “Reform Michigan’s Tax System Rick believes that we need to reduce the tax burden on families and businesses in Michigan. Rather than advocate for short-term solutions – Rick wants to reform Michigan’s tax system so that it is competitive, simple, fair, transparent, efficient and facilitates economic growth.” Will voters buy this political carp (reverse the a and the r) he’s selling? Can he be any less exact or provide any fewer details?
So, Wheeler Smith calculates the graduated tax scheme would generate an additional $6.5 million dollars in additional revenue for the state’s elected officials to fritter away, I mean allocate. Wheeler Smith would use some of the additional money to “…fund a new income tax credit Smith is proposing that would cover all tuition paid to state universities, community colleges and vocational schools — in essence, making tuition free.”
This is where Alma Wheeler Smith and I part company. The notion of providing free tuition to Michigan college students is, well, insanely wrong-headed. It’s regressive policy. She came up with this idea with her partner in wrong-headed legislation, and daughter-in-law, Rebekah Warren. The plan hands billions in tax dollars to our state’s colleges and universities, and it would be better to make a big pile and just burn the cash. Why? Because Smith and Warren are creating higher education policy based on volume over quality and student success. Everyone who wants to should attend college (on Wheeler Smith’s Fantasy Island for free). No. Absolutely not. Why? Because Michigan colleges (both 2- and 4-year) are doing a horrible job of graduating students from their programs.
Doling out tuition tax dollars to Michigan’s community colleges that graduate, on average, only 20 percent of their students within three years is a recipe for robbing the poor (taxpayers) and giving the money to the rich (colleges and universities). Three things will happen:
- Colleges will hike tuition rates and fees until all the state money made available to them is gone. College administrators are public money pigs, plain and simple.
- Under Wheeler Smith’s plan hundreds of thousands of Michigan undergraduates will enroll, assume an average of $14,000 per year in student debt, and half of them will not graduate from our state’s public 4-year universities within six years. It’s what’s happening now. Drop-out rates are up; graduation rates have dropped from 76 percent in the 70s, to around 50 percent today. Colleges and lending agencies are making out like bandits. The money pours in faster and faster even as fewer and fewer graduates trickle out.
- Colleges will not devote significant percentages of the new money to student instruction. Thus, the issue of student retention and student success will not be addressed by throwing billions of more dollars at our state’s two- and four-year institutions.
If Alma Wheeler Smith is serious about running for governor, she’ll get a campaign manager who’s not related to her, get crack-a-lackin’ on the fundraising, hire a staff, refine her platform with some people who have a more profound understanding of economics and education, update her Twitter page, get on Facebook, and get out into the communities around the state. Since Reconstruction, there have only been three black governors in the entire United States. Alma Wheeler Smith has a devoted following in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County. However, her Tax and Spend Mambo ain’t gonna play so well in other parts of the Michigan.
Rick Snyder would import his unique brand of crony capitalism to Lansing, as would 53 District House wanna-be Ned Staebler, who gives away our tax dollars for a living in his day job as a Vice President at the MEDC (Michigan Economic Development Corporation). Want to know what Alma Wheeler Smith has to say about the crony capitalism that has grown up during the reign of our state’s first female governor? ”As Governor, I would limit the practice of granting tax incentives to select businesses and, instead, promote a climate that allows all businesses to compete on a level playing field.”
Finally. The Mother Ship has landed and off comes a gubernatorial candidate who’s willing to stop pimping out Michigan’s public school dollars in the name of “economic development.” The education unions should be giving Wheeler Smith candy and flowers, not to mention endorsements. Wheeler Smith should be doing fist-bumps state-wide with MEA education union Prez Iris Salters.
Wheeler Smith wants to invest in education, as opposed to giveaways to business. However, unless she gets some serious help to refine and sell her ideas to the public, Michigan will get stuck with more of the same economic development strategies that are funded by stealing money from public schools through SmartZones and TIF financing schemes, and giving those millions to businesses in the name of “economic development”—crony capitalism that funnels money to political pals, political donors and provides wildly inflated reports of the success of the programs, and no outside evaluation of any return on the taxpayers’ investment in such outfits as the MEDC, Ann Arbor SPARK. Then there is the biggest boondoggle of them all coming down the road: the Detroit Region Aerotropolis. Here’s the Aerotropolis spin: “64,000 jobs. $10 billion of additional economic activity over the next 25 years.” Tax breaks galore with public money. Millions siphoned from public schools to “attract” businesses to the region. Washtenaw County Administrator Robert Guenzel and the other boys behind this crony capitalism scheme can barely stand-up at the press conferences, because the idea of so much tax money to giveaway to their friends is better than Viagra. As Governor, Alma Wheeler Smith could very well put the brakes on this multi-county boondoggle.
Wheeler Smith proposes a different approach to economic development: an end to crony capitalism, and a return to the investment in our state’s education system. There’s lots of work to be done, but before Alma Wheeler Smith comes out with anymore Encyclicals, such as her graduated tax proposal, she needs to have a campaign team in place who can help her spar with critics, and get off the ropes when she comes out with creative public policy.