MI GOP Gov Slashing Unemployment Benefits To Finally Ruin State Forever

When all your state's remaining residents are forced to rely on unemployment benefits, that's pretty much the only thing keeping the economy afloat. But Michigan Governor Rick Snyder doesn't care. He signed a law that on the surface seems like it was just written to allow residents to collect benefits extended by the federal government, but hidden in the language is a cut to unemployment benefits next year, changing the law so Michigan will only pay 20 weeks of benefits, the lowest level in the nation. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce says the law is a "huge win for job providers," but isn't that an oxymoron? Who exactly provides jobs in Michigan these days? Pretty much just U-Haul. Get out while you still can, Michiganders. Rick Snyder is trying to destroy you.

“It turns the clock back 50 years at a time when unemployment is at historic highs since the Depression,” Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview, adding that he worried that the state would set a precedent that would be followed by other states, including Florida, that are thinking of curtailing their unemployment programs. “I think that Michigan should not be to unemployment insurance what Wisconsin has become to collective bargaining.”

One would think the unemployed, a symbol as important to the character of the state in modern times as the wolverine or the Petoskey stone, would be the third rail of Michigan politics. (Never mind that Michigan doesn't have rails, because there any transportation but cars is evil and foreign.) One would think there is no way a Republican like Snyder can get re-elected in Michigan stabbing at the unemployed like this, but perhaps if he causes the state to collapse into a great slush of rust, acid, and icy lake water, all the people who haven't left the rapidly depopulating place will be killed, and he can appoint himself nerd-governor-for-life of the wasteland.

It was a nice place while it lasted. Probably shouldn't have elected this guy, Michigan. [ NYT ]