The Snyder budget

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it, good and hard." —H.L. Mencken

"Everybody likes change until it affects them." —Gov. Rick Snyder

Our new governor presented his new budget to the Legislature last week, and it really was a bombshell.

Bye-bye, film industry tax credits! Bye-bye, Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) for the poor!

Private pensions will be taxed! Public pensions will be taxed! Prison spending will be slashed! Money for higher education will be cut! Money for elementary and high school education will be cut! Revenue sharing will be cut by a third!

But business taxes will be lowered dramatically.

The howling began immediately, some of it less dignified than the rest. Starting at the bottom, Mitch Albom, who wants more of his cloying books made into movies, emitted a protracted whine about the film credits in the Sunday Gannett paper. "As a person who helped create the film credits program, I asked for months to meet with Snyder," he huffed.

The governor, evidently not knowing that Mitch was a Very Important Person, kept him waiting until two weeks ago, the churl. When the governor didn't do what Mitch wanted, Albom wrote that he felt like he'd "been punched in the stomach." No five friends in heaven waiting for Rick Snyder, no siree!

Granted, there were a lot of more serious objections to the governor's proposals. There are actually legitimate arguments that cutting back the film credits is the wrong thing to do. More importantly, there are deep concerns about what these budget cuts mean to the poor and our children.

Gilda Jacobs, who now heads the Michigan League for Human Services, was appalled at the specter of another 14,000 kids being driven into poverty. Others were stunned by the proposed $470 per pupil cut; one wonders how many more districts this will tip over into either emergency financial manager-hood or bankruptcy.

The revenue sharing cuts will hurt cities too, but actually came as a relief to some city officials I talked with; many of them feared it might be zeroed out entirely.

Labor complained too, of course, but the biggest caterwauling of all came from seniors who objected to the idea of having to pay tax on the money they collect from their pensions, some of which are quite generous.

"Class and generation warfare at their highest!" bellowed one Tom Diamondale, who in e-mails referred to the governor as "Slicky Slider," which, as nicknames go, is sort of cute.

State Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, who heads the tiny caucus of Democrats in that body, complained that there was no shared sacrifice.

Yes, just about everybody hated this budget, except big business interests and the Chamber of Commerce. But curiously, I had a hard time working up much sympathy for the critics, for one largely overlooked reason:

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