Financial Martial Law

Definition of Martial Law -- The exercise of government and control by military authorities over the civilian population of a designated territory.

Martial law on the national level may be declared by Congress or the president.

On the state level, a governor may declare martial law within her or his own state. The power to do so usually is granted in the state constitution.

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Michigan bill would impose "financial martial law"

By Stephanie Condon

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signs his first bill as governor at the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Tuesday March 8, 2011.

Michigan lawmakers are on the verge of approving a bill that would enable the governor to appoint "emergency managers" -- officials with unilateral power to make sweeping changes to cities facing financial troubles.

Under the legislation, the Michigan Messenger reports, the governor could declare a "financial emergency" in towns or school districts. He could then appoint a manager to fire local elected officials, break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services - and even eliminate whole cities or school districts without any public input.

The measure passed in the state Senate this week; the House passed its own version earlier. The two versions of the bill are expected to be reconciled next week, and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has said he will sign the bill the bill into law.

Democrats and their allies are decrying the legislation as a power grab and say it's part of a wider effort taking place in several states, such as Wisconsin, to weaken labor unions.

"It takes every decision in a city or school district and puts it in the hands of the manager, from when the streets get plowed to who plows them and how much they are paid," said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan State AFL-CIO. "This is a takeover by the right wing and it's an assault on democracy like I've never seen."

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat who represents Detroit, said in a statement that in a given city, the governor's new "financial czar" could "force a municipality into bankruptcy, a power that will surely be used to extract further concessions from hardworking public sector workers."

He said the legislation raises "serious constitutional concerns." On top of that, he said, allowing an "emergency manager" to dissolve locally elected bodies "implicitly targets minority communities that are disproportionately impacted by the economic downturn, without providing meaningful support for improved economic opportunity."

Republican state Sen. Jack Brandenburg said several urban areas of the state, especially Detroit, are in "bad shape" and require "financial martial law," the Daily Tribune reports.

The emergency manager, he said, "has to have the backbone, he has to have the power, to null and void a contract." In response to concerns that local leaders will have to cede control, Brandenburg said, "I'll tell you what, I think that in a lot of these places there is no control."

An emergency manager would only be put in place if several other steps to save a city's finances failed, and Snyder has said in recent weeks that removing elected officials or breaking contracts would be a last resort for an emergency manager. In addition, the legislature would have the power to remove an emergency manager.

As the "emergency manager" bill nears final passage, state lawmakers are also considering Snyder's proposed budget, which would cut spending on schools, universities, prisons and communities, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Snyder has also proposed eliminating $1.7 billion in tax breaks for individuals while cutting $1.8 billion in taxes for businesses to spur job growth. Much of the $1.7 billion in new tax revenue would be "coming from retirees, senior citizens and the working poor," the Free Press wrote in an editorial.

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After Pledging Not Raise Taxes, Walker Proposes Hiking Taxes And Fees On The Poor And Students

One of the most important ideological commitments of the modern conservative movement is an opposition to tax increases. It is with this ideology that then-Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker signed Americans For Tax Reforms’ “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” a vow not to raise taxes on the people of his state.

Yet in his newly proposed budget, now-governor Walker appears to have already broken this pledge. While the budget would lower taxes overall — it includes $83.3 million in tax cuts “primarily for businesses and investors” — it would make up for lost revenue by eliminating tax credits and exemptions that primarily benefit the poor and even some in the middle class.

Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau — the state’s equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office — finds that this would amount to a $49.9 million tax increase on people who receive these credits over the next two years:

    Low and middle income people would lose tax credits worth about $49.4 million over two years, the new Legislative Fiscal Bureau report said.

    Those affected most by Walker’s proposal would include low-income families who qualify for the earned income tax credit program, and low-income homeowners who receive tax rebates under the homestead tax credit.

In addition to eliminating these tax credits, Walker also has proposed a spate of new fee increases. The “bulk of the fee increases are for tuition at University of Wisconsin campuses, totaling more than $105 million over two years.”

It appears that Walker is less committed to keeping taxes down on everyone than he is to cutting taxes for some of society’s most fortunate members, while raising them on some of its most vulnerable. He joins many other conservative state legislators across the country who are cutting taxes on the richest while slashing services and raising taxes for Main Street America.