ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
I hear tell and I agree that our modern American society has become polarized at our peril, becoming the kind of divided nation wished for by Vladimir Putin.
I have stated in past columns that I don’t see any way out of this mess because we’ve become a house divided so badly on issues such as religion, abortion, gays, bullying, guns, climate change and wealth inequality. I have rarely seen any examples of compromise or of any kind of olive branch between two strident opposing poles, the red and the blue, the left and the right.
Yet in the last month I’ve witnessed several instances of my own coming to the understanding the guys and gals on the other side sometimes can be right about something, can do or say something I can support.
I acknowledged a while back that I agreed twice with Dorr Township Trustee Terri Rios on selection of a master planner and on removal of a member of the Planning Commission. This is heady stuff, because I have been a strong opponent of just about everything she’s said and done since she was elected in 2016.
I found myself cheering the news that President Donald Trump is seriously considering reducing troop numbers in Afghanistan, where a futile war drags on with no end in sight until now. Trump is doing what George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not do, and he may be ruffling the feathers of former President Dwight D. Eisenhouwer’s famous boogeyman, the Military-Industrial Complex.
I also have agreed with the Republicans in the impeachment hearings that the actions of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, were unethical, if not unlawful. That doesn’t excuse Trump’s behavior in arm twisting the Ukraine to diss a political opponent.
Now comes the news Friday that State Rep. Steven Johnson, whose politics have prompted nothing less than contempt from me during his three years in Lansing, rose in righteous indignation to do and say the right thing in regards to a Senate Bill approving special tax breaks for the Switch data company that located in the old Steelcase building.
Johnson rightly complained that Switch, already getting tax breaks, is being given a deal not available to competitors, at public taxpayers’ expense. He contends that the legislation doesn’t ensure a fair playing field in the free market arena.
I remember all too well back late 2016 when Johnson’s predecessor, former State Rep. Ken Yonker, told the Leighton Township Board it was important to support tax breaks for Switch so it would locate inside that funky-looking building and bring jobs to the area. So it won tax breaks then and it’s getting more tax advantages now.
And who pays? Michigan’s taxpayers, because Switch is not paying its fair share.
The Switch issue is a twist on the old gambit of giving corporate welfare to businesses and corporations to get them to move here or stay here under the guise of providing jobs. And what point does the cost of corporate welfare eclipse the cost of having a business heavily subsidized by public tax dollars?
Incentives for businesses or corporations are one thing, but increasing public citizens’ tax burden unfairly as a result is another.
A good (?) example in recent years was the insistence by Mike Illitch and the Red Wings that the City of Detroit cough up about $250 million for the new Little Caesar’s Arena.
Kudos to Rep. Johnson, but I remain opposed to just about everything else he says or does. I’m just not into the entirely binary political approach that’s killing us. The folks on the other side of the aisle aren’t entirely evil, and occasionally that have the ability to do the right thing, with apologies to Spike Lee.
