New Research Shows Sharp Increase in Childhood Poverty in Michigan. Gov. Snyder Responds By Announcing Junket To Asia

Analogy Alert: President Obama is buying books (and playing golf) on Martha’s Vinyard. In Sunday’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd took the President to task as only she can. Dowd writes: “Is Obama so isolated he can’t see that Americans are curled up in a ball, beaten down by a financial crisis, an identity crisis, a political crisis and a leadership crisis? He got the job by blaming Washington. But once you’re in the White House, you are Washington. It’s like the plumber who came to fix the sink waiting for the sink to fix itself.”

Meanwhile on Twitter various groups are heaving Tweet bombs into the ether concerning Obama’s right (or lack thereof) to vacation. Right-leaning political analysts, pundits, magazines and newspaper writers are lambasting President Obama for golfing while the county’s teeters on the edge of financial disaster. Left-leaning political analysts, pundits, magazines and newspaper writers are defending President Obama for golfing while the county teeters on the edge of financial disaster by pointing out that the financial disaster was brought on by the misguided policies of former President George W. Bush, who spent much more time on vacation than Obama. A few sample Tweets:

August 17, 2011—@MoterCityLiberal Tweeted: Debunking the Obama vacation meme under 140: Bush was on vacation during Katrina and when he got his PDB saying OBL determine to strike.

August 18, 2011—@RNC Tweeted: “Obama heads to vacation as economic woes deepen”http://t.co/Zo39Z67 #ObamaGetaway

August 18, 2011—@ThePlumLineGS Tweeted: “RNC attacks Obama’s vacation — barely 12 hours after new report shows Reagan and Bush vacationed far more: http://t.co/T7”

August 19, 2011—@U.S.News & World Report Tweeted: Obama Skips a Jobs Opportunity and Goes on Vacation bit.ly/nZMSdR

August 19, 2011—@RNC Tweeted: Economist: “The President Shouldn’t Be On Vacation While The Markets Are In “Deep Crisis” http://t.co/dO44eMW #Obamanomics

August 22, 2011—@LOLGOP Tweeted: If President Obama rode into Tripoli in the back of a rebel pickup truck, Fox News would consider that undeserved vacation.

August 22, 2011 @Politico Tweeted: Will ritzy vacation trip Obama up? http://t.co/vE3a

Twitter demonstrates political finger-pointing (sometimes the middle one) at its worst, best and most amusing. Maureen Dowd, on the other hand, ain’t fooling around.  “Is Obama so isolated he can’t see that Americans are curled up in a ball, beaten down by a financial crisis, an identity crisis, a political crisis and a leadership crisis? He got the job by blaming Washington. But once you’re in the White House, you are Washington. It’s like the plumber who came to fix the sink waiting for the sink to fix itself.”

Time to hitch up your pants and get the sink fixed, Mr. Prez, or so says one of the country’s most influential political writers. Ouch.

About two million of those Americans who are curled up in a ball and beaten down by a financial crisis, an identity crisis and a leadership crisis live in Michigan. On August 17, 2011, data released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation showed that one in every eight of Michigan’s children are living in a household struggling with job loss, and one in every 20 are affected by home foreclosures. According to Snyder’s own “Dashboard,” 23 percent of Michigan children live in poverty, and infant mortality rates are up in Michigan, as well. (The childhood poverty rates are drawn from data collected by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, ironically.)

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book reports that for the second year in a row Michigan ranks 30th among the states for overall child well-being.

Only Kentucky and Mississippi have more kids in families where no parent is employed, according to a piece published in The Detroit News.

The report also found the number of children living in poverty in Michigan grew by 64 percent over the past decade. An additional 75,000 children since 2000 fell into poverty, defined as households with annual incomes of about $22,000 with two parents with two children.

Those who work with poor families say that the economic conditions for children in Michigan are about to get worse.

The state Department of Human Services last week began notifying families that have been on welfare for more than five years they will soon lose their cash assistance because Michigan will no longer grant extensions to the federal time limit for benefits. The Legislature passed a 48-month limit, which has yet to be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, that could take effect as early as Oct. 1.

The response from Michigan’s Governor? He released details about his upcoming junket to Asia four days after the Annie E. Casey Foundation data were released. The Detroit News reported:

Gov. Rick Snyder is to leave next month on a trade mission to Japan, China and South Korea, his communications director said.

“The governor will be continuing the messaging that Michigan is the value place to do business and will be talking to companies and businesses about why investment in our state is such a sound idea,” Geralyn Lasher told The News.

Snyder is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo Sept. 25 for the 43rd annual joint meeting of the Midwest U.S.-Japan Association and the Japan-Midwest U.S. Association.

On Sept. 27, Snyder is to depart Tokyo for Beijing, where he is to hold a series of meetings and take part in a reception with CEOs and other top officials from Michigan-based companies with operations in China, Lasher said.

The Governor has yet to address the data released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Geralyn Lasher, spokeswoman for Governor Rick Snyder, described the years covered by the report as a “lost decade” for so many who could not find work.

“This is why it’s so crucial that the governor is focusing on creating jobs,” Lasher said. “We certainly don’t want to see numbers like this as we have for the past decade.”

Translation: Childhood poverty in Michigan has nothing to do with Rick Snyder’s policies. That sink was broken way before he ever became Michigan’s Tough Nerd (or @OneCallousNerd—a Twitter account that was recently launched).

Those childhood poverty numbers may have been the result of a decade of someone elses in Lansing, but now Rick Snyder is Lansing. He is selling useless “job creation” strategies that didn’t work in Ann Arbor, or in any of the other 14 SMARTZones created by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). The Detroit Free Press published an exposé in May 2010 that showed the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s 21st Century Jobs Fund, which had funneled almost $140 million dollars to start-ups in Ann Arbor, as well as to Ann Arbor SPARK, had created fewer than 950 actual jobs. When Governor Rick Snyder was the head of Ann Arbor SPARK, he signed off an Annual Report in 2008 that claimed SPARK had created and retained over 12,000 jobs. The report was a work of fiction, and Snyder campaigned for governor based, in part, on his job creation “successes” at Ann Arbor SPARK. Researchers at the Mackinac Center characterized the MEDC’s work as, “creating more job announcement than real jobs.”

State Democrats have been poking Snyder with a sharp stick about the fact that his “job creation” strategies are not, well, creating jobs. Snyder, however, has never been one to let reality get in the way of fantasy where “job creation” has been concerned. His time spent telling whoppers about his “successes” as the CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK should make that abundantly clear.

In June, Snyder took a high profile jaunt to New York to try to get Michigan’s credit rating raised. The Macomb Daily reported on May 28, 2011, “If the agencies agree to raise Michigan’s ratings, the Republican governor could point to that as independent evidence that the state’s reputation and bottom line are being helped by unpopular sacrifices in the budget such as less money for public schools and universities and bigger tax payments from retirees and the working poor.”

Not a single one of the big credit agencies bit at Snyder’s bait, nor should they have. The trip was little more than a photo-op for Michigan’s Governor and his Treasury staff. Bond rating agency officials don’t care if Snyder and his yes men say that, “Michigan is on its way up again.” Bond agencies want Michigan to have a rainy day fund of $1.5-$2 billion dollars to score a AAA rating (last seen in 2003). According to the state’s web site, as of 2010, Michigan had $2.2 million dollars in its Rainy Day Fund. The Governor’s current budget aims to deposit over $225 million dollars in the fund, but the money isn’t there yet.

Now, in response to a stubbornly high unemployment rate, skyrocketing childhood poverty and newly released figures from the Annie E. Casey Foundation that show Michigan’s socio-economic woes are destroying the lives of millions of our state’s children, Michigan’s Governor decides to jet off on a trip to Asia, where he will be “continuing the messaging that Michigan is the value place to do business.” Isn’t that what we pay the head of the MEDC $250,000 per year, plus benefits, to do? Aren’t Snyder’s Ann Arbor SPARK crony Michael Finney and the MEDC, not to mention the Pure Michigan staffers expected to blow the $150 million budgeted to their agencies to “message that Michigan is the value place to do business?”

The absurd idea that Michigan’s Governor has to go to Asia to “continue messaging Michigan is the value place to do business” is another sign that Republican Rick Snyder has an ego the size of a sub-continent to go along with the political instincts of Marie Antoinette. It also demonstrates, once again, that Rich Snyder, as political analyst Rachel Maddow has taken to calling Michigan’s governor, is really that out of touch with the fact that millions of children and adults in Michigan are curled up in a ball, beaten down, and waiting for someone in Lansing to craft policy recognizing that poverty in Michigan is worsening. Snyder and the state’s Republicans cut unemployment benefits, and put a limit on public assistance benefits, moves that did little more than push large numbers of children and families in our state into poverty.

Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) sums up Michigan’s lack of political leadership on both sides of the aisle more bluntly:  Kramer says no one – on the local, state or national level, is dealing with the poverty crisis in this country.  “We want on the agenda the elimination of poverty, Kramer said. “They don’t care if we die. That’s what poverty means,” she said.

“They don’t care if we die. That’s what poverty means.” After his trip to Asia, Rick Snyder will, of course, continue to tell anyone who’ll listen that, yes, the sink is fixing itself. He’ll be able to say it in Japanese and Korean.