For a scant 60 minutes on Sunday evening, Gov. Rick Snyder and Democratic challenger Rep. Mark Schauer showed their fancy footwork, bobbed and weaved as journalists threw questions their way about Michigan’s economy, marriage equality, roads, tax policy, education funding and the general direction of the state. It was the only planned meeting of the two candidates prior to the Nov. 4 election.
The town hall was held on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit. Conservative commentator Nolan Finley of The Detroit News and a more liberal-leaning Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press posed questions, along with some of the approximately 150 undecided voters selected to attend the heavily staged and managed event. Political analysts commented after the event that the main concern of both campaigns was that the respective candidates would possibly make some blunder close to election day. Thus, the event presented those who attended with the opportunity to ask only three questions over the hour. The rest of the time was taken up by the journalists who, throughout the hour, found it sometimes difficult to keep the candidates from taking swipes at each other.
Snyder cast a 2011 major shift in tax policy as a matter of “fairness.” He explained that his push to eliminate the Michigan Business Tax came from his belief that it was overly complicated and burdensome.
“What we made was a fair system to encourage job creation,” Snyder said. “The Congressman voted for the Michigan Business Tax. It was something we had to get rid of to be successful in this state.”
When passed, Snyder’s new tax plan was projected to cut business taxes by about $1.7 billion a year. However, the shift reduced or eliminated various credits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit which impacted the state’s middle and low-income families, and a long-standing exemption on pension income. The move increased individual taxes by about $1.4 billion.
Schauer, in what was to become a recurring theme, hit back with a sound bite: “Our accountant governor is missing some columns on his spreadsheet. It’s called people.”
Snyder explained that a senior couple can still exempt up to $40,000 from any income source — rather than just pensions — when filing their state income taxes. The Governor, his voice rising, said that that the previous tax code was unfair to older residents who were still working. “Actually we helped seniors, across the board,” the governor said.
Schauer came back repeatedly to the theme of “the importance of public education.” The challenger said funding education would be his number one budget priority. In fact, when asked about his plan for stimulating the economy and dealing with the rising costs of the state’s prison system, Schauer came back to funding education as his cornerstone. Schauer, who has come under attack for his controversial claim that Snyder cut education funding by $1 billion, defended it. He pointed to a 2011 Senate Fiscal Agency analysis of Snyder’s first K-12 budget, which was impacted by a loss of federal funding and supplemented later in the year with additional state dollars.
“Today, it is a fact that schools still have less per pupil dollars in the classroom than when he started four years ago,” Schauer said. “Don’t take my word for it. Talk to any teacher. Talk to school board members, parents all across this state,” said Schauer.
Snyder repeatedly accused his opponent of “making things up” and telling lies, beginning with the assertion that the Republican incumbent has cut $1 billion in education funding.
In response, Snyder pointed to newer numbers from the Senate Fiscal Agency, which have been verified by independent fact checkers and show that total K-12 spending is up roughly $1 billion since he took office.
“Let’s make this really simple,” Snyder said. “The year before I became governor, the state budget for K-12 was $10.6 billion. That’s a number that doesn’t change. The budget I just signed into law was $11.7 billion. “It’s not even a dispute.”
Snyder surprised political analysts by becoming increasingly aggressive as Schauer hammered home critiques of Snyder’s administration, including large pay hikes for upper-level employees. The governor became particularly irritated at Schauer’s mention of what he referred to as a $41 million “sweetheart” furniture contract to Snyder’s cousin.
“I think it’s somewhat disgusting that he’s impinging on a good person’s name,” Snyder said of his cousin, who owns DBI Office Interiors in Lansing.
The two men discussed bipartisanship with Schauer pointing to his ability to “understand” how the system works—thanks for his years in the Michigan Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. Snyder pointed to the passage of a set of bills, co-sponsored by Ann Arbor’s Democratic State Senator Rebekah Warren, that established the state’s Regional Transit Authority as evidence of his ability to reach across the aisle.
Snyder, when asked if Michigan should stop defending its gay marriage ban if it is again found unconstitutional, declined to discuss his personal opinion. He noted the attorney general holds a separate constitutional office from his own and said he is waiting on the outcome of the courts. “I’ll wait for the courts to weigh in,” he said. When asked by a moderator whether he supported marriage equality, Snyder repeated that he would wait for the courts to decide. It was one of several ineffectual answers offered by Snyder to moderators’ questions. In another instance, Snyder took credit for “stopping bullying in Michigan” through anti-bullying legislation passed and asserted that “good roads lead to job creation.”
Schauer was clear in his answer to the marriage equality question.He said that the state’s gay marriage ban is huring Michigan’s economy by discouraging talented workers from considering the state as a home.
“You are a party to opposing marriage equality in Michigan,” Schauer said to Snyder. “I think that’s wrong.”
Recent polls suggest a race that is a dead heat.
