At a press conference Wednesday, Gov. Rick Snyder explained why he wants to give $350 million in state money — which he insists is not a bailout — to Detroit.Details are lacking, but Gov. Snyder says he wants an "investment" from state tobacco revenue settlement funds to match a generous offer of support from private foundations. He says this would protect Detroit pensioners and the Detroit Institute of Arts collection.
Gov. Snyder says this is not a "bailout" but a "settlement" because a bailout (I am paraphrasing) involves giving money to bankers and not getting anything in return. This seems a bit of a stretch.
Dictionary.com’s second entry on "bailout" reads: "an instance of coming to the rescue, especially financially: a government bailout of a large company." (Emphasis in the original.)
Last week, I listed just some of the reasons Detroit should not be bailed out. Among them, taking precious state resources that could be used for other state spending (road funding, for example) to give to Detroit is fundamentally unfair to all those Michigan residents who were never part of the Detroit equation. It requires statewide residents to give up something of value (future government services or tax cuts) to cover the bad policy decisions and mismanagement of Detroit.
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