Oakland Unimpressed

Local paper pisses and moans about legislative pay raises - two years after the fact. Yo! Who cares?

The Oakland Press editorial board beats up on State Rep­­re­­sen­­ta­tives Marie Donigan (D-Royal Oak) and Andy Meisner (D-Ferndale) for having the nerve to propose corporate responsibility legislation.

The package of bills would eliminate “golden parachutes†given while com­pan­ies are ask­ing work­ers for con­cessions, revoke tax breaks for com­panies that vio­late pension regulations, make it a felony for com­pany exe­cu­tives to alter finan­cial records and in­crease the punish­ment for executives who retaliate against whistleblowers. Sounds square to us.

But to the Oakland Press the proposals are hypocritical because the state legislature gave itself – gasp! – a pay raise! Yeah, back in 2002 when neither Donigan nor Meisner were in the legislature.

Well, the Michigan Caucus is richly tired of this bullshit. OK, the legislature gave themselves pay increases; get over it. Its not like the state is going to go bankrupt because the legislature gave itself a pay raise. OK? While we’re at it, let’s put some numbers to it:

The total compensation of the 148-member legislature is $11,788,200. Michigan is a $43.3 billion enterprise.

The total compensation of just the top five executives (the only ones that have to be reported to the SEC) of the Oakland Press’ home company, the Journal Register, is $7,216,138. The Journal Register is a $0.5 billion business.

Hmmm … “In the meantime, we wonder if they know the meaning of the word ‘hypocrisy.’†- Oakland Press, November 26, 2005. Yeah, who are they kidding?