Poll: Stuff everyone knew to be true is true

by: Eric B.

Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 19:35:58 PM EST

Bernie pr0n says Mike Bishop may have won the battle, but lost the war on K-12 funding:

Lansing -- Local public school districts have too little funding to provide a quality education, according to 60 percent of voters surveyed in an exclusive Detroit News/WXYZ (Channel 7) poll released Tuesday.

Only 23 percent of respondents said the taxes and fees paid for public education are "too high"; 60 percent said they are about right, and 12 percent said "too low."

The results come at a time when protests against the worst school cuts in Michigan history have reached a fever pitch, and could mean Senate Republicans have pushed too far with their focus on balancing the budget without raising taxes, said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA, the Lansing polling firm that surveyed 600 voters statewide.

Bernie pr0n goes on to interpret this as Mike Bishop winning the battle but losing the war, that the public is fed up with cuts and is interested in substantive tax reforms that fund public education. Who could have predicted such a thing? This will be especially true come next autumn -- right before the gubernatorial election -- when parents are getting adjusted to things like hacked apart transportation services, closed schools, and pay-to-play fees through the roof.  Yes, Mike Bishop and his "not one red cent more for K-12 education" approach to budgeting will be mighty electable statewide right about then.

Ell oh ell.

Meanwhile, the MEA wins a P.R. battle.

A plurality of those polled, 45 percent, said teacher health insurance benefits were about right. The high cost of teacher health care has been a key issue for House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, who has proposed trimming costs by pooling health plans for teachers and other public employees.

Ell oh ell. Again. Can we finally draw the obvious parallels here between the lackluster support for the Dillon plan and the fact that it was rolled out right as the Legislature was headed into another embarrassing budget debacle? Can we finally intuit that people aren't really complete morons, that they can tell that such a reform just might be a part of political games played in Lansing that are more focused on control of political apparatus than they are on crafting intelligent, sound public policy? Can we finally stop pretending that the state's electorate sees things through the eyes of your average teabagger, that when they hear about teacher benefits they think not of some shadowy, nefarious organization (the MEA) mentioned only in the same hushed breaths as ACORN, the ACLU, and SPECTER but of the person currently teaching their child?