Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
February 23, 2014

A week ago Jane and I were at O’Hare after visiting Chicago. As you walk and sit and meander your way around an airport, you can’t help but to catch snippets of news from the millions of monitors broadcasting CNN. (In fact, I get this Pavlovian response when I flip by CNN when I’m at home — I get this anxious feeling I’m in an airport — and an even more anxious feeling that I don’t have my ticket.) It seemed every time I paid a bit of attention, there was some southern lawmaker either actively saying something insulting or being reported to have done something insulting. It was all in regards to a union vote at a VW plant in Chattanooga. The UAW had been trying to organize the plant and called for a vote. The southern lawmakers, led it seemed by Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, had been doing everything in their power to avoid this (and not feeling particularly bounded by fairness or truth).

So it was a pretty easy cartoon to draw from that experience. I felt myself sympathetic to the UAW — not because I’m necessarily pro-union. (In general, I believe in the purpose of unions and the positive benefits they can have; but I believe many unions — the UAW among them — are stuck fighting battles from the last century and need to modernize to be more relevant.) But because Bob Corker et al can be such hypocritical turds. I just hate it when those guys win (or think they won).

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
February 16, 2014

Of course every other year is an election year. And there are many other convenient excuses when it’s not. So… enjoy the pothole dodging everybody! (And, um, avoid bridges if at all possible.)

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
February 9, 2014

Okay, so yeah, I was taking a swipe at Governor Snyder in this one. The state of Michigan is in the odd position of running a surplus this year, and there has been much talk about what to do with it. One suggestion is to get rid of a tax Snyder championed on pension income. Snyder stated last week that this would be a bad idea because he thought the tax was fair and that not taxing pension income would be unfair to younger people. I mostly go along with that, but Snyder’s defense of young people seemed disingenuous when you look at his record of cutting education funding.

But the bigger point is that there really is no such thing as a “fair” tax. I can go with “sensible” or “necessary” or “tolerable,” but trying to sell any tax as morally sound is only going to tick off the people who end up paying more and getting less benefit. I’m more inclined to pitch a tax as “Look, somebody has to pay for the stuff we share. Let’s think it through, do the best we can, and no whining.” But then I’m not a politician.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
February 2, 2014

No, seriously — this is exactly how the process works.