LANSING – In saying the state is making “tremendous progress” and faces the possibility of “going back to 2009,” if he is not re-elected, Governor Rick Snyder said Friday that big businesses did not get that much from the 2011 tax change, more companies are looking to locate in Michigan since the adoption of the right-to-work laws and his administration’s education funding actions would help ensure teachers get pensions.

But he was cautious in not saying whether he supported the state’s same-sex marriage constitutional provision or whether or not it should be overturned, or whether he would sign legislation that would expand Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to gays, lesbians, transgendered people and bisexuals.

Snyder, in the hour-long call-in interview over with the Michigan Public Radio Network said it was important not be complacent because many people still needed help, but he said great things have been accomplished and great things are still to come for the state, “and I want to get that job done.”

While he only dealt with the charge briefly, and at the end of the interview, Snyder did make one of the first uses himself of the argument Republicans are using against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer, that his election is needed to be sure Michigan does not return to the “lost decade” when the state struggled with economic problems.

Schauer appeared on the same program in August.

Snyder defended his policies, sometimes speaking cautiously, and said to some questions asked by voters that they had been “misinformed” by the political process where “politics overwhelms fact.”

In particular, Snyder rebutted charges that his administration had cut spending to education – which has been probably the most contentious question in the campaign thus far – saying that he had actually put more than a billion dollars into the public education systems.

He said the biggest part of the new dollars going into education, which amounts to $300 a student, was paid into the public education retirement system. Local schools were to pay those funds and were finding themselves in trouble to do so. Many teachers do not realize that without those payments, Snyder said, their pensions could be in jeopardy.

Snyder also deflected arguments that his 2011 tax changes to end the Michigan Business Tax and replace it with the Corporate Income Tax meant a tax increase for “seniors.”

Snyder said it was “a misstatement when it says seniors. If you look at how the system works it was really about essentially removing an exclusion on pension income.”

As he argued in 2011, the personal income tax exemption on pension income unfairly pushed the tax burden on younger people and older persons who still work. Snyder said there were many people in the 40s and 50s who retired with pensions (though he did not quantify that number) and would therefore live tax-free. He also outlined that the 2011 did not affect persons who were 67 or older, and that there was a phase-in on the tax on pension income on persons 60-67.

Somewhat surprisingly, Snyder said that big businesses didn’t get much out of the switch to the Corporate Income Tax since at 6 percent the rate is higher than the personal rate of 4.25 percent and most corporate tax credits had been wiped out.

The Corporate Income Tax was really to provide greater fairness to small businesses, Snyder said, who were often double-taxed by having to pay the MBT and then the owners had to pay personal income tax as well.

In the 2009-10 fiscal year, before Snyder was elected and during a recession year, the MBT raised slightly more than $2 billion for the state. In the 2012-13 fiscal year, the first full fiscal year the CIT was effective, it raised $866.8 million.

Asked about cuts to higher education, Snyder said his goal is to restore those funds. But he also said in a second term his top priority in higher education would be to make Michigan the leading state in career technology education and training. Snyder has made expanding training a major focus during his current term, and while he said he would never dissuade anyone from getting a college education, there was too much focus put on traditional college education to the detriment of training for technical jobs.

Challenged on why he had signed the controversial right-to-work laws in 2012 when he had previously said they were not on his agenda, Snyder essentially blamed labor for making the issue viable.

Labor had pushed a 2012 constitutional amendment, Proposal 2012-2, that would have put the right to collective bargain in the Constitution and, Snyder said, could have “destroyed the Michigan economy.” He said in meetings with labor leaders he urged them not to push the proposal because it would increase the likelihood that right-to-work would come up.

He denied that enacting the law was in anyway “payback,” and he said his role was not to fight with people but to solve problems.

Snyder also said workers should have the right to decide if they would join a union, and that since the laws went into effect more companies are looking to locate in Michigan.

On two issues that have drawn much attention, Snyder was asked if he thought persons to sentenced to automatic life in prison without parole while they were juveniles before the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama barring such sentences should be entitled to a parole hearing, Mr. Snyder said that was an issue that should be decided by the Legislature. “If the Legislature wants to take it up they should address it,” he said.

The Michigan Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision ruled those persons convicted before the 2012 decision are not entitled to parole hearings, but the issue is also before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The U.S. Circuit Court is also hearing an appeal from the state on a lower court ruling that held the 2004 constitutional provision outlawing same-sex marriage and its equivalents. Snyder said he is a party to the case because he is the governor, and Attorney General Bill Schuette is arguing the case because the voters enacted the provision.

But Snyder refused to say whether he favored or opposed the provision. In the past, he has said he supports limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Neither would he say if he would sign legislation to expand the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to the LGBT community. Snyder said he encouraged the Legislature to have a good discussion on the issue. Pushed on the issue, told that the Legislature doesn’t discuss matters without the intention of either passing them or defeating them, Snyder said that would be a hypothetical question and he does not deal with hypothetical questions.

The liberal organization Progress Michigan issued a statement following the interview charging Snyder was whitewashing history by working to favor corporations over ordinary residents.

Similar to how Republicans slammed Schauer for sidestepping several questions during his visit to the program, Democrats did the same to Snyder.

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