Word: blanchards
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...fuel taxes in Ohio, for example, went up a staggering 40% to 50%. In 1982, 30 states again raised sales, individual or corporate income taxes. Last year 43 states imposed new tax increases. Lawmakers did so at their political peril. In Michigan, two state senators who supported Governor James Blanchard's 38% income tax increase in 1983 were recalled by irate voters. But while voters balked at the medicine, they appreciated the cure. Michigan's deficit has shrunk from $1.7 billion to $250 million in the past two years, and a proposal to roll back taxes...
...roll back state and local property taxes to 1981 levels and force the state legislature to muster a four-fifths majority for income tax increases. It would also have required voter approval for all new levies. Opposing the proposition was an unusual coalition of critics, including Democratic Governor James Blanchard, the state's leading corporations (General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler), the AFL-CIO, educators and former G.O.P. Governors Wilham Milliken and George Romney. They helped persuade voters that the measure would have drastically shrunk state services, especially education...
Opponents of the measure claim that it would cut state and local revenues by $1 billion and eliminate some 20,000 jobs. Democratic Governor James Blanchard, who says that Proposal C would devastate Michigan's fragile economy, has assembled a coalition of business, labor, education and political leaders to fight the measure...
...Blanchard, bail bondsman, former wrestler and promoter of the bouts, explains, "In wrestling, you've got to have good guys and bad guys." Blanchard has run matches around the state for more than 20 years. "We're selling entertainment and excitement," he says, gesticulating with large, powerful hands. In fact, wrestling's heroes and villains are the same as those in the real world, ebbing and flowing with the tide of world events. "We've seen Iranians after the hostage crisis, Russians, Germans and Mexicans with headdresses," says Blanchard. He mentions current Texas favorites: "Tully...
...Blanchard knows his business and his wrestlers. He says that wrestlers do well by developing strong ring personalities and by engaging in lengthy and hateful grudge matches that stir fan loyalties. Such disputes often begin on Blanchard's Monday wrestling television show and spill over into the arena, where more insults and slurs lead to head stompings and chair bashings. Not long ago, one of Blanchard's matches climaxed with a combatant dumping a large bucket of manure on his opponent's head...