One of the temptations that they must endure comes in the form of the MEDC.  The ability to hand out money to those who promise the great return in employment opportunities for Michigan citizens.  Given the unmitigated failure to produce documented results, the MEDC should almost be immediately suspect by the newest incoming legislators from Republican ranks.  However, it seems that because the governor says it just hasn't been applied properly, some are willing to give it another shot.

To which I refer to a lesson frequently cited by a good friend and fellow commissioner in Grand Traverse County.  She says when riding a dead horse, its best to just get off.  Do NOT:

• Get a stronger whip
  
• Change riders
  
• Move the horse to new location
  
• Ride the horse for longer periods of time
  
• Yell at the horse
  
• Get off the horse and try to hold it up
  
• Feed it super vitamins
  
• Appoint a committee to study the horse.
  
• Blame the horses' parents. The problem is in the breeding
  
• Create an assessment and self-evaluation for measuring our riding ability.
  
• Change the standards so that the horse is no longer technically dead
  
• Have a "Dead Horse" seminar
  
• Declare that no horse is too dead to ride.
  
• Hire an external consultant to show how the dead horse can still be ridden.
  
• Buy a software program which is guaranteed to enhance dead horse performance and productivity.
  
• Increase funding (horse feed) as the horse is obviously malnourished.
  
• Declare that a dead horse is more cost effective than a live one.
  
• Identify and visit sites where they ride dead horses efficiently.
  
• Give the dead horse a raise

"They were doing it wrong" doesn't cut it any longer.  The problem is process, not execution.  Because someone didn't get it right the first time, might NOT mean the second and third and fourth times are as fatally flawed, however, a 100% failure to achieve desired results over a period more than a decade, is what would be considered in transitive action as an indicator that money spent for such results, equals money spent to merely buy further failure.

But what the heck, its not like the MEDC is playing with anyone's money besides their own right?

Oh yeah.

Up here in NW tourist land we have some great Republican legislators right?  These are my friends, who I support during election cycles, yet am perfectly willing to call out when they err by "doing the right thing."  Certainly, alongside the wonderful agriculture additions to MEDC type of government giving is the return of the Pure Michigan campaign in all of its fully inflated funding.

One might ask if I am "out of my mind?!" for objecting to such wonderful largess that helps the tourism AND the rather influential agriculture economy in my region.  Certainly my own political welfare begins here at home where these things seem quite important.  The good folks who have given me the opportunity to serve might argue I should support such things as farm and tourism subsidies.

I don't blame them one bit if they do.  In this world of begging at the table of the deciders in Lansing or DC, one has to get up early, elect the best hound to grab the best scraps and bring them home. But in the end, what the hounds are bringing home is merely that  ..scraps.

No matter how well you dice it, anything that flows through the filter of government will have some get stuck in the fiber along the way.  Add to the cost of this program, every other entitlement that causes our taxes to increase, and be distributed to other `best causes' deemed worthy by the dead horse in Lansing, and you have a greater cost to farm, and a higher cost to advertise to your tourists.

My own representatives are decent enough and on most issues have unarguable records.  However, the fatal flaw, and inconsistency which keeps the pendulum swinging back and forth between Democrat and republican control, is their inability to hold true to their core principles.  By failing to stand firm on issues which have but one truth, and the to provide the requisite education for a properly informed public, these Republicans continue to confound the voters who already have an innate understanding of cause and effect.

Perhaps it is merely a matter of observation?

I am willing to help out gentlemen.   Kick once with your spurs, and if it fails to tremble, then please note that it MUST BE deceased, dead, bereft of life, room temperature, bloodless, breathless, cadaverous, checked out, cold, cut off, defunct, departed, done for, erased, expired, extinct, gone, meeting its maker, gone to reward, inanimate, inert, late, lifeless, liquidated, mortified, no more, not existing, offed, out of one's misery, passed away, perished, pushing up daisies, reposing, resting in peace, spiritless, stiff, un-animated, wasted.