Tag: Andy Dillon (page 4)

Attorney General Mike Cox today issued the following response to a new attack ad by Lansing Mayor Virg Benero, the latest in a series of attacks by Democrats over Cox's lawsuit to overturn the unconstitutional Obama-Pelosi health care bill:

"Mayor Bernero is absolutely right; I am suing to stop Obamacare.  What Bernero doesn't seem to grasp is the fact that the Constitution matters. There are Constitutional limits to what Congress can force individuals to do and I am fighting this bill because it exceeds those limits, no matter how badly Bernero, Governor Granholm or Nancy Pelosi want to carry President Obama's water.

 "This bill is an unprecedented overreach by Congress and the President, forcing Americans for the first time ever to buy something as the price of citizenship. When the people of Michigan elected me to serve as Attorney General I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and I will continue to uphold that oath by fighting this bill."

It seems as though it was only Months ago, that we were praising the House Speaker for his stand on a state employee health purchasing option. In fact it WAS only months ago, that Dillon (contrary to the position of his union supporters) rang the bell, leaving little wiggle room for speculation that he would abstain from the governors race in this upcoming cycle.  He expressed a relatively "conservative" position on the matter, and set the tone for what will now follow as an slightly more than interesting primary race for the Michigan Democrat party.

Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, a Democrat candidate for governor, was on WJR with Frank Beckmann this morning talking about the need for "commonsense" reform of government.

He talked about restructuring, consolidating and streamlining government.

Yet his record with government reform at the local level is one of inaction.

After I was on Beckmann's show on February 13, 2009, to discuss my efforts to abolish my own office, Dillon called in and promised to support legislation in the House of Representatives.

Well, the legislation, House Bill No. 5216, was introduced last summer and there's been no action.

Dillon has the power to move this commonsense reform of local government, yet he hasn't.

With two surveys of Michigan voters now finding strong opposition to House Speaker Andy Dillon's proposed  mandatory state government-run health insurance plan, it's little wonder hearings on legislation to implement the plan have been halted and key witnesses have not been allowed to testify.

On Monday, EPIC*MRA released a new survey of Michigan voters that found strong opposition to House Bill 5345 among Democratic, Republican and Independent voters. In September, a survey of Michigan voters conducted by Lansing-based Marketing Resource Group (MRG) also found wide opposition to the scheme to force all public employers in Michigan and nearly 1.5 million residents to give up their private health insurance and instead get their insurance from a state government plan that would be created by the Legislature and run by 13 political appointees of the governor and Legislature.

Sadly, Politics can respond much in the same way.  Overblown, over complicated product of the political mind is often bought all too easily by a public which always wants NEW and IMPROVED, but soon finds nothing improved but the packaging, and shiny new logos.  And then, as the cycle goes, the product that was bought and sometimes returned, soon finds its way back out on the shelf looking like the next generation of solutions in the dollar store of ideas.  

Alas, the problems they shelved when they beat feat out of town are still waiting to greet them upon their return.  The state continues to bleed $125 million in red ink every month, unemployment jumped from 12 percent to 12.6 percent while they were out of town and Democrats across the country continue to harp on how groovy "stimulus spending" is for local economies.

All the more interesting, in that sense, that Andy Dillon's obstruction of the long-since transferred, bipartisan Senate Bill 1, a Michigan economic stimulus bill that pumps $1.235 billion into the local economy over the next three fiscal years has today reached DAY 81.

That's nearly twelve full weeks after an overwhelmingly bi-partisan majority of the Michigan State Senate (one-third of the Democrats joined every Republican) came together to approve a spending-free stimulus plan that returns $1.235 billion to local businesses... Michigan companies creating Michigan jobs.

Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Representative Mark Jansen repeals the much-hated, job-killing MBT surcharge, not only stimulating the economy with a massive infusion of desperately needed capital, but sending an even more desperately needed signal to the business community that Michigan is finally ready to make some tough decisions and to step out of the economic dark ages.

The Democrat controlled House and Speaker Andy Dillon specifically, haven't bothered to even give the bill a hearing.

Eighty-one days.   And the question isn't how soon will they give common sense, bipartisan legislation a hearing and a vote... it remains, how long will they continue to ignore the devastating economic reality gripping their own constituents?