Presidential candidate, former Senator and Vice-President Joe Biden enthusiastically takes endorsements from Leftists like Beto O’Rourke, who unforgettably said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15”, and continues to announce he’ll be the VP’s gun czar. Meanwhile, his main competitor and self-proclaimed socialist, Bernie Sanders, has run on a platform to make college and healthcare “free.”  The Democratic Party isn’t offering anyone who entirely supports the fundamental principles of individualism and federalism. Instead, there’s a dangerous trend towards Big Government and “free” everything, a cynical appeal to younger voters.

It was only a few weeks ago that Governor Gretchen Whitmer delivered a State of the State speech telling lawmakers (and viewers at home) that ‘I don’t need you.’ She spent her primetime address telling the legislature she’d avoid the hard work of leadership in 2020, ignore consensus building, and simply act by executive order.

So, it felt more than a little ironic barely days later when she sent her budget director to a panel of those same lawmakers to make the case for preferred budget – and to ask them to fund her priorities.

The Michigan Freedom Fund would like to offer a sincere thank you to Speaker Lee Chatfield, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and legislative leadership for listening to the concerns of taxpayers and stopping House Bill 5229. This is a great development for taxpayers throughout the state. 

As we have repeatedly stated, we strongly oppose any efforts that make it easier for government to raise taxes on its residents and the dangerous expansion of the Municipal Partnership Act found in HB 5229 would have done just that. The language that strikes the applicability of the constitutional and statutory tax caps to each participating unit of government was particularly egregious and we appreciate the efforts by grassroots activists and lawmakers who took the time to express those concerns.

It’s “Big Government 101.” If you want your tax hike to succeed, get it on the ballot when turnout will be low – or when the participating voters are a little more “tax friendly.”

This column originally appeared in the Detroit News.

“For those of you who want to keep playing games, I’m going to press on without you,” said the governor who held funding for kids with autism hostage in a crass (and failed) political game designed to ram a gas tax hike plan through the Legislature. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer garnered big headlines following her TV address for a proclamation that she didn’t need a Legislature, and she was going to simply forgo things like leadership and building consensus.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has some explaining to do. And a decision to make.

Last December, we told you about Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s attempt to institute a brazen new shakedown scheme, essentially threatening to close small business across the state unless they write checks to Whitmer’s campaign donors.

Under the scheme, known as a “Labor Peace Agreement,” the Governor’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency, located within the Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) department would refuse to license a business or allow it to hire workers unless those workers join a union or pay off the local union to keep the “peace.”

With great fanfare and media adulation, Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s budget director (she was too busy trying to raise her national profile by making the rounds on cable news to be bothered with actually governing Michigan) yesterday unveiled her budget for the upcoming fiscal year, boasting it was the largest budget in the history of the state, with the biggest departmental budgets housed within it.

Last Thursday, my oldest daughter, Aláthea, celebrated her tenth birthday. It’s a milestone, in more ways than one. You see, before Aláthea had even blown out the candles on her cake, Michigan’s governor had committed her and all her peers to 25 years of debt.

Because Gretchen Whitmer failed to get her way, she impulsively borrowed $3.5 billion in bonds to “fix the damn roads.” And it’s going to have damaging consequences for my daughter’s future.