Jan. 18, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder presented his first State of the State Address. Unfortunately, he not declaring the name redundant and in need of change, he did say that us Michiganders are “…in a crisis unmatched in the 60 plus years of our state.”
Michigan became a state officially in 1837, so technically we’ve been a state for 174 years. Presumably the governor is focusing on the past that involved the automobile industry, which is roughly 109 years. Let’s move on from the history lesson and whatever benchmark the governor is using for his time frame.
He also said dwelling on the past won’t help, and we need to focus on substance, not form. Duh; there’s a fine line between looking at the past for knowledge and being stuck in a world of nostalgia. I call that line the Big Three.
Moving on, Governor Snyder also said he is going to create a means to measure Michigan’s progress, and will present the results in every State of the State address he gives. I guess the people who called for a recall finally gave up. The measuring tool is called a dashboard and can be seen at www.michigan.gov/midashboard.
The dashboard looks nice and scientific, so maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t.
Regardless, it’s a way to easily look at the state and see how it’s doing. As long as the information is accurate and unbiased, the data should prove useful in bettering the state. The problem of course is then taking the information and utilizing it properly.
Besides that bit of hopeful gauging how the state is doing and where it needs improvement, most of the address was your standard political blather-vague statements about what the person is going to do to better the state and vague statements about what needs to be done to make Michigan better. How about we get Colonel Prescott from “Gears of War” to do the next speech? Add a little pizzazz.
At least the points he said needing work were true, like education. How he wants to go about solving those issues might be a problem later on, but until that day I can only comment on the vague statements of his speech.
Governor Snyder’s idea to “weed out needless regulations that cost consumers and throw up barriers to competition” has me a bit concerned, but Michigan is notorious for such laws, so he does have a point. I don’t like his ideas of supporting Michigan farmers, mainly because I’m pretty sure farmers get enough federal support, but again, I could be wrong.
The new bridge to Canada seems an odd issue to focus on, but I don’t go to Canada, and trade between them and our state is apparently important, so again, the Governor might have a point. Until more specific proposals and legislative attempts are created, forming a serious opinion on his goals is dangerous without more information.
So far though, there isn’t a lot in the address that worries me, which worries me already. Any politician that can make a speech without upsetting their constituents is either a very crafty individual or an inept one, capable of making speeches vague and promising, but incapable of doing anything productive. We won’t know which kind of speech this was for a few months, but for now, at least we have a new tool to see how the state is doing.
