Tea Party Reaction to Gov. Snyder's First State of State

Tea party reaction to Gov. Rick Snyder’s first State of the State address was mixed. All agree there wasn’t enough detail to truly see where he plans to take the state.

“I’m encouraged by what he had to say,” said Ben DiPonio, a tea party member from Milford with the Tea Party Patriots of West Oakland. “It’s almost impossible given this type of setting to try to cover all of this ground and get into detail. But the details will have to show themselves when he proposes his budget. There are things I like, but there is not enough detail. We will just have to wait and see.”

DiPonio said that he liked that Snyder appeared to want to take away unnecessary regulations on businesses.

“My only disappointment is he didn’t address any of the budget issues,” DiPonio said.

Ray Hamman from Clarkston’s Independent Tea Party Patriots agreed. Other than a comment right at the outset about public sector employee benefits being unsustainable, Hamman would have asked for more details regarding how the state budget and its $1.6 billion deficit should be resolved.

“What I didn’t like is basically ignoring the serious budget problems,” Hamman said.

“I’m disappointed he left out the elephant in the room. The elephant is still in the room and he ignored it.”

Hamman liked that Snyder was trying to make government run more like a business.

“I liked his business-like approach,” he said. “I liked his focus on measurements and holding government accountable.”                                                                                 

Joan Fabiano, of Grassroots In Michigan said she liked the dashboard idea where the government would be graded on its performance.

“I like it for the transparency and accountability,” Fabiano said. “But it has to be updated frequently otherwise it becomes another big PowerPoint presentation.”

Other tea party members were somewhat more critical.

“Here’s the deal,” said Wendy Day of Common Sense In Government. “I was hoping he’d approach it as a business man and do the tough things that need to happen. The Republicans have control of the House and the Senate and have a majority in the Supreme Court. He should be talking about doing bold things to save our state. Instead he talked about economic gardening and price tags on grocery products.”

Jason Gillman, a tea party activist from Traverse City, questioned Snyder buying into the hype on the Pure Michigan ads. Snyder said studies show that for every $1 spent on Pure Michigan, $2 came into the state.

“If it really works $2 for every $1, then what the hell, let’s take the whole budget and throw it at it,” Gillman said.

Gillman was also disappointed that Snyder talked about expanding the MEDC and doing other incentives such as business incubators, accelerators and seed funds.