“I was incredibly disappointed this evening to see Gov. Rick Snyder take complex statistics out of context and use them to defend his claim that our state is on the rebound. Referencing things like declining unemployment numbers is all well and good, until you recognize that we still don’t have training for those who lose their job when companies ship work overseas, and we still do not have a support system in place for when their unemployment benefits run out. The deck is still stacked against so many people in our state, and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise.
“A perfect example of this is DPS. Gov. Snyder was all too eager to tout the bill package passed last year that supposedly solved the district’s financial concerns, yet he completely ignored the fact that nothing was done to address the root causes of those problems. Local control still has not be restored to the degree exercised by other districts around the state, and once again, we find our students attending school in buildings without heat.
“Another example is Gov. Snyder’s failure to offer any tangible plans for repairing the infrastructure in Flint, despite claiming that the state has done all it can to help. He says he supports responsible use of tax dollars, or our state’s rainy day fund, yet not only are his legal fees regarding the crisis still being paid for on the state dime, but he actually tried to fight a court order mandating the state continue sending bottled water to the city. There is nothing responsible about that.
“We cannot continue to sugar-coat the problems our state is facing, because the longer we try to do that, the bigger those problems will become. These solutions won’t be easy and they can’t be partisan — this is bigger than Democrats or Republicans. This is about creating a Michigan that truly does work for everyone, and we’ve still got a long way to go.”