UnLincensed Planned Parenthood Remains Open In Michigan Government Regulators Silent Upon Complaints

A Planned Parenthood office in Kalamazoo remains open for business even though their license expired over 3 years ago.  How is this possible?

According to the Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) office the license for Planned Parenthood's operations ended July 31st, 2012.  

One concerned Michigan resident, Lynn Mills,  has stated that she had written LARA  with no response. She said she contacted

Jay Calewarts

calewartsj@michigan.gov

Manager Licensing and Regualatory Affairs

State Licensing Section

P.O. Box 30664 Lansing, MI 48909

However he has yet to contact her back.

Another concerned citizen Abigail Nobel said "I know someone else who was turned away by LARA when they wanted to file a complaint."

Michigan State Senator Patrick Colbeck became of aware of the possible breach and his office will start an investigation on 8/6/15. 

If this location is still open as of August 22nd a protest has been planned for this day at this Planned Parenthood location.

How to fix the roads without raising taxes

Senator Patrick Colbeck

On May 5th, voters will be asked to consider a ballot proposal that would seek to fix our roads by increasing our taxes.  Voters have been told that there are no other viable alternatives.  After much investigation, I believe that it is important that voters understand that there are indeed alternatives that merit further consideration.

Over the past four years, I served as Vice Chair of the Senate Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations.  During this period, I have spent significant time with constituents and other legislators studying the serious problem of the deteriorating condition of our roads and bridges inur state. Furthermore, I have examined how Michigan’s road investments and road quality compare to other states.  As a result of these efforts, I have assembled no less than four viable options that would allow us to fix our roads without raising taxes.

The first of these options is a blast from the past commonly

referred to as “the Bolger Plan”.  This option had already passed the State House of Representatives last year but was replaced by the current road plan in the Senate.  Among other things, this plan would ensure that 100% of the taxes raised at the gas pump would go towards fixing our roads.  This option would add $149M to our road budget in the first year.

The second of these options is to simply prioritize the spending of existing funds.  This option features freezing general fund budgets with projected increases except for K-12 education, allocating 100% of “1-Time” spending to roads, using the Budget Stabilization Fund to “stabilize the budget”, and open up several restricted funds to allow usage of their fund balances to offset road maintenance costs.  This option would add $669M to our road budget in the first year.

The third of these options is to reduce our expenses.  These expense reduction opportunities can be broken down into MDOT cost reductions, non-MDOT government cost reductions, and the removal of Federal Regulations that drive the cost of road construction.  This option would not only address the quality of our road construction as a means of reducing total lifecycle costs; it would also address the quality of our government operations.  This option would yield at least another $53M to our road budget in the first year.

The last of these options is simply an “all of the above” option.  All told, we have the opportunity to put $869M towards fixing our roads in year one and apply over $1.4B towards maintaining our roads for each subsequent year.

I have focused on first year spending because, as a public safety issue, I believe that we need to demonstrate that we are committed to fixing the roads as quickly as possible.  The options outlined above would enable us to put $869M towards fixing the roads in the first year WITHOUT raising taxes.  For comparison purposes, Ballot Proposal 15-1 would only put $434M towards the roads in year one…and that is after increasing the taxes that you pay by $1.7B.  In other words, the sum total of these options improve the safety of our roads more than twice as fast as the Ballot Proposal…and it does so without any tax increases.

As a fellow taxpayer, I believe that these options deserve more consideration than the current dismissive commentary would indicate.  I encourage you to take time to explore these four alternatives.  There may be some who are opposed to these alternatives simply because they don’t believe that there are the votes needed to pass them.  As engaged citizens, it is our duty to keep pressing and ask “why”.  Why are film credits a higher priority than roads?  Why are we putting money away into restricted funds that sustain lower priority programs at the expense of putting more resources towards road construction?  Why don’t we build roads that last longer?

It is important for us all to realize that there are indeed ways to fix our roads without taking more money out of your wallets.  More information on these options is available in the Solution Center at MorninginMichigan.com.

Patrick Colbeck

State Senator, 7th District

Is A Gas Tax Increase Really Necessary??

Michigan's road debate continues.

By Senator Patrick Colbeck

Proponents of tax increases have an extremely strong lobbying base. They have incessantly pushed a false narrative that our roads cannot be fixed without tax increases, despite our citizens already being subject to the fifth highest gas taxes in the country. After having served as vice chairman of the Senate Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations for the past four years, I happen to have a different opinion.

Let me be clear. I want to fix the roads as much as anyone. The key difference is that I know that we can do so without having to dig deeper into the pockets of families struggling to make ends meet.

Here are some simple facts for Michiganians to consider. When I started my service in the Legislature four years ago, our state budget was $46.8 billion. The last budget that we enacted for FY2014-2015 was $53.1 billion. That is an increase of $6.3 billion — $1.1 billion of that went toward education; $840 million has already gone toward our roads. That leaves $4.3 billion unaccounted for in our list of budget priorities.

What are the odds that folks would find most, if not all, of the spending items associated with this $4.3 billion less important than fixing our roads? Would we raise taxes to pay for film incentives? Would we raise taxes to pay for other corporate incentive packages? The funds for these programs could be used for roads, yet we are being sold a narrative that we need a tax increase to pay for our roads. Why not push the tax increase discussion onto these programs instead?

Compound these observations with the fact that a significant portion of our transportation budget does not go towards fixing our roads. Did you know that 10 percent of the taxes collected under the most recent Senate-passed bill to increase gas taxes would go toward rail and mass-transit programs? Diverting funds to rail and mass transit will not fix a single pothole. Funny, I don't recall trains and busses being part of the "Just fix the roads" propaganda blitz. Do you?

Against this backdrop, I maintain that we do not get the bang for the road funding buck that we deserve in Michigan. In earlier op-eds, I cited findings from the 20th Annual Highway Report compiled by the Reason Foundation. It stated that Michigan spends 53 percent more per mile than the national average on our roads. Their latest study shows that Michigan still spends 27 percent more per mile than the national average and 7 percent more per lane-mile than the national average. Despite this, our road conditions have consistently ranked 40th or worse.

When I cite such figures, I am assaulted by proponents of increased taxes, who point out the influence of our winter climate on our poor road conditions.

Minnesota, not exactly a winter getaway for warm weather enthusiasts, spends 18 percent less per mile than the national average, yet has higher rural road quality.

Truck weights are also cited as a major contributor to the poor quality of our roads. I'm all for lowering truck weights. In fact, the Senate has considered legislation to do just that, but as an engineer I am bothered by the lack of fundamental engineering data on this topic. Despite years of inquiries, I have yet to find a specification that connects the dots between how long our roads should last under a given load profile and the road designs that we build. It is very difficult to analyze the impact of truck weights and longer life road designs without this data.

The good news is, we agree that we need to fix our roads. The bad news is that there are still too many folks who choose to make their point by misrepresenting the views of folks like me who do not believe that we need to raise taxes. Proponents of tax increases have poured significant time and money into making us believe that tax increases are the only "rational" solution to our road woes. Meanwhile, Michiganians pour out the fruits of their labor towards satisfying government's insatiable appetite for more of their hard-earned money.

Tax increases should always be the last option considered. All too often, though, they are the first. It is time we changed our priorities.

State Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, represents the 7th District.