My Vision for Michigan: "Michigan must cooperatively marshal its resources to help and assist its citizens to succeed."

7 Focus Vision Points

• Job Producing Policies that Revitalize Michigan’s Economy
• Economically Sound Tax and Budget Making Practices
• Highly Effective Schools that Prepare All Students for the Real World
• Preservation and Protection of our Beautiful Peninsulas
• Restoring and Improving the State's Roads, Transportation Systems and Infrastructure
• High Performance Government Working Together to make Quality Decisions
• Individuals taking Personal Responsibility for their Lives and Future

My Goals for Michigan

Economy

• Provide an economic environment in Michigan that allows business to succeed.
• Develop a business tax structure that supports job formation in small and mid-size businesses and allows businesses a realistic opportunity to create a profit.
• Encourage the development of intellectual and practical cooperation between state universities and business leaders that result in new and improved business ventures.
• Encourage economic development programs that support improving current business ventures and creating new business ventures.
• Provide for a stable financial, natural and human resource base that supports economic development.
• Establish a predictable environment in the state so that business has the best chance to plan for the long term.
• Make sure that government is a partner with business not an obstacle to business.
• Provide help and assistance to citizens experiencing economic distress that results in citizens using those resources to recover and return to productivity.
• Ensure that ample energy resources are provided at a competitive cost.

Education

• Provide schools with consistent and well thought out expectations of performance.
• Provide schools with the resources they need to meet those expectations.
• Expect appropriate performance accountability that results in real student achievement.
• Provide help and assistance to families so that students come to school prepared to learn and to sustain that learning process from birth to graduation.
• Refine the definition of rigor so that all students and teachers understand what competence and proficiency in performance really means.
• Include a focus on relevance and relationship along with rigor so that all can achieve.
• Refine Michigan Merit Curriculum so that the curriculum is deep enough to meet all students’ needs through academic and application educational experiences.
• Allocate resources of time and finances to provide professional development experiences that allow schools to learn and grow as much as the students do.
• Focus on appropriate programs that encourage all students to complete their K-16 educational programs.
• Make post high school educational experiences available and affordable for students of all ability levels’
• Strongly support the purpose of public education and the role that the state plays in providing quality education for all.

Budget Formation/Taxes

• Base budget decisions on citizens’ needs and our collective vision for the future. Make sure we know where we are headed before we select the route to get there.
• Make sure that all current resources, both human and financial, are being used effectively and efficiently to meet their intended purpose.
• Develop budgets for the long term.
• Employ the concept of creative destruction when looking to reform how we do things. Creating new allows us to remove old as we work to meet our obligations to our citizens.
• Work together with cooperation as we seek to find common ground.
• Prioritize our actions. We do not have the resources to do it all.
• Get the job done before time. Our decisions affect the decisions that others need to make. Timing is important.
• Tax only for want we need, not for what we want.
• Make sure that Taxation is not a deterrent to success, but a foundation for success.
• Never ask for more unless we can justify the need, see that the citizens recognize the need, and we are willing to allocate new resources directly to that need.
• Always remember to treat the citizen’s money as if it was coming out of our personal wallet.

Health/Safety

• Help and assist citizens in engaging in health habits and actions that are designed to result in good health and prevent future health related difficulties.
• Provide assistance to citizens experiencing catastrophic events both personal and collective in nature.
• Support the opportunity for all citizens to receive appropriate health care.
• Invest in health and safety programs that emphasize prevention and early intervention.
• Provide police and emergency services that are capable of meeting the safety needs of all citizens in our state in a cooperative fashion.
• Provide a justice system that identifies appropriate behavior standards for all citizens, encourages compliance with those standards and establishes fair and equable consequences for those that choose not to comply.
• Review and develop judicial consequences that are restorative in nature, remove citizens from society who pose a physical threat to others, give offending citizens a real opportunity to productively return to society and reduce the expenditure of state resources in the area of corrections.
• Supports citizens taking personal responsibility for their human sexuality decisions by providing quality sex education experiences in schools and community, providing support for abstinence and responsible preconception birth control habits, and supporting laws that do not allow abortion unless conception is a result of an illegal act or if a doctor believes that the life of the mother is at risk.
• Support the dignity and self-worth of every citizen with respect to their race, creed, origin, culture, gender, age and sexual orientation.

Environment & Natural Resources

• Work in conjunction with others to preserve and protect our Great Lakes and our fresh water supply including support for the Great Lakes Compact.
• Provide the resources required so that the DEQ and DNR can preserve and protect our natural environment.
• Establish policies that allow for a balanced use of our natural resources that will benefit both the environment and the economy.
• Restore and appropriately develop the infrastructure of our state.
• Manage and improve our vitally important and excellent state park system.
• Support actions that promote hunting, fishing and other outdoor pursuits in our state.
• Support and promote the tourism industry.
• Encourage urban renewal and core city development projects along with the responsible development of new areas.
• Support the development of regional mass transit systems in the Southeast region of Michigan and other appropriate locations.
• Develop and implement a long term program to improve and sustain the quality of our highway and road system.
• Become a state that relies on a substantial emphasize on “green” energy and conservations related actions.