West Central Michigan News

Sen. Rick Outman (R-Six Lakes) recently wrote a letter on the MISenateGOP website, criticizing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for choosing her own direction regarding decisions for the state and "ignoring the people's voice."

Outman opened his letter by stating he has always done his best to work with both parties, thinking often of the Abraham Lincoln quote, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

"I, like many others, was cautiously optimistic at the beginning of this term, as it was my first term within a divided government. As my new colleagues and I began our work, we were immediately ambushed by a 45-cent gas tax proposal from the governor," Outman wrote on MiSenateGOP. "Road repairs were a major discussion throughout the entire 2018 campaign, and many of us took to Lansing to find a meaningful solution. It was only then that we discovered the governor had already moved forward with a plan of her own."

Lawmakers and residents disagreed with a gas tax increase, which Outman said resulted in Whitmer borrowing money "against every taxpaying resident of the state."

Outman then spoke of a budget debacle where Whitmer had a "controversial transfer of funds," moving away from state programs "to fund other items as she saw fit."  Outman emphasized that this is how neither budgeting nor the executive branch is supposed to work.

"Despite this, I continued to do my job in hopes of finally reconciling these hostile gestures that mock our system of government to its core. Then COVID-19 hit. Like many of my colleagues, I initially had high hopes for a swift, bipartisan solution. There was much agreement between the Legislature and the executive branch early in the pandemic," Outman told MiSenateGOP.

"However, we have not seen one ounce of cooperation from our supposed equal branch of government. The governor’s office lambasted state residents with executive orders — and at one point, we had more active executive orders than most of our surrounding states combined. As more and more restrictions came down from the executive branch, the cooperation dwindled, and our ideas were ignored. Constituents calling our offices with pleas for help increased while the information we had to give them decreased," Outman continued on his party's website.

The government is not designed for unilateral control, according to Outman.

"Our constitutional rights are critically important, and for our governor, who is an attorney by trade, to balk so freely at them, is not only disheartening but shameful," he concluded his letter.