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Raise the curtain.

Portrait of a Tax Hiker: Gary McDowell (D-Rudyard)

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 11:08:50 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)

"Basically, this entire package was delivered by Democrats." - Andy Dillon, Detroit News, October 2, 2007.
This is the twelfth in a series of looks at specific members of Dillon's tax hike caucus. The Democrats hold a 58-52 lead in the House. A shift of just four seats returns control to the Republicans, a caucus, for what it's worth, that held the line in impressive fashion against the Democrats' tax and spend gambit. According to Andy Dillon anyways.
Four seats is more than doable. A move to a common sense approach that protects jobs and Michigan families is doable. Just a matter of getting rid of a few bad apples. Today we stay up north to visit Michigan's 107th and an incumbent expert in saying one thing then doing another.

STATE REPRESENTATIVE: GARY MCDOWELL (D-RUDYARD)

Why is it that when the rubber meets the road with Michigan Democrats they're consistently found wanting? It's one thing to run as a tax-and-spend liberal and then to turn out to in fact be a tax and spend liberal. George Cushingberry and the rest of the Detroit Caucus do that every election year.

When Cush gets asked a question about potential budget shortfalls he'll tell you straight up, he wants to raise taxes. No ifs ands or buts about it. And I disagree with the man's policy objectives but I give him credit for being the same man on the streets of Detroit as he is in the halls of the Michigan House.

Unfortunately Gary McDowell is a much different man at the Capitol in Lansing than he purports to be when he's making campaign stops in Rudyard and the rest of the Republican leaning 107th. Note his pledge to the Traverse City Record Eagle during his first campaign for State Rep:

McDowell, a hay farmer and retired UPS employee who has served as a Chippewa County commissioner for 22 years, said he was motivated to run for state office by the "need for change" he perceives in how state business is conducted.
"Somebody has to stand up for the working families, and not the special interests," he said. "My goal is to bring civility, integrity and honesty back to government.

I'd love to go back in time to ask, if you fail in that goal, Gary, will you volunteer to go home? And stay there? Please?

Let's take a look at how McDowell matches up to his own standards, shall we?

Standing up for working families: A little confused here. I'm not sure if he was standing up for working families more when he voted YES on a $613+ million service tax hike that will kill jobs and drive up prices on cash strapped residents or when he voted YES on a nearly $800 million income tax hike swiping the cash directly from the pockets of, specifically, working families.

Then again, the whole "family" concept typically includes children so the best example of McDowell's form of "standing up" may have come when he voted against MESSA reform that would have taken $400 million and pumped it right back into the classroom.

Not exactly a compelling record when it comes to defending working families. One could probably go so far as to say it's a hostile record. If that's how he sticks up for us I'd just as soon he left us to fend for ourselves.

Not (standing up for) the special interests: Another tough one. I mean, McDowell really stood up to the special interests with that MESSA vote that lined the pockets of Democrat special interests with nearly a half-billion a year that could have otherwise been spent on actual honest-to-goodness classroom delivery. But then again, he was a real champion of the people when he stood up to the special interests by co-sponsoring a package of bills granting the trial lawyers, one of the biggest special interests in the history of special interests, the ability to sue the pants off Michigan job makers because they dared make products designed to save people's lives, driving jobs and investment directly out of the state.

Of course, there's much more than that going on when it comes to Gary McDowell. After all, the man did find the time and the energy to sponsor or co-sponsor no less than 100 resolutions this year alone directing the state to act on this, recognize that or telling Congress what to do.

Bring civility, integrity and honesty back to government: Integrity and honesty often go hand in hand. Unfortunately they often go flying out the window at the same time when someone like Gary McDowell has a chance to grow government.

McDowell's own website addressed the issue of job creation by highlighting the need to eliminate the SBT. Only by digging a little deeper can you find that the Representative wanted a full replacement of the tax, leaving the reader with the strong impression that he supports tax cuts.

Of course he went further than that. In an email last year to the 1st District Democrats McDowell explicitly stated that Republican claims he supported tax hikes were false. He didn't support tax hikes, he told them, in fact, he supported tax cuts.

Unfortunately, what looked like a principled stand before an election turned into tax-and-spend big government liberalism and back stabbing afterwards.

So much for honesty and integrity. They were tossed aside as quickly as the pledges to stand up for working families and against the special interests.

Rubber, meet road. Road, meet Gary McDowell. Please.

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