It’s time for Gov. Whitmer to stop prioritizing cable news appearances and raising her national political profile and start focusing on the lives and livelihoods that are being destroyed in her state.
May 15, 2020
Devastating Issues Growing by the Day for Michiganders While Gov. Whitmer Continues to Focus on National Political Ambitions
Disturbing headlines flood the news in Michigan as residents struggle to understand why Gov. Whitmer refuses to outline metrics that will lead to the state’s reopening and how nonsensical exceptions still exist in her executive orders.
A sad headline from the Detroit News this morning read: “Michigan’s stressed food banks running dangerously low as demand skyrockets.” The need for food comes as the state’s unemployment rate increases to depression-era levels and ranks second highest in the nation. One-third of Michigan’s workforce have filed unemployment claims since the state’s shutdown and at least 134,000 still wait for payments, some who are in dire straights as reported by WWMT.
State economists met today to revise revenue projections and as Gongwer Michigan’s Executive Editor noted on Twitter, “A mindboggling, record-shattering” decrease of $6.3 billion from their January estimate was forecasted.
The struggles that everyday Michiganders and small business owners are having as they try to survive during this pandemic are not lost on some Democrat officials in the state. Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel has called on Gov. Whitmer to clearly define what metrics the state is looking for to determine what can open safely and when. On Fox 2 Detroit’s Let It Rip last night, Hackel again asked for clarification and said: “Can you help me better define when a business can open… so if it’s just when she decides when she thinks its time, then I guess OK then tell me that so I can tell these businesses because that doesn’t provide the direction these people are looking for right now.”
Democrat Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin echoed Hackel’s sentiments during an interview with Fox News saying in regards to reopening that: “We got to know the milestones to get there.” Slotkin later told WXYZ: “the lack of exceptions, in some ways, can end up feeling just as cruel as the coronavirus.”
One of the exceptions making news in Slotkin’s district and across the state is the inability to access dental care. A dentist from Slotkin’s district (MI-08) told WILX: “There’s this common misconception that routine dental care is elective and that simply isn’t true. This week alone I’ve already gotten three calls, and I was not able to address all of them, because they are not deemed an emergency, even though in fact, they are emergent.”
The East Lansing dentist is not alone, hundreds of dentists from around the state are calling on Whitmer to let them work saying, “It’s time to worry” about the consequences of putting off dental health care any longer.
Unfortunately, their not the only ones worrying. Michiganders with loved ones in nursing homes are troubled by the state’s policy. One family member telling Michigan Radio: “Why would they be bringing COVID into the building when there have been no patients with COVID?” The Detroit News Editorial Board writes that fixing the nursing home issue must be a top priority for Whitmer’s administration who said earlier this week that they didn’t have accurate data in regards to COVID-19 related deaths among the most vulnerable in nursing facilities.
The devastating issues facing our state are growing by the day and impacting all of the nearly ten million people who call Michigan home. It’s time for Gov. Whitmer to stop prioritizing cable news appearances and raising her national political profile and start focusing on the lives and livelihoods that are being destroyed in her state. – Tori Sachs, executive director of Michigan Rising Action
Other states have clearly defined their reopening plan’s goals and metrics. New York has seven metrics that are monitored regionally and includes data points for declines in deaths, hospitalizations, testing capacity, and hospital capacity. Whitmer has rejected opening Michigan regionally despite calls from Congressman Jack Bergman to open places like Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula where there were only three COVID-19 hospitalizations as of May 11.