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The 95th District State House
Forum:
Andy Coulouris vs. Joel Wilson
By Robert E. Martin One of the races covered heavily in prior issues of The Review is the State House of Representatives contest for the 95th District between Democrat Andy Coulouris and Republican Joel Wilson.
Insofar as Coulouris and Wilson have yet
to debate face-to-face in these pages, we submitted a few questions in
hopes that voters may better discern the differences and similarities
between the two candidates.
Review: Would you please summarize your top three priorities and briefly articulate how you feel your approach differs from that of your opponent. Coulouris: Our community-much like our state-is in a fight for its life. Everyone knows that bringing jobs to Saginaw is what our goal should be, but it's not enough to simply say "we need to bring jobs to Saginaw." The question is how we achieve the economic revitalization we are all hoping for.
For starters, we have a serious crime
problem in our region that is stifling economic development in our core
communities & destabilizing our housing market. I think Lansing has
largely turned its back on financially strapped cities like Saginaw.
For years Lansing has balanced the State's budget on the back of cities
by continuing to slash state revenue sharing dollars, which are meant to
bolster municipal police and fire departments. Saginaw has taken these
hits especially hard-and the result has been dozens fewer police
officers patrolling our streets.
It is true that we also need to address
crime as a symptom of economic distress and lack of opportunities-be
they recreation, job, or education-related. So we need to approach
public policy in a way that is sensitive to this reality. Certainly we
also need to find a way to help cities tear down abandoned houses and
fight blight in our neighborhoods.
Unlike my opponent, I have the
experience-both at City Hall and as an assistant prosecutor-that is
necessary to be an effective public safety advocate in Lansing.
In the very near future health care is going to be front and center in Lansing. Michigan manufacturers simply cannot compete in a global marketplace where the competition does not have to pay for employee health care because of nationalized health care. I look to what other states around the country have begun to do-in a bipartisan, pragmatic fashion-to guarantee health care to their citizens while keeping costs low for employers and taxpayers. I believe we can no longer afford to ignore the economic impact of our slow response the health care crisis. Michigan should work toward a smart, progressive, and cost-effective retooling of our health care system. I am anxious to get to work making our health care system work better for citizens.
Lastly, Michigan needs to invest in
cities. The economic phenomenon of the 21st century is that cities
that offer a high quality of life attract the young talent that
companies seek; and because of this, companies decide to invest in
cities that offer a high quality of life. "Jobs go where the people
are," is the new saying.
Saginaw has suffered through decades of
deindustrialization and job loss, and our quality of life has in turn
been greatly diminished. How can we expect to attract the next Google
if our younger generations are fleeing the region and the state in
record numbers? When they leave they are taking with them the years of
education and talent that job creators crave. We need a legislature
that recognizes that Michigan's economic future is only as bright as our
cities'. We need a land use policy in Michigan that encourages infill
development and a tax incentive policy that does the same. We need to
make Michigan's cities safe, livable, and desirable if we want to be
able to shift in to the new economy.
Wilson: My top three priorities all run together. They are to bring in Jobs, to reduce Crime and Youth violence, and to support families.
Children get out of school at 2:30 or
3:00 and parents get out of work at 5 or 5:30. The question is who is
looking after our state's children in these critical hours? The answer
is sadly the streets. This is the beginning of the problem that leads to
violence, crime, and a welfare state.
64% of black children are born to single
mothers, and 50% of marriages end in divorce. If we don't address these
problems we are doomed to failure. I want to involve faith and community
programs in helping families stay together, and giving children
something productive to do after school. My opponent has given no plan
to deal with this problem, and has never mentioned it.
We must also realize that crime is based
on economic circumstance. As a prosecutor my opponent sees crime at the
terminal end, when it's already too late. He is therefore focused on
fighting crime with more cops, tougher sentences, and more prisons. I
want to focus on crime prevention, on stopping crime at the source. To
do that, we need to get people off of welfare and back to work.
My opponent has said he wants to keep
welfare just as it is if not increase it. This typical white liberal
thinking is what's gotten the black community in the mess it's in right
now. If we upgrade our infrastructure, retrain our workforce and
restructure our tax code the jobs will come back, and we'll have less of
a need for welfare.
My opponent's answer is more taxes and
more entitlements on a population that can't afford the taxes it has
now. He has also not supported restructuring welfare to allow common
sense things like learning a trade. The choice is clear: a new approach,
or more of the same?
Review: Please summarize your background & qualifications for this office and explain how they contrast with that of your opponent. Wilson: I have a BFA in Directing from Boston University and have worked the past two years as an educator and director in Germany.
There has been much made over this issue.
Many have said I am not qualified for this office because I never
studied politics or law in college. I stress again, that I am NOT
a professional politician, and anyone who is, is a little shady in my
book. Anyone who has declared their life's ambition is to be a
politician is simply untrustworthy. Our founding fathers would agree.
The egalitarian principle of our republic
is not that we elect Kings. It is that we elect people from among us who
are like us. Not to lord over us, but rater to represent us. This is
even truer of representatives.
Mr. Coulouris is a professional
politician. He has stated so. His ambition is to get this office, and
move on to the next. My ambition is to represent the people of Saginaw,
and to make a change.
Coulouris: The difference between my opponent and me when it comes to experience is clear. I served as a Saginaw City Councilman for more than three years and have served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Saginaw County since 2003. My practical experience in local government makes me ready for Lansing in a way that my opponent is not.
I was born and raised in Saginaw and came
home to this community after college and law school at the University of
Michigan. My wife and I bought a home in my hometown and, between the
two of us, have become involved in many aspects of the cultural and
civic life of our community. We have a daughter, Alexandra, who will be
three months old on Election Day.
Review: With elimination of many ancillary taxes during the Engler years affecting the excise profits of corporations & businesses, State government in recent years has attempted to make up the difference by leveling substantial increases in license and user fees, which also affect the growth of small business. For example, the renewal fee for a Limited Liability Partnership has increased 400%, from $25.00 to $100.00. Would you favor a moratorium on these types of legislative tax increases; and if so, what do you feel is a fair taxation model
for businesses?
Coulouris: Taxation by fees is not a preferable way to finance government, or drain our bank accounts. As in the case of Proposal 5, I am not in favor of arbitrary guarantees or moratoria with regard to how we raise and spend revenue in this state. As the grandson of a former tavern owner, I know how suffocating state fees can be. The best way to raise the revenues we need in this state is through a smarter, fairer business tax (and I mean tax in the traditional sense) model.
The SBT became so reviled because it was
often difficult for businesses to predict how much in taxes they would
owe, and the sorts of activities the SBT targeted were not the sorts of
things we should be looking to tax-like providing health care and hiring
new workers.
I want to replace the SBT with a
businesses tax-but I want the roughly $2 billion gap left by the repeal
of the SBT replaced in its entirety. If we continue to slash revenues
in this state we will find ourselves in a position where the only
expedient way to raise revenues is through the kinds of fee increases
the question references. Let's be smart about replacing the SBT, and
have the boldness to replace the Single Business Tax with a business
tax-and not shift the burden on to working people.
Wilson: I do support a moratorium on fee increases. We need to support our small businesses, because they are the future of our job market. I want to sit down with this state's best economic minds, representatives from the business community, all the major labor unions, democrats and republicans, and hammer out a business taxation model that makes sense for us all. What that plan will look like, I'm not sure right now, but I'm certain that as a state we can figure this out. Taxation and economic issues are not political issues; they are really just math problems that we need to solve without the specter of partisan politics hanging over the table.
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