I welcomed the news that a man by the name of Jason Gillman is running for the Grand Traverse County Commission. Jason, it appears, is a Republican and “a Tea Party activist.” Recently, he turned his attention to what is known as the state’s “Bridge Card” program which provides food assistance to the poor.
Jason doesn’t like the program. “The shame is the overall mismanagement of the environment that Michigan’s in,” he said. “A little too much government involvement has caused what we’re in.” More specifically, Jason says that “I don’t think folks should be buying soda.”
For the moment, forget that 6,117 residents of Grand Traverse County, Jason’s constituency, depend on the program. Forget that over the past year those enrolled in our five-county area increased by 33%, and that the number enrolled in Leelanau County alone, where I live, increased by 47%. Forget that unemployment rates soared this year in the region (the rate in Grand Traverse County jumped from 11.6% in 2009 to 12.4% this year, and reached 14.9% in Benzie County this summer). Forget that nationally the ranks of the long-term unemployed exploded by over 400% - from 1.3 million in December 2007, when the recession began, to 6.8 million last June. Forget that in 2008-09 median household incomes plummeted in Michigan a whopping 6.9%, which was more than twice the national average of minus 2.9% and greater than any other state. Forget that the co-chairman of Food Rescue of Northwest Michigan said recently that "there doesn't seem to be a limit to the need." Forget that a Kingsley woman told the Record-Eagle that, without the Bridge Card program, “We wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t be able to feed my kids.” Just forget all that.
Jason’s political and economic ideology provides that the poor should be reduced to and assisted only at a subsistence level, if at all. They shouldn’t have old televisions, worn-out electrical appliances, beat-up cars, decent clothing, or adequate health care. Or, for that matter, enough to eat.
But Jason’s over-the-top really brilliant idea was captured in the following report in Sunday’s Record-Eagle: “Gillman would rather see more people go to work and fewer rely on state assistance.”
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that by now someone else would have thought of that! I mean, really. Like most Tea Partiers, hey, this guy Jason is a frigging genius!
So don’t waste a moment, Grand Traverse County! Get him on board the County Commission! Vote for Jason Gillman!
