Governor-elect Rick Snyder's lecture to business students outlines plans to turn around Michigan
Governor-elect Rick Snyder presented the George R. Husband Distinguished Lecture to business students and others from the campus community on Thursday, December 9.
This article is reprinted with permission from The South End.
Snyder: time for outcomes and results
Governor-elect outlines new plans to turn around Michigan
By KARL HENKEL | The South End
When Governor-elect Rick Snyder saw a pair of projections on a document at a recent National Governors Association meeting outlining future futility for Michigan, he vehemently disagreed with them.
The document indicated Michigan’s job growth, already dwelling in the basement among all states, will plummet further, to 47th in the next two years and 50th in the next five.
“This is a piece of fiction,” said Snyder, the first certified public accountant elected to Michigan’s top post. “This is not what’s going to happen.
“We are going to beat the living daylights out of those numbers.”
His refusal to follow the current political way of thinking was one of the main themes of his Dec. 9 speech to WSU business and accounting students at the Community Arts Auditorium.
Snyder, the million-dollar businessman who defeated Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero in November to win the governorship, outlined his plan to turn around Michigan and its struggling economy.
“It’s time to focus on outcomes and results,” Snyder said. “I’ve already set one of the guidelines. For people that come visit me in Lansing, if you walk in my office, and the first words out of your mouth are ‘We need funding for this,’ I’m going to throw them out.
“Too often that’s the current culture in Lansing,” he said. “It’s all about funding this or funding that. We need to change the dialogue to outcomes and results — to things that are measurable, that are meaningful, and that make a difference in real people’s lives.”
Snyder, who joked throughout his 40-minute speech about the bad rap accounting students get among their peers, also talked extensively about how he’ll use his business background to improve the state’s poor employment and per capita income numbers.
One example Snyder outlined was his decision to finalize Michigan’s budget in two-year increments, unlike the current one year system, and to break down financial statements in easier-to-digest ways.
“I can say this because I’m a CPA — there should be a warning label that says ‘not made for human consumption,’” Snyder said. “One of the most critical things I want to do is get a plain language set of financial statements. That will be an eye-opening experience.”
Snyder said he doesn’t want that strategy to apply only to Lansing, but to all jurisdictions and school districts throughout the state.
Snyder also discussed the need to change the political culture in Michigan.
“We’ve got a state with a broken economy and a broken government. And there’s a better answer,” he said. “We’ve been beaten up for so long we’ve gotten negative on ourselves. It’s time to stop fighting. It’s time to simply say to Michiganders, ‘We can win together and be positive.’”
Snyder mentioned a variety of different statistics that need to change, including the unemployment rate and that 20 percent of Michiganders are receiving some form of public assistance.
“The goal, here, is to change those numbers,” he said. “Because they’re not just numbers, they’re real people.”
He also answered the question as to whether a CPA — there have only been three governors in U.S. history with one — can help him fix Michigan.
“It’s the language of business,” he said. “If you want to be successful in business, this is the way to communicate.”
