title:  GOP Governor’s Sr. Aide Admits Running Government Like A Business Is A Disaster
text: In light of the Flint water crisis, Michigan Republicans are publicly and privately acknowledging that their party s approach to governing has been a total disaster.As Michigan s Eclectablog reports here,  despite the shiny, happy face that Gov. Snyder is putting on and despite his continuing calls for more privatization and the success of Emergency Management,  off the record, state Republicans have been quietly admitting that the GOP s plan to run government like a business  has been an utter failure. John Lindstrom, of Michigan s Gongwer News Service, detailed a string of off-the-record interviews with the state s Republican leadership here.As reported by Gongwer, All of them recognized Flint as a failure, a spectacular failure, of state government. They also worried that it was particularly a failure of their party, as they almost universally said:  Our guys. No matter the setting, or the day, or the circumstance of the conversations, or who was speaking (and not everyone speaking would have known each other), there was an almost stunning repetition to each conversation s tone: They brought up the Flint situation, and they said, unprompted, it was a failure of state government and their party. Even more telling, on February 22, Dennis Schornack, a former Sr. Policy advisor to Michigan s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, was interviewed by the Detroit Free Press.During the interview, Schornack said the Flint water crisis is the direct result of the Republican approach to governing, which promises to run government like a business.Schornack, who has plenty of insight into how the Snyder administration functions, told the Free Press, that Snyder used a  single dimension for decision-making.  He explained that Snyder uses a financial spreadsheet to make every single decision.To illustrate the point, Shornak confided that, in spite of all the talk about  Christian values,  as it turns out, Snyder s decision to oppose gay marriage was never based on his Christian beliefs, it was based on a financial spreadsheet.As the Free Press reports here, Schornack said another example of a Snyder failure related to running government like a business was his administration s handling of gay marriage, which it opposed until it was legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court. Gay marriage must be decided in the heart; safe drinking water in the laboratory,  Schornack said.But the Snyder administration used spreadsheets to address both issues, deciding gay marriage on the basis of how much it would cost the state to provide benefits to same-sex couples among state employees, he said. Schornack did not hold back when discussing how the Republican approach to governing created the Flint water crisis. Government is not a business  and it cannot be run like one,  he told the Free Press.He went on to say, The people of Flint got stuck on the losing end of decisions driven by spreadsheets instead of water quality and public health.  Having been a Snyder staffer, luckily in a spreadsheet-rich area like transportation, I lived the culture amidst its faults. Earlier this week a petition to recall Rick Snyder was approved by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers.When asked if he believes Snyder will be removed from office in November, Schornack said  The issue has totally spun out of the governor s control,  and if a recall question makes it onto the ballot,  he s dead. In light of the situation in the city of Flint, the use of the phrase  he s dead,  is entirely inappropriate.Snyder is very much alive and will continue to be alive, whether he is recalled in November or not. His political career might be dead, but he will have the luxury of living the same extravagant, greedy lifestyle he s been accustomed to, for many years to come.On the other hand, at least ten people are known to have actually died because of Snyder s poison-policy choices, which valued the almighty dollar over all things, including their health and their lives.Add to that the thousands of people who will live with the consequences of Snyder s irresponsible, immoral and illegal decisions for the rest of their lives, many of whom will die from complications associated with lead poisoning.What s worse, as the citizens of Flint struggle to cope with a crisis of monumental proportion, Republican leadership continues to put the almighty dollar before their lives and their health.On February 25, residents of Flint spoke out about the many issues that have yet to be addressed by state or federal leaders, during a town hall with Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders.Months after the situation became public knowledge, Flint citizens still struggle to get accurate information, they continue to lack resources for healthcare and many are still faced with the challenges of collecting water from one of the designated locations in the city, without the means to do so.While state Republicans whine about the financial costs of doing the right thing in Lansing, in Washington GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is single-handedly blocking federal funding from reaching the people of Flint.And at the front of the pack for the Republican presidential nomination is Donald Trump, a corrupt businessman, who is way more similar to Rick Snyder than GOP leaders would like to admit. Trump wants to bring the GOP s disastrous agenda for running government like a business to the entire country.If Trump s policies of hate and violence aren t enough to give you the chills, his agenda to run government like a business had better.If we don t learn from what happened in Flint, Republican leaders will bring this same dangerous agenda to every city, town and state in the country, with similarly disastrous consequences.image credit: GOP elephant from wikimedia commons, I love spreadsheets mug via Flickr