Ann Bollin brags about fighting waste, fraud, and abuse.
Like when she cut a program that paid for wigs for kids with cancer.
Or when she cut $18.5 million from a program to help expecting parents pay the cost of caring for a new baby.
It wasn’t enough just to cut the program’s funding, Bollin had to lie about how it was being abused by women who took the money and got abortions.
“No income requirements, no guardrails, don’t even know how long they’ve lived in Michigan, you just say, ‘Hey, I’m signing up for this, I’m so and so and I’m pregnant’,” she continued. “Then they can abort that baby, so they could collect months of this and then abort their baby, and they’ve got that money, or they get it for the first couple of months.” (Click here for more.)
There is no evidence that that happens. In fact, Michigan State University reports the families use the money for essentials like baby supplies, food, rent, and utilities.
But if Bollin really wants to cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse, she should look in the mirror.
Turns out, she collected mileage money from state government for driving from her home in Brighton Township to Lansing during December, at a time when she and other Republicans were boycotting the House session.
The Democratically run chamber wanted to pass bills like a ban on “ghost guns,” more transparency for character schools, more accountability for polluters, expanding Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, and more.
Republicans opposed those, so they didn’t come to session.
But the Detroit Free Press says most of them still billed taxpayers for mileage from home as if they were actually showing up for work. Bollin billed the taxpayers for the same amount of mileage in December — when she didn’t attend House sessions — as in November, when she did.
We don’t know how much money that is, because Michigan FOIA laws are weak when it comes to lawmakers.
But it looks like waste, fraud, and abuse to me.
