Seeds of Faith Homeschool Journalism Interview With Todd Courser By Jen Varberg
Todd Courser Interview – March 31, 2010
I’m here with Todd Courser who is running for State Senate, District 25 (covers all of Lapeer and St. Clair counties) in November. I had the honor of meeting Todd, and then his extended family, when I had a small part in campaigning for his run for State Representative back in 2008. I really enjoyed being a part of that process, as I had never done anything like it before.
Back in early 2008, a friend of mine, Kelly Shepherd, called me up one day and said, “Hey Jen! You gotta meet someone.” Kelly and I had several one-on-one type meetings with Todd, primarily to talk about homeschooling as he moved forward in his race for State Representative. During these meetings, Kelly and I also freely gave our opinions on a myriad of things such as: NAIS (National Animal Identification System), the 2nd amendment, abortion and a host of other topics.
Now here we are, 2 years later, and he is embarking on a new journey with the State Senate race.
This interview, by the way, took 1 ½ hours! I did some editing, to keep in the most important issues, and fit it in this paper!
Jen Varberg: Hi Todd! Thanks for meeting with me. Can you give a little background on yourself?
Todd Courser: I went to Lapeer East, went to Mott Community College. I went to U of M, Flint. I went to Thomas M. Cooley Law School where I started my business, my tax and accounting practice. That was before I went to law school. Then after I did that, went to law school & studied tax, estate planning and bankruptcy.
JV: Do you specialize in bankruptcy?
TC: Bankruptcy, tax and then estate planning and elder law they call it. So, those are all really kinda related. I do some probate work as well, but that kinda gives you an idea what we do as a practice.
Georgeann Courser (Todd’s mom): He does quite a lot of financial counseling.
TC: So, basically then, just seeing all the sort of the distress starting to happen and there’s a failure, I think, in the, in obviously the leadership. Failure in leadership in both parties, and so we have this, my realization that there wasn’t two parties in a lot of ways, it was one monster with two heads. Some people have chosen then to leave the Republican Party. Mine has been to drive back through the Republican Party – just sort of exposing the RINO (Republican In Name Only) tendencies of a lot of the party and really to focus on the fact that we need to have a live a well conservative movement inside the Republican Party, because we have a two-party system. And just kind of leaving the other stuff for folks that lead the Republican Party – let them fight that battle as well. Which I think is a good battle. The constitution movement and movement of the tea party wanting to remain sort of non- partisan – not even bi-partisan, but non-partisan. I think those are really great parts of the conservative movement being alive and refreshed and renewed.
JV: It just seems that everybody is going so far to the left that the Republicans are now in the middle and the Democrats are socialists or something.
GC: He’s been a Republican in his heart since he was pretty young. He feels really passionate about drawing the Republicans back to where they’re supposed to be.
TC: It’s really calling the party back to the conservative ideals. Then I’m running against two guys who are establishment Republicans, Pavlov and Hager. They both have establishment backing.
JV: Do you know who the Democrats are (that you’re running against)?
TC: Blauette (sp?) and I can’t remember the other one’s name.
So then the … Republicans providing the votes that passed the taxes, that did the increases that really were the backbreaking weights that were put on our economy in saying that we provided the votes to do that, which was the passing of the, increase in the income tax, then the service tax fiasco. And then the MBT tax which was the worst business tax in the nation.
JV: Oh, I know.
TC: That was really passed by Republicans tripping over themselves in the senate … and that’s where it really solidified in my mind that in a lot of ways the Republicans are bought and paid for by the same special interests as the Democrats and so you really can’t expect them to be voices for the people because at the most critical moment they’re going … like Stupak. Stupak does the same for 30 years, he gets to say he’s pro-life and get all the political capital that comes with that, but people say, “Oh, well, he’s a pro-life Democrat”. Then you turn back around … I guess what he meant is that he’s pro-life until it mattered. Once it mattered, then he wasn’t pro-life any more. So, I think that the – obviously I’ve been exposing the, you know, the special interests and the MEA is one of them.
JV: I know, I heard you on one of the videos (on YouTube). And that’s the thing. That’s when you become a politician – in the negative sense. I always pray that it won’t corrupt you like it does everybody else.
When we last spoke, you were just ending your run for State Rep. and you stated that you didn’t think you would have the energy to run for office again. What changed your mind?
TC: It was kinda crazy. There were a couple of people that said that I should consider running for the State Senate seat. Right now there are the three of us, and so that does make it a very competitive race between the three of us, but we’ll just have to wait and see how that all breaks out, but time will tell.
JV: So, someone just suggested it and that’s why you changed your mind?
TC: No. I really felt the Lord was leading me in that direction. I am hoping that’s not the case after, you know – that basically I can do this, this race, come out successful, go on to the general and be done. I don’t really, honestly, you know, the further you go, the less you really want to be involved in politics. There’s a desire to want to change the system, to change the direction of the country. It is a burden. It’s just a big burden in my heart and I can’t put my, you know, I can’t lay that down and just go about my life and say, “Okay. That’s for somebody else to take up”. A lot of people watch Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and they watch it and then they get all upset and then they go to bed. Well they get up, and go about their routine for the rest of their life with no intention of getting any more involved than that.
I don’t know if that answers it. The Lord is really just leading me back to running again and It’s really to just bring forward and bring out the message that the direction we’re going with electing people who are now, that have been established Republicans, cuz the other two guys have been in the party and they’ve been pack mules – you know, collecting money for the packs. That’s not going to work if we’re to try and preserve individual liberty and freedom. We have got to move in a direction of actually having candidates who are going to try and move our society back towards freeing – freeing us from the socialist tendencies.
JV: What do you plan on bringing to the table once you win the Senate race? 
TC: What are some of the things I’m trying to work on?
JV: Uh huh.
TC: I think we have to reform entitlement. Reform the entitlement system that we have first. We have to essentially cut off the amount of funding that provides for that. Right now we have about 1 in – it’s about 1 in 6 people on welfare in this state. ¾ of the kids in a lot of areas in the county are on public assistance. I think it’s ¾ of the kids in North Branch are on full or reduced lunch, which means they are below the poverty level. That gives you kind of an idea in your own
community what is actually going on. So, that’s a bit disturbing when you start looking at all the entitlement money, …, it’s just not sustainable. We care, but as a society, we just can’t afford it. We simply can’t afford to provide those benefits. It used to be that we had ½ million people on public assistance in this state through our historical average. Now we have less people in this state and now I think it’s up to 1.25 people and it might be up to 1.5 million they’re saying.
JV: That’s just our state?
TC: Just our state. So that gives you kind of an idea where things are at. That’s kind of a disturbing situation. That’s the first thing.
The second thing is we really have to deal with the MBT (Michigan Business Tax). The MBT tax is really a tax on sales and to really give you a simple way of explaining it, it’s really, it’s a value added tax. On sales, there’s a tax that’s placed and it’s 1%. Well, most manufacturing, I would say it’s 4 out of 5 or 9 out of 10 – most manufacturers survive on a 1% profit. It would cut those 9 out of 10, let’s day, I’m obviously using rough numbers, it cuts them immediately to a break-even point. Where 9 out of 10 of our employers in our state became immediately either at zero or unprofitable. That’s why all those little job shops are no longer employing people and all those little communities are gone because it’s not a profitable year.
There are plenty of small businesses that either closed up or went out of business – accounting clients. Might be 100 of them, in my own practice that have disappeared. So, that MBT tax is, first it’s entitlement reform. We gotta deal with that – we can’t continue to pay what we’re paying. We have to cut off and essentially say, “This is the portion of the budget. There isn’t any more that is going to be provided.” And then, dealing with the MBT, cutting that and eliminating it. The candidates on the other side, they mentioned, and I don’t want to say that their positions were to not cut the tax, but they said to cut the surcharge, which is sort of an additional tax on top of the MBT, on small businesses. Even if the surcharge disappears, it still leaves us with the worst business tax in the country.
JV: I know there are a lot of our readers who would like to know how conservative you really are. Could you tell me what your views are on…
JV: Abortion?
TC: Pro-life. 100% pro-life. The pro-life groups that endorse candidates who then never, ever offer any piece of legislation to actually end it and yet those groups continue to give those men and women 100% ratings, even though they’ve never actually offered anything in years in office.
GC: They say they’re pro-life and then never, ever do anything.
TC: Right. I’d like to see some transparency on the state website and really how the whole Planned Parenthood thing is actually being funded. Transparency of all of our budget.
JV: Homeschooling?
TC: Well we have, homeschooling is where we are at. I think there are a lot of families that are doing a great job at homeschooling. I think there are a lot of families that probably could benefit a whole bunch by choosing homeschooling. Some moms are obviously a little fearful that they are not going to do a great job for their children. And dads as well. It’s not an easy task at all, my wife obviously carries the vast majority of that burden. We’ve seen some improvement in our kids as far as their disposition. I think it’s an improvement all around. My wife and my daughter’s relationship has improved.
JV: I think a lot of people would like to know what does a senator do regarding our rights of homeschooling. There are two schools of thought on this. Some believe that we already have the right to Homeschool our children and we just need to have those rights protected, then there are those that believe, like the HSLDA, that we need to create laws to give us those rights, which gives the impression that we don’t have that right to begin with – but rather we created it.
TC: I don’t believe that everybody should
Homeschool. I think there are some families that are not equipped to for it. I think there are some families
where there is too much dysfunction already in the family to provide the kids with an adequate education. I think parents should have the choice. I think if you give them the choice, more often than not, though not always, the parents are in the best position to make sure that they get a good education. So, for every family, I think the best situation is to have school choice. I believe the burden should be squarely on the family. I believe vouchers will help a whole bunch for allowing the freedom for families to leave and move on. School choice does not help any family in a poverty-stricken area where they can go to another terrible school. Or the bussing and commuting is impossible for them to take on. So that the idea that the school choice programs are somehow, is an empty argument in my mind.
GC: And it’s not really choice.
TC: Right. It’s limited and restricted.
JV: I think the argument about school choice is a lot like anything that is government controlled. Because when you take the government out of it, it’s no longer a monopoly. When competition between schools is allowed, improvements happen. Think of the phone company. Once there was no longer a monopoly on that, great strides were made. We suddenly got call-waiting, caller ID, voice mail, etc. I think that was one of the arguments for schooling, school of choice and the vouchers. Just having the freedom to choose. The teacher’s unions don’t want that because they’re comfortable where they’re at.
TC: There are a lot of great teachers out there, that love the Lord.
JV: Absolutely. I meant the teacher’s union.
TC: That’s the distinction I get nailed with, when I’m out there and on the Facebook posts that I’ve had where there are a couple of teachers from our church even, are bought into the ideology, or the dogma of the union that says they have choice.
GC: Well, they misinterpreted.
TC: They do. Or they mischaracterized, if you want tosay. It’s pretty clear that I’m saying there is a problem inside the system, I thought. Even my answers that say…
JV: There are absolutely great teachers. It’s not the teachers. I think it’s the union that is the issue.
TC: And that’s why homeschooling has grown. It provides other options. I think that people, I think that freedom will naturally progress towards conservative ideology. The idea, being more conservative and I think they’ll find Christ. Not because you force them one way or the other, but because essentially the natural tendency is the discovery of our heritage leads you back to Christ, the discovery of our Constitution leads you back to Christ, the discovery of the founding of the country leads you back to Christ. I think that that’s really the sort of, you know, what the establishment of those interest groups don’t want to have happen. So, I would say that maybe a quarter of them will leave the public school immediately if you gave them a $3,000 credit or voucher to leave. If that were for homeschools, then somehow there would obviously have to be accountability and that sort of stuff and I’m not sure what that would entail. There’s obviously got to be some planning. Anything that we can do to create freedom in that marketplace, you’re absolutely right, would be a good thing.
JV: You touched on something that I would like to revisit about homeschooling. You said that there has to be accountability. What do you mean by that?
TC: If you have a, if you’re going to allow, nobody is – the political reality is I would love to have homeschooling not have any, not have any – I think my wife is doing a fine job but when you’re not going to get it in the political reality, is you’re not going to get a voucher system that allows people to have $3,000 checks from
the government or $5,000 checks without some accountability. That doesn’t mean you need to take the voucher because then we need to be accountable to take from the government. I don’t know that I would anyway.
JV: See, that’s the thing. I would be tempted to
take the money, because I could use it…
TC: …Accountability.
JV: but I would rather not have to answer to anybody about my methods of homeschooling.
TC: Right. What you teach them. Right. I know, myself, and obviously this would be interesting for the article, because I personally am not so interested in receiving a voucher from the government with any strings attached at all.
JV: Right. But there might have to be if there is…
TC: The political realities might make it very difficult to do that and create the option for people to stay out of the system and not have a voucher, and the option for them to get out and have a voucher.
JV: Which goes back to freedom..
TC: Choice. Far more choices. And the more choices you offer to people, I believe that that’s really the..
GC: I think that goes back to what you said which brings up the quality of whatever is, so you have the quality in public education if that’s where you choose to go. Quality in charter, wherever you go.
TC: It’s putting the parent in charge of the child’s education, not the government and not the people that control government. That’s really the idea. More choices. More opportunity, whether it be homeschooling, whether it be private, whether it be for-profit schooling.
JV: The 2nd Amendment?
TC: I’m a pretty strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. I have my CCW or CPL. Of course you can open carry at Starbucks, you know.
JV: What??
TC: Yeah. You can open carry. Have you seen opencarry.org?
JV: No. I thought we couldn’t here in Michigan.
TC: Oh yeah. Most states are open carry. Yeah, we’re an open carry state. You can open carry as long as it’s on your side and fully exposed.
JV: When did that happen?
TC: You don’t have to have a concealed weapon permit. Oh, that’s always been like that.
GC: It’s a well-kept secret.
JV: NAIS?
TC: I’m against it.
JV: New Healthcare Bill?
TC: I think it’s going to bankrupt the country. I mean, we simply can’t afford it. Not to mention the taking away of our personal liberty and freedom.
This is the spot where liberty and freedom is reborn here, meaning people are really aware of the fact that there’s too much government or they may see liberty and freedom leave the country and it will be gone. That’s a terrible situation so we have to keep fighting this, is the way it works.
JV: The last question I have for you is, one of the moms said it would be good if you could explain what a state senator does and your role in the bigger picture. It’s something that most people should know and probably don’t, especially the kids.
TC: In a bicameral legislature, where you have two houses, what’s supposed to happen is, it’s supposed to be checks and balances. The founding fathers who looked at the federal idea when they were setting it up in the Constitution. The first house was sort of a lower house and they took it from – similar to the house of parliament. But they didn’t call it that, it was a senate and a house of representatives which goes more towards Rome and Greece. Essentially that was kind of the idea. Well, the House of Representatives was more the lower house, essentially, it’s renewed, it’s the common folks, the common folks have the most influence into that spot. It’s sort of the seasons and emotions of the country. The house can be turned over every couple of years – that was the idea. The senate initially was,
really, they were elected by the … state legislatures. So, the senate was turned over and voted on, not popularly, the way that they are now. They’re voted in popularly now, that kinda took away a check that was there, a balance to the whole process. Meaning, if your legislature is turned over, then your local movement in your state was to move toward a more conservative way of doing things. Then your senators would, of course, be turned over because now you’d have a movement by those Republicans like Sayer, those conservative folks would then elect the new senators. And the new senators would reflect sort of the feeling inside that state. Now we have where the special interests, all they do is they fund Levin and fund Stabenow and they’re really very, very difficult to overcome. In our state, we have the representatives are elected in a popular amount, as far as population, and our senators are elected according to population in the district, according to population. There really isn’t any difference between them and that’s why a lot of states are moving away toward unicameral, where it’s just one legislature, just one group. I don’t know if that would save us money or make more sense, I like the idea that it’s according to geographic area and in reality have these two counties, two counties, or one county a piece. Something like that to create a senate that has a different method of electing rather than just the popular vote, which I think gives you a different impact.
JV: Now the senators are divided among different counties according to the amount of people, aren’t they?
TC: That’s right. And that will change in 2011 because of the census that is being conducted right now. That will all be redrawn.
Thank you so much Todd and Georgeann, for taking the time to meet with me today.
