Every time another storm rolls through Southwest Michigan, families brace for the same routine. The lights go out. Food starts to spoil. Businesses shut down. Parents scramble to care for their children, and seniors worry about medical equipment that depends on electricity. Then comes the question everyone is asking: Why does this keep happening?

This week, our country turns 250 years old. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and put forward a radical idea: that ordinary people, not kings, are fit to govern themselves. Two and a half centuries later, no nation on earth has done it better.

Most weeks in Lansing, you fight hard and feel lucky to get movement on just one of your priorities. Every now and then you get a day where it all clicks. I had one of those last week. In a matter of hours, two of my bills cleared committee. Different subjects, but the same basic idea behind both: get government out of the way so people can stay healthy right where they already are.