Tim_Skubick's Blog

Give credit where credit is due.

Members of the Michigan House are on the campaign trail this week running for reelection. Last year at this time they were in Lansing, looking inept, out of control and on the road to a historic temporary shutdown of state government. They were not alone.

There were omelets on the governor, the house speaker, the senate leader and rank and file legislators. With what’s left of their reputations on the line, everyone decided to do it differently this year, and they did.

With considerably less rancor, partisan backbiting and childish behavior, everyone managed to tie a ribbon on a new $44 billion state budget that included $400 million in service cuts and no tax hike.

There was one fight left unresolved: the state school aid budget bill. Even so educators know they’ll receive between $55 and $110 per pupil even though the money will go into school bus gas tanks and not the classroom.

The governor and senate republicans could not agree on how to pay for smaller high schools which she wants to reduce the drop out rate.

Senator Ron Jelinek (R-Three Oaks) who runs the K-12 budget in the senate says the smaller schools don’t work and he doesn’t want to borrow money to run them.
She wouldn’t budge and neither would he, which is why they’ll take another shot at the thing later this month when everyone comes back.

That aside, there is reason to rejoice that everyone cooperated this year but alas, they aren’t out of the woods.

They didn’t do it last year and didn’t do it this year i.e. resolve that persistent structural deficit which means the cost of government keeps going up but the money coming in, keeps going down. There is talk of another deficit that could top $3 billion or more.
If these lawmakers and governor are lucky, they’ll be out of office before that budget monster takes up residence in this town.

But waiting two years and passing the deficit torch to a new batch of officials would be wrong. These current officials need to make the fix. In two years, the state senate will be decimated. It will lose 30 senior senators, and the experience level in the house won’t be anything to write home about either.

Everyone knows the only way to wipe out the structural deficit is with higher taxes and more service cuts. Nobody is going to talk about that until after November when house members are safely reelected.

But will they have the nerve to tackle it after that?
Don’t put a lot of money on it.