"Maybe there has to be blood on the floor before anything can change. That certainly seems where Michigan is headed, as the clock ticks down toward the beginning of a new budget year Oct. 1.
... With just 30 days left before a new budget must be in place, only the Republican-led state Senate has passed a balanced budget that accepts the fact that broad, deep cuts must be made throughout state government."
Those "optimistic" words start an editorial in the August 31 Detroit Free Press.
A significant portion of the editorial speaks directly to education funding/budget reductions including the comment that:
"But to survive and thrive in the 21st Century, the state needs to maintain this kind of investment in human capital -- the rising generations on whose continuing education the state depends for economic progress. Abandoning preschoolers will just as surely jeopardize the drive to make this a smarter, better-off state."
The editorial ends with:
"Somehow, the governor and the legislative leaders must patch together a budget for the coming year. Yes, there will be blood. And maybe that's what it will take for everyone to realize that what the state most needs is a long-term restructuring -- in taxes, in health care, in incarceration policy, and more -- if the state is to have a long-term future."
At least there is some recognition that sweeping changes must occur. It's just that I am not sure that any of us are going to like those changes.
Monday, August 31, 2009
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As I have stated on several occasions, “There is a fundamental disconnect between the services that taxpayers demand and the taxes they are willing to pay.” Initially Michigan tax cuts were directed at forcing efficiency by “starving the beast”. But now, cutting taxes has become a political addiction that is being carried to an extreme that is fiscally delusional. We must have a government that is large enough to provide key services and protect its citizens. (I would submit that the economic crisis we are now facing is in at least part due to a LACK of government oversight of the financial markets.) As the saying goes, “The pony express” don’t run for free.” It’s past time for our elected officials to get some courage to do the right thing.
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