Michigan State Government Shutting Down
 

Note sure how much any of you care, but here's something else the government has screwed up while everyone is complaining about the war.

News::Michigan Governor Prepares to Shut Down the State

I knew my state had the largest unemployment rate in the country, but this is ridiculess. I didn't even hear any warnings about this and I turn on the news yesterday and BAM! State is bankrupt!

Sounds like California, 5 years ago. But I don't think it was this bad...and Arnie is doing an okay job with our state..I think.

Please. We've known we were bankrupt every since Engler slashed taxes and drained the rainy day fund just before leaving. You didn't notice that we've had to make extreme cuts to pass budgets for the last 6 years? Even this has been debated for an entire month now. For you to not notice, you must have no less than had your head up your ass.

As a resident of Michigan, this is definitely something I care about. But, our government has been self-destructing for a while now. I've been hearing talks on this since early this year, and I've being seeing the same budget cuts year after year. I have no clue what they can do to save the state now, because the state government sure hasn't done the job in past years.

One and a half more years of college, and I can get the hell out of here.

I knew we were having money problems, but I had no idea that the state was in danger of going bankrupt. I don't watch the news every day, but I was just surprised is all. To me it seems like something I think people around me would have been talking about, but they weren't until yesterday.

I like how Graholm says that she won't accept cuts to education, but education has been cut every year of her administration. A few years back, when I was in college on the other side of the state, she offered colleges a financial incentive to not raise tuition. When they complied, Granholm withheld the money. The education unions are in her pocket anyway, no matter whatt

She's probably just trying to pull a Bill Clinton, who saw his popularity soar after shutting down the federal government. Bitch.

Which would be WHY she won't accept further cuts in this budget - it's too low already

What is this, democrat rhetoric about how Engler is to blame for Granholm's mess?
She's been hemorrhaging jobs from the state for years now, she keeps pushing companies away. And another thing, the big corporations that are still actually left in Michigan, GM and Dow Chemical especially, are given so many tax breaks anyway it's as if they aren't even there. You can't support a state on workers' income taxes alone.
The state's done a terrible job collecting income, giving too much away in welfare, and allowing too many corporations to cut out the middle class and time-bomb the state economy.
What's even worse is that the state thought they could get away with denying the public universities money, which raised tuitions at least %10 statewide. I wonder how Lansing thought screwing over the future workforce of Michigan before they even got out there was going to help?

Matt: When Granholm took over, the state was bankrupt and GM was already failing. That Granholm held off this disaster until now is something most politicians could never manage. Engler privatized all of the state's most profitable divisions - like the manufacturing of the anthrax vaccine - required contractors be used for lots of things that were done cheaper in-house before - like designing bridges - sliced the taxes to absolutely unmaintainable levels, and all around destroyed the state. There is no rhetoric, only historical record.

GM isn't failing, they're just taking advantage of NAFTA and shooting themselves in the foot in the process.

According to the FAQ, my city's (Bay City) bridges are being left in the open position, so travel between the two halves is going to be a royal pain in the ass, as the next nearest bridge is 9 miles away in Saginaw =\

I've been hearing for at least eight months how the senate and the governor were at a budget standoff. They actually passed a supplemental or something to stave off a government shutdown around May or something (after Michigan's credit rating dropped twice) but I guess it's coming around again.

I'm inclined to blame the senate really. Their idea of sound financial behavior is to cut absolutely everything - for every scandal that has state judges using cars paid for by our tax dollars we have ten cuts to education, health care, prisons and shit - and delay payments to workers and colleges and shit. Basically they think that they can make it work if they just don't eat and don't buy clothes for the kids and just try to ride it out, instead of going out and making money with a second job.

Look, I know raising taxes is hard, especially in this economy. But I feel like I'm paying a hell of a lot of taxes and I'm getting less and less in return. How is that any different than raising taxes and keeping services at the same level? An extra $50 or so a year isn't going to help me any.

edit: Oh, and another thing: the republicans, after the compromise in May, went out and said that they wouldn't be able to afford staving off raising taxes next time. It blows my mind.

Wow Diversion, thanks for that link to the FAQ. I wasn't aware of the impact that the shutdown was going to have on all of the various aspects of the state (I heard before that it was just going to be the legislature). I'm appalled at it all, really. State Police going to emergency assistance only? State Parks shutting down? Non-reservation casinos halting gaming operations?
It's like they're cutting out all the money making operations of the state government and jeopardizing public safety all at the same time.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the State Legislators are planning on increasing personal income tax from 3.9% to 4.35% and applying the state’s 6% sales tax to a number of services like cable TV. The one thing that I was disappointed to not see were special provisions for upper class taxpayers such as AGI floors and the like. What they need to do is create a tax model akin to the IRS'. With the IRS Tax Rate Schedules, taxes are computed differently based on what someone's taxable income is. If it's under $30,000 it's a lower taxable rate than if it's over $32,000. The state's flat income tax rate is one of the major problems here, and it needs to be adjusted to compensate for the huge gap in income between the rich and the poor of Michigan.

On an aside, I'm hoping that the shutdown doesn't last more than three weeks. I don't want my university to have to shut its doors and force me out of class for this debacle after I paid thousands of dollars to attend classes at a public university.

Wow. I didn't know that Michigan was having this kind of problem. Generally, in Canada, we only hear news about the United States as a whole and not on a state by state situation. I hope that everything turns out well in Michigan as I know that Ontario and Michigan are huge trading partners at the Windsor-Detroit border.

We actually had a similar situation in Pennsylvania over the summer where the state was going to be shut down in the same way. I think they managed to fix the whole thing at, like, 6 AM of the day the strike was going to occur.

this doesn't even make sense. I don't know how public safety is jeopdardized by the state police continuing to respond to public safety concerns and not worry about speed traps.

Anyway, crisis averted. No one actually thought the shutdown would last longer than a few days anyway though.