Budget cuts top agenda in Lansing

1
Budget cuts top agenda in Lansing

• By Gary Heinlein / The Detroit News
• http//www.detnews.com/2005/politics/0501/10/C01-5
  4924.htm

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The State Budget

• LANSING -- The new Michigan House that starts
  work this week will be more conservative and
  business-oriented than the one that left office
  last month.
• The troubled budget will be at the top of the
  spring agenda. For the fourth consecutive year,
  state officials face the prospect of hundreds of
  millions of dollars in cuts as they prepare a
  spending plan -- this one for the fiscal year
  starting Oct. 1. The current budget, about 350
  million out of whack, also needs to be fixed.

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Spending?

• "We're going to get to work on planning how we
  can get state government to start living within
  its means," said Matt Resch, spokesman for new
  House Speaker Craig DeRoche, R-Novi. Medicaid --
  health care coverage provided for 1.4 million
  low-income Michiganians -- has been protected
  from cuts, but may be .
• The program has grown 31 percent in four years,
  and now costs 7 billion annually, said Tom Clay
  of the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of
  Michigan.

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Taxes?

• A Lansing-based coalition plans to start pushing
  for at least a 6-cent increase in Michigan's
  19-cent fuel tax to provide money for widening
  more roads. The annual road budget of about 1.3
  billion barely covers repair work. While Granholm
  says she's willing to listen to new road
  proposals, Metro Detroit commuters shouldn't
  expect a cash infusion to provide additional
  highway lanes any time soon.
• "We're not raising taxes to cover any deficits,"
  said Ari Adler, spokesman for Senate Majority
  Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming.

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Economics?

• Government provides goods and services,
  reflecting, in part, what people want!
• To get them we must GIVE UP some resources.
• In this case, we give up the resources through
  taxes.
• The COSTS of the goods and services are the TAXES.