Saturday, May 12, 2007

"Cut 5%," said the Governor!

"We've got a great university system and we want to make sure it remains great, but just like any other entity, if you can't cut 5 percent a year, you are not doing your job," said Granholm Tuesday [December 16, 2003] in an interview with Booth Newspapers.*

I wonder if "any other entity" would include state government and its many departments. If the governor had heeded her own advice since 2003, we would not have a deficit in our current year budget, and we would not need a tax increase to replace the Single Business Tax. The Gov. has proposed in INCREASE in state spending of over $1 BILLION for next year alone.

*Flint Journal, Wednesday, December 17, 2003.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I've asked this a few times in different places but maybe a response will be received in this venue. At least I'll keep my fingers crossed.

There are a great number of people on Medicaid that also have private insurance (BC/BS being the largest private insurer). However, the division within MSA that is responsible for recovering the funds the state has paid for services that should have been paid for by the private insurance isn't doing it's job. BC should be responsible for millions of dollars worth of expenditures. There have been meetings (and meetings and meetings) between Medicaid and BC. However, every time a solution is almost reach BC changes the people on the committee and back to the beginning it all goes. Can't someone sit on BC or give the people at Medicaid a backbone? It would go a long way to solve the budget issue.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Why doesn't the Legislature take the lead and start cutting it's own budget 5% ?

Don't see a mention of legislative staff being laid off or losing their jobs.

Instead of pointing the finger at the Executive branch maybe the legislature needs to start leading by example.

Old Salt said...

Sweet! Call it the Granholm Bill, and cut the government by 5% (budget AND staffing) a year.

Anonymous said...

House Republicans have laid off over 40 employees since the beginning of the year. Legislative retirement benefits are going to be legislatively addressed. Rep Hoogendyk (blog author) is proposing a part-time legislature. Next year's budget (2007/2008 proposed bills)has the legislature facing a 5% budget cut. If this cut takes effect, it will reduce the entire legislature's share of the state pie from 0.55% to 0.52%.