Michigan was the last US state to formally approve a budget, a result of a standoff between Granholm and Senate Republicans that delayed final passage one month into the state’s new fiscal year.
Granholm actually signed six separate budget bills on Friday, bringing the total to 15, which combine to allocate an overall $44 billion state budget. In this process, Granholm used her line-item veto 70 times to cut spending by a further $127 million. The largest of these vetoes was a $51.7 million cut for 39 school districts—mostly in southeastern Michigan—that spend at a higher rate than the state average.
The budget includes not a penny of new revenue from taxation, a victory for the Republicans who control the state senate. For their part, Granholm and the Democrats, who control the lower house, never contemplated an income tax increase on the state’s wealthy or taxes on the activities of major banks and financial institutions. Granholm had proposed a series of regressive sales taxes.
The signings appeared to finalize massive cuts to public education averaging $292 per student for most of the state, and nearly twice as much in the 39 “high-spending” school districts...
The state will cut by 8 percent its Medicaid contribution to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and doctors who treat 1.7 million poor and disabled residents. These cuts will translate into reduced access for Medicaid recipients. “Some nursing homes with a heavy Medicaid caseload may close,” the Detroit News reports. The cuts to Medicaid mean the loss of hundreds of millions in federal matching funds...
The budget cuts include, among other items:
- Aid to cities and towns down 11 percent, or $100 million in all.
- A scholarship program, Michigan Promise..
- overall 61 percent cut to student financial aid.
- state nursing scholarships,
- the Michigan Work-Study Program,
- the Part-Time Independent Student Program.
- reduction of 0.4 percent for state colleges and universities, which were spared a deeper cut by federal stimulus money targeted to higher education.
- $62 million cut to state mental health services.
- $7 million to fund the Michigan State Fair, an exposition held in Detroit that has been an annual tradition since the nineteenth century. In fact, $6.6 million of the outlay was funded by the fair itself, so Granholm’s veto saves the state a net of only $500,000.
- $5 million in payments to hospitals that treat the indigent and uninsured patients,
- funding for a senior food aid outreach project in two counties,
- a volunteer health clinic in Bay City.
In signing the bill, Granholm said that Senate Republicans bear responsibility for the savage cuts...These protestations are fraudulent. The Democratic Party controls not only the governor’s mansion, but the state house of representatives.
Politicians in both parties are in agreement that this year’s cuts are only the beginning...It is estimated that the new budget for 2010, barely a day old, already faces a $100 million shortfall, not counting the education fund, which is largely funded by the state sales tax. Current estimates put the budget deficit for 2011 at $750 million.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/mich-n02.shtml
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