Granholm just spoke--why can't they get a budget passed?

[knitter4democracy]

Where's the vision? We need a better vision for the state, and why are the Republicans being so stupid about this? I think she's right to shut it all down and not give them an extension--time to get it done and figure things out.

[DJ MEW]

1. Republicans, really don't like her

I think they hate her more then they hated Bill Clinton, and anything they can do to make her look bad makes them happy.

If the entire democratic minority in the house and senate of Michigan could get behind her in presenting the cold hard facts of what choices have to made on the budget and what those choices actually mean to the majority of Michigan public support would shift to her favor really quickly.

It is time that she stood up against these republicans and demanded making some hard choices.

"It's been all about cutting fat out of the budget, but at some point we started scraping at the bone."

[knitter4democracy]

2. I entirely agree.

I don't know why they hate her so much, but I do know they've stonewalled on every single vote this whole summer and now are trying to blame her for not having a budget.

[1gobluedem]

3. Because Mike Bishop is a posturing SOB

Who's positioning himself for a gubernatorial run as the guy who stood firm and refused to raise YOUR taxes, taking YOUR hard-earned money out of YOUR pocket.

Conveniently overlooking the facgt that it's not a tax increase; it's restoring them to their former levels before Engler squandered the surplus and sold the state down the river for the sake of his rich,GOP, fatcat, corrupt supporters. Lord, what that man did to our state is criminal and what did he do when he was term limited out? Left! And now he's the head of the manufacturers' lobby, happily offshoring jobs. I hate, hate, HATE that man and I hate Mike Bishop.

[SharonRB]

4. I would love to see the voters in his district recall him

I blame this whole mess on Bishop. His goal in life is to obstruct everything the Gov wants to do, just to make her and the Dems look bad. It's just like the Repukes in DC -- they just want to make the Dems look bad. I hate all of them.

[knitter4democracy]

5. It is Bishop behind much of this.

Many Republicans around here are confounded by what's going on. No one understands why there's no budget. People don't like paying more fees and taxes, but some I've spoken with (in waiting rooms and such) are behind the shutdown. If there's no real deadline, nothing will happen.

[Jokinomx]

6. I agree with all of you...

Bishop is to blame here. Granholm is correct... 8 months they have been working on this...

Anybody that has lived here in the last five years, knows how this administration has cut..cut and cut somemore... I have family working in education and in the prison system and they can't cut there anymore.... Somewhere along the line... you have to raise taxes.

I maybe wrong..but the one figure I heard was it would raise people's income tax by a buck a week on the average. I am on a tight budget ..but even I could squeeze that in.

I really am beginning to dislike repubs...

:puke:

[1gobluedem]

7. Average increase is $350/year

That's less than $30 a month to save our state. I'm in. Most people spend more than that for coffee.

It's not an increase anyway; it's restoring the income tax to its previous, more realistic percentage before Engler killed everything.

[SharonRB]

8. I'm right there with you

This is insane. WXYZ said they did a survey and 70% of the people said they'd rather resolve this with cuts than with a tax increase. There was no choice in the survey for a combination of the two. I'm so disgusted with people who don't pay attention and don't have a clue how this will affect them and the state. All they see is "increase" and they put up a wall without understanding how it will actually hurt them to cut services and how little it will affect them to pay just a little bit more in taxes.

Over at MichiganLiberal.com it looks like they may have made some progress last night and will be back this afternoon. I just don't know what all the bills they voted on contain, but it sounds like they may have sent something including tax increases into conference committee to work on today. Unfortunately, it also looks like they're messing with the business tax again to give businesses some money back.

[TahitiNut]

9. Well, why not do the popular thing and make the smokers pay?

That's easy. They're an unending source of money for things WE think are needed. Even better, WE can feel good without paying. Hell, if the Federal government can increase their taxes by $6.10/carton of cancer-sticks, then the state should be able to do the same, right? (Oops! I'm sounding like a Republican, again.)
:evilgrin: