Will They Dodge the Bullet?
Michigan's legislature is working overtime (without time and a half!!!) to prevent the shutdown. While they are not giving any details and are honoring a news blackout, what little is coming out is sort of hopeful.
However the governor will not accept a plan that does not include new revenues. What they are looking at is taxing non-essential services with a sales tax. Supposedly it will be only things that the affluent and rich use, but who's defining the word affluent?. Somehow tax-the-rich schemes always seem to fall on the working and middle class people.
We really need to look and see where we can cut spending because we are not going to be able to maintain current spending levels. It just can't be done. The state needs to learn to get more bang out of every dollar it collects and stop assuming that there are going to be more dollars to be had. The proverbial goose that laid golden eggs is dead!!! It's time Lansing recognized that.
If the shutdown does happen a Q&A from The Detroit News link gives information on what is and isn't available. It does appear that, at least for now, County and local governments will continue without delay and they handle a lot of things.
I cannot prove but strongly suspect that a lot of our budget problems come because government agencies do not think in terms of efficiency because they have no reason to. They have no competition and always assume that the money will be there. This is has got to stop; they need to learn to think in terms of efficient use of human and financial resources in government agencies.
However the governor will not accept a plan that does not include new revenues. What they are looking at is taxing non-essential services with a sales tax. Supposedly it will be only things that the affluent and rich use, but who's defining the word affluent?. Somehow tax-the-rich schemes always seem to fall on the working and middle class people.
We really need to look and see where we can cut spending because we are not going to be able to maintain current spending levels. It just can't be done. The state needs to learn to get more bang out of every dollar it collects and stop assuming that there are going to be more dollars to be had. The proverbial goose that laid golden eggs is dead!!! It's time Lansing recognized that.
If the shutdown does happen a Q&A from The Detroit News link gives information on what is and isn't available. It does appear that, at least for now, County and local governments will continue without delay and they handle a lot of things.
I cannot prove but strongly suspect that a lot of our budget problems come because government agencies do not think in terms of efficiency because they have no reason to. They have no competition and always assume that the money will be there. This is has got to stop; they need to learn to think in terms of efficient use of human and financial resources in government agencies.
posted by shoprat at 10:19 PM
4 Comments:
Shut it down, and open agencies on an as needed basis. Dismiss the legislature, without compensation for 6 months, I have no problem going without representation for the most part I do already. This state is so rife with grifters and handouts; it would be easy for any normal citizen to make cuts needed.
I've been listening to this off and on on the radio.
It sounds like Detroit has the same problem, and a state that can't afford to bail them out.
Good luck to all.
We're at this stage ... because the government has continually tried to make itself relevant by inventing more and more service it HAS to provide.
Note the Granhold (typincal liberal) scare tactics. We'll have to shut down daycare. We'll have to stop lottery sales (which would hurt them, not us), we'll have to stop liquor sales to stores ... yada yada yada.
Personally .... I hope that the Repubs maintain their stance and stop additional taxes.
I think the current taxation is already onerous. My propensity to buy vehicles means that I contribute almost $500 for plates/registration each year and have been paying almost $1000/year for that morinic "catastrophic injusry" fund. Higher income taxes for services that get used by the poor in Detroit don't interest me. Taxes on services ... ok ... so I start getting my hair cut by my wife, get auto repairs in another state, and basically stop frequently local services. I can live with that ... but it'll kill another source of taxes for the Lansing creeps ...
They'd have to have their IQ doubled to make it to moron status!
"They'd have to have their IQ doubled to make it to moron status!" LOL! That's a good one. I need to remember that. It's so appropriate for so many people.
I hope things work out, Shoprat, and I pray they don't raise taxes. God bless.
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