| Lessenberry on last night: What we have just seen is one more total failure of leadership, a near-total breakdown of the governmental process. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning the legislature finally passed and the governor signed a 30 day “continuation budget.” This gave them all the ability to do what they do best: Further put off difficult decisions. House Minority Leader Kevin Elsenheimer got it right. “Regardless of whether we are technically open or closed for business, this is a black eye on our state.”
...snip... The budget didn‘t get done last night because both parties lost their nerve when it came to the kind of devastating cuts to public education this budget calls for. State Senator Gretchen Whitmer shamed her colleagues by rising to say: “It almost brings me to tears, what you are doing to the kids of our state. Businesses of tomorrow need educated work forces. This budget rips apart the fabric of our education system. How the heck are we to compete with China, India or even Indiana when you balance the budget on the backs of our kids?”
When you combine that with the black eye from the shutdown two years ago, that makes us look like a state of raccoons. Very cleanly animals, they. Go us! Meanwhile, I wish someone would come right out and start identifying one of the real culprits for this semi-annual nonsense ... Republican hard-line ideology. The elected Republican leadership talks and talk and talks and tells the GOP base that we don't need no stinking revenue and that we don't need no stinking government and we don't need no stinking gubmint burrowcrats tellin' us what to do, which paints everyone into a corner because people who take that kind of hardline, no compromise approach can't be negotiated with in good faith. So, we wind up stalling and stalling and stalling because everyone knows that in the end cutting K-12 education by $218 per pupil is a supremely stupid thing to do and that cities and counties and townships can't absorb an 11 percent chop in shared revenue without laying off police officers and fire fighters and keeping afloat parks and recreation programs. Finally, it runs us up against a fence, and the trapped rats instead of coming clean just kind of look for new and novel excuses to not make decisions. I mean, how hard is it to draw a parallel between the Senate Republicans unwillingness to consider additional funding for schools and local government, and the Senate Republican unwillingness to consider additional funding for roads? It's the same basic bear. |
