Right Michigan and other blogs asked (kindly, I might add) that instead of rolling that cash over into more wasteful government spending the people of Michigan be given a REFUND!

Fresh off their holiday and raring to get back to work the House Democrats kindly took our advice and ignored it.  Thank goodness for the House GOP.  This afternoon the caucus held a press conference to introduce their plan to give the entire "surplus" back to the taxpayers while cutting wasteful government spending.  But "refund" wasn't the only thing they had to say.  Representative Kevin Elsenheimer, ladies and gentlemen:

"Budget deficits continue because we have a structural spending problem.  Spending these funds would only be a band-aid, allowing Lansing to avoid the spending reforms essential to turning Michigan around."

But the best came from House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche:

"Taxpayers continue to get raked over the coals as lawmakers race to spend their money.  This $353 million windfall should not be used for a Democrat spending spree to celebrate raising your taxes. The excessive increase on taxpayers should be immediately put back where it came from - in taxpayer hands. As unemployment continues to grow and people continue to leave the state, taxpayers certainly aren't finding a $353 million surplus under their pillows."

Ahem... AMEN!  And better yet, he wasn't finished.  He had some appropriately tough words for Governor Granholm on the whole shady business of phantom surpluses following a year after phantom, unreported deficits.

"These actions are either an arrogant abuse of power or utter incompetence."

Lets go back over the facts.  All summer we heard deficit, deficit, deficit.  The administration pegged the number at a combined $982 million between the general and school aid funds.  We find out now that several departments weren't in as bad of shape as they seemed to indicate.  We went from a $982 billion deficit to a $353 million surplus.  That's a $1.3+ billion swing for those of you who weren't math majors.

My friends in the donkey colored sunglasses will tell you that the surplus is a direct result of the $2.4 billion tax hike their Democrat heroes in the legislature foisted on the people of Michigan.  It wasn't that Granholm was lying.  Nah, she never lies. The tax hike was just a little more than we actually needed.  To which everyone more concerned with the health of Michigan's economy than the health of the bureaucracy shouts: REFUND!  If you taxed more than you needed it's time to make that right.  

Without the refund that cash just gets rolled back into the trough and the big government pig keeps on feeding.  Props to DeRoche and team for getting this one right.  Now it's time for Andy Dillon to prove he's not entirely brain-dead by following the Republicans' lead.