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Tag: one time fixes

MI Dems: One-time budget fixes are the devil, until they aren't

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Mon Jun 22, 2009 at 07:02:17 AM EST
Tags: Budget, bailout, autos, Lee Iacocca, MSM, one time fixes, consistency, hypocrisy (all tags)

This morning's Ivory Tower points out an interesting tidbit about Lansing's budget process, drawing attention to the calendar as they remind readers that this is usually just about the week when we get an agreement between the House and the Senate and a plan for the next fiscal year. You know, before the tax and spenders arrived in the Capitol City in force and just plain lost their minds.

Apparently whatever spending sickness is afflicting lawmakers managed to make it's way onto east-bound I-96, too, and landed smack dab in the FREEP's editorial room. The same column which they use to caution against irresponsible budgeting (lest our state bond rating be negatively affected) also contains the Ed Board's suggestion that Lansing spend irresponsibly.

The week before state lawmakers' Fourth of July break has frequently been a time when budgets were settled for the fiscal year beginning the following Oct. 1...
A good strategy would be to spread the available stimulus money in roughly even chunks over the next two budget years.

No, a good strategy would be to avoid one-time-fixes. You know, the kind used by former Republican legislative majorities and lamented vocally for years by the Granholm-Cherry administration?

Because these problems... these massive multi-billion dollar deficits... they aren't going to go away before that bailout funding does. In fact, they're likely going to get much worse.

The Detroit News reports this morning on an often overlooked budgetary byproduct of massive auto layoffs... suddenly vacant industrial space. See, the thing about vacant industrial space is that it's vacant. There's no one there. In other words, there goes another big dollar source of tax revenue.

Read on...

(680 words in story) Full Story