Granholm wants a tax/revenue on bottled water, wants to increase cigarette taxes/revenues (for the 3rd time in her tenure), taxes/revenues on live entertainment (sorry sports fans), taxes on vending machine sales, taxes/revenues on service contracts, and the closing of business tax/revenue "loopholes".

All of these things are expected to raise revenues/taxes of $685 million.  Granholm proposes further reducing the deficit by tapping into federal stimulus money for a nearly billion-dollar budget band-aid.  And then as always, there is the smallest portion of her budget reduction strategy, which comes in the form of over $500 million in cuts to the state's current general fund, which we're promised "are not cuts that are dangerous to the State of Michigan".  

One must wonder why these seemingly harmless cuts weren't being insisted upon by the administration before enacting a $1 billion tax/revenue hike in 2007.  I guess that's a good question to ask the governor; now that she's willing to pull up the iron curtain of secrecy that hid her from having any public, at-length, budget discussions for the better part of this year.

But more to the point, when you break it down here is what you get:

44% of Granholm's solution is bailout money from the federal government.

31% of Granholm's solution is sending us another tax/revenue bill.

Leaving just 25% of the governor's solution to be actual cuts for a state whose 1990s largesse no-longer matches its 21st century reality.

 In short, this is not even close to what anyone would imagine as a long-term fix. Granholm has arranged it so that state government, the architects of this mess, are responsible for the fewest burdens.  I thought I remembered hearing something about us all being in this "together" to move away from the old ways of doing business and building a  new Michigan (last paragraph)...maybe I was just hearing things?  I guess some people are "in this" more so than others.

The basic point is that this budget is "so Granholm".  In one hand she takes a $685 million check from Michigan's families and businesses while with the other she punches them in the face with enough force to break their collective jaws by adding to the mountain of reasons why business should not come to or stay in Michigan.  Rather than serving the citizens with this budget, Granholm's government; yet again, seems intent on serving itself.

Luckily, Granholm's attempted ruse of showing us the same movie we saw in 2007, is not going unnoticed by Republicans in the Senate who continue to insist that there are no votes for tax/revenue increases in that body.  They go further in saying that continually raising taxes/revenues is not how we are going to finally break free from our incarceration in a prison of continual budget deficits.

"We increased taxes in 2007.  Clearly things did not improve with that tax increase.  I'm not sure we're going to tax our way out of this problem" Senate Majority spokesperson Matt Marsden told the Detroit Free Press earlier today.

So it seems the battle lines are drawn and Granholm's days of judgment are upon us.  Will she continue what's she best at by shifting her obligations to the business community that don't pay their "fair share" of taxes/revenues(toward the bottom of the speech)?  Or will she, for once, just once, stand up to the responsibility that is the job she has paid tens-of-millions of dollars to win and keep?  Will she finally throw her support behind REAL cuts and REAL reforms (as painful or "dangerous" as they may be) that serve as the only REAL way to end Michigan's long fiscal nightmare?

I for one, am not holding my breath.

Robert Wolfer has been a Republican staffer working in and around state government in Lansing for nearly ten years. He can be reached at: RWolfer2010@gmail.com