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1) "journal statement" [by Admin003 on June 29, 2008]
Senator Kahn asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.

The motion prevailed.

Senator Kahn’s statement is as follows:

This budget represents $12.5 billion worth of expenditures of which $3.1 billion is General Fund monies. Michigan has had a tough century and a lot of dollar shortfalls and this year being no exception. It is also no exception that the Department of Community Health budget has had to be cut, so the provision of services to our most vulnerable citizens, while at the same time recognizing our fiscal constraints, has been the balancing act in this budget as in many others.

Within those confines, we have been able to preserve actuarially-sound rates for our community of mental health and for our HMOs. We have found the funds to avoid making cuts in the Healthy Michigan Fund and eligibility groups; and at the same time, came up with a few dollars for some new programs and for recognition of needy workers in the state of Michigan. In so doing, we have a 1 percent wage increase for community mental health direct care workers. We have found monies to support a free medical clinic in Bay County. We found dollars to deal with sexually transmitted diseases and for a traumatic brain injury hospital project. We found a few dollars for school-based health clinics and for physicians who for years have actually paid for the privilege for seeing Medicaid patients as they are reimbursed below cost and will be receiving a small increase which we hope will encourage them to continue to participate in Medicaid and approved access to care.

Those findings were achieved in a bipartisan fashion with the help of my vice chairs, Senator Pappageorge and Senator Cherry, both of whom I thank along with Senate Fiscal and my staff Stephanie Shooks. I urge the passage of this bill, which was reported unanimously from the conference committee.

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2) "no vote explanation" [by Admin003 on June 9, 2008]
Rep. Schuitmaker, having reserved the right to explain her protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement:

“Mr. Speaker and members of the House:

While I support many programs in this budget, as a whole it has severe problems that need correcting. I cannot ignore the lack of reforms and new structural deficits this bill creates.

The FY 2008-2009 budget is dependent on the Democrats’ $1.4 billion tax hike as well as several one-time funding gimmicks. If we allow spending to go unchecked, we will have to raise taxes again in the near future.

The director of the non-partisan House Fiscal Agency has said we cannot afford the spending. The House Democrat budget is even higher than what the governor proposed. I refuse to support spending we cannot afford, especially since doing so will set the stage for another tax hike.

Not enough was done last year to cut waste and reform government, and as a result taxes went up. If we want to fix governor’s proposed level of our economy, we need to get our spending problem under control. This budget does not do that.

For these reasons, I cannot support this bill at this time.”

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3) "no vote explanation" [by Admin003 on June 9, 2008]
Rep. Caswell, having reserved the right to explain his protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement:

“Mr. Speaker and members of the House:

This bill spends $30 million more than the Governor in GF. We can’t afford it unless we have another tax increase.”

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