Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on May 17, 2007, to adopt an omnibus Fiscal Year 2007-2008 budget that authorizes spending $574 million less from the state general fund than the amount proposed by the House and Gov. Granholm. (Details are presented in a House Fiscal Agency analysis). Among other things the bill holds higher education spending at the same level as the current year (rather than the $43 million, 2.5 percent hike proposed by the governor and approved by the House). This bill and the K-12 budget contained in Senate Bill 237 represent approximately $900 million less spending than proposed by the House and Gov. Granholm. This occurs in the context of a major tax hikes vs. spending cuts budget battle

The vote was 20 in favor, 18 opposed and 0 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 342 at Senate Journal 92)

Click here to view bill details.

Senator Schauer, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against concurrence in the recommendations of the Committee of the Whole relative to House Bill No.4799 and Senate Bill Nos. 511 and 237. Senator Schauer's statement is as follows: I voted "no," as did members of my caucus. That was a party-line vote on approving the report of the Committee of the Whole. The Committee of the Whole just adopted two bills. One bill was 177 pages long that amended the school aid act, full of cuts to a number of school programs that are very critical to the future of our state. Senate Bill No.511 was a 777-page bill. Both of these bills just landed on our desks. That was an omnibus budget bill that, combined with the other bill, provided for $900 million in cuts, colleagues, to our state--cuts which would hurt our future. I was glad to vote "no" because this is clearly the wrong direction for our state. Unfortunately, this does nothing to move this process forward where we are striving for bipartissan agreement.

Senator Cherry's statement is as follows: I rise to oppose this bill. It is, as I said earlier, the omnibus bill for a variety of cuts in a variety of departments, many of which I think when it comes right down to it, we will not see. So I think we're playing games tonight, and this is a political statement that I certainly don't agree with. It has cuts, as I said earlier, to community colleges and higher education. It means that we are not going to invest in the children of this state to make sure that they have a strong future. There are numerous cuts to community health that hurt those who are receiving Medicaid health care services. It has severely strong cuts to the Healthy Michigan Fund so that diabetes programs would be eliminated or cut severely. Infant mortality programs would be cut severely--programs that protect our children and our older adults. Early hearing screening would be totally eliminated. Those programs are important to our children. Do I think the citizens of this state want to see a state that does not invest in its children? No, I do not. This bill, through the variety of cuts throughout it, means that we are not ensuring that we are investing in our children's future; we're not investing in our communities; we are not investing in safe places for people to live; and we are not investing in our economic growth. For those reasons, Mr.President, I ask that this be my "no" vote explanation.

Senator Brater's statement is as follows: Mr.President and colleagues, I rise to oppose Senate Bill No.511. This bill presents us with problems that are literally a matter of life and death. This bill, when combined with another bill that we are about to be asked to vote on, will amount to close to a billion dollars in cuts in the coming year's budget. And this is not just numbers. We're talking about cuts to real people with real faces--real costs to our constituents who will pay more in tuition at our community colleges, our colleges and universities; real risks to motorists when we cut critical repairs to roads and bridges. We know this isn't just our imagination because we have witnessed a neighboring Midwestern state earlier this summer where a bridge collapsed and people died. So we are talking about a matter of life and death. It's not an exaggeration. It's a real jeopardy to consumers when we cut funds for safety inspections in restaurants and other food services. It's a real danger when we cut funds to the DEQ safe drinking water programs. It's unspeakably cruel to cut Medicaid coverage for 19- and 20-year-olds. Would you want your 19- or 20-year-old son or daughter to be unable to go to the doctor and get health care? This is no time at this critical juncture for political posturing. Our constituents are worried, anxious, and justifiably angry at our inaction. We must join hands to work together to address this budget crisis. And we all know that we need a bipartisan solution. We all know we won't reach a bipartisan solution by slapping down 700-page bills at our desks, full of cuts that we know we can't agree on. We must invest in the future of our state by funding public education, public safety, and health care. We must reject this draconian, devastating, radical proposal that will ensure a downward spiral of our state.

Senator Switalski's statement is as follows: We have Senate Bill No.511 in front of us right now, and I think it serves a very useful purpose because it shows people just how ugly the cuts would be. For those people who say, "Just cut, just cut," well, this is reality of what that would mean, and this is how ugly that would be. But it's actually even uglier than this because this assumes that, you know, there's hole at the end of this of almost $600 million. This kind of suggests, well, there's another way to fill that other $600 million--assuming, revenue, probably. So if people want all cuts, it's this and more. So what do we have in here that is so ugly? Well, let's look at the Senate Fiscal analysis, the second paragraph, one thing we have right in there off the bat is $219 million in one-time revenue. The Michigan business tax is going to generate one time $219 million. Now should we continue the mistakes, the sins of the past six years and base a budget on one-time revenue that will be gone next year and we'll be right here down $219 million? No, we should not do that. The responsible thing would be to take one-time money and put it in the budget stabilization fund. So if you did that, you would have to find another $219 million either in cuts or in revenue. So that's the first point. But let's look at what some of these cuts would be. In the Attorney General's office, we would lay off 107 employees, 19 percent of the department; 25 people in Civil Rights; 38 in Civil Service. We would do something we have resisted for years in Community Health. We would take 19- and 20-year-olds and throw them off Medicaid. Take a kid who's been abused, taken away from their parents, raised in foster homes--"Hey, you're 18, you're out; you're on your own. No Medicaid for you." How about in the Department of Corrections, a $111 million cut. I'm told that's like, wow, shuts six facilities; lays off, according to fiscal estimates, 1,300 Corrections employees. And we've heard, "Ah, we can't cut Corrections. We can't take the public safety and put it at risk." Well, we've been working and talking about what's reasonable cuts in Corrections, and I've never seen us get to a number this big. There are 44 employees in the Department of Education. And, let me see, over in Human Services, close Maxey Training School. Let all the kinda--I have to say, the kinda hardened criminals at a very young age. Let's close that facility and lay off 268 employees there. Auditor General that we've tried to beef up to find us some efficiencies and savings, we're going to cut 31 people there. So I guess I could go through them all, but, you know, 137 employees in Treasury. Look at State Police, 59 percent reduction in secondary road patrols. That's not just trimming; that's a major whack. That's cut the thing by more than half of its size. Secretary of State, we had a furor here a few weeks ago when the Secretary wanted to consolidate a few branches. This would close 25 branches and lay off approximately 80 employees. So it serves a purpose to show people what we're talking about. If you're going to make cuts like this, this is what it is, and I argue it's even more than this because some of these things are things that we shouldn't do, like put one-time money into the budget. Twenty-two hundred layoffs is what I'm told this adds up to. So, Mr.President, I am opposed to this. There are cuts that we're going to have to make. A lot of them are in here. We've been talking about a lot of them, but these go way too far, and I must be opposed.

Senator Scott's statement is as follows: As the ranking member on this side of the aisle of Human Services, I'm appalled that we are removing $207.5million from the Department of Human Services. These are the most vulnerable people we have in this state, and because so many are still losing their jobs, we're adding more people to the system--$35.4 million from the caseloads cost adjustments; $57.1 million from the Family Independence program. It was just mentioned about the closure of the Maxey Boys Training School, which will lay off 268 employees. You know, I tell my colleagues all the time we get up and pray every day. The Bible says when you've done it to the least of these, you've done it onto thee. Let's have a conscience. On a Sunday, God's day, we're going to do this to the people of this state. In Labor and Economic Growth training programs for the Work Force Development training grants, $4.4 million; fire protection $2.6 million; Focus: HOPE--and I'm sure most of us have gone down to Focus: HOPE and seen what a great job they do; how they're lifting people up out of poverty--but we're going to cut their funding too. I thought if we had to come here on a Sunday, in the ninth hour of getting this budget together, that we would really come with open minds where we could work together. This shouldn't be partisan. This is about the people of this state and it's up to us. They elected us to do the job for them and we're certainly not doing it tonight.

Senator Basham's statement is as follows: I'd like to apologize to my colleagues for not being able to read 900 pages of material in 15 to 20 minutes. I thought I was a pretty fast reader, but I couldn't get through it. So I'm going to rely on Senate Fiscal's analysis of those 900 or so pages and just speak to two issues. I could speak to all of them, but everything's been said but not by everybody on at least a couple of these. In one of them--and I'm proud to have served my country--when it comes to the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, this is a nation that ties yellow ribbons around the trees when our veterans come home, wanting them to come home. We shouldn't be pinning Band-Aids to those trees when it comes to taking care of the needs of those veterans who will get greater and greater needs every day. We say we care about our veterans when they're in Iraq or Afghanistan, but when they come home, and particularly here in Michigan, we're going to cut $2.2 million from the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. That's unconscionable, and we should get real because it affects real people. These cuts aren't in abstentia. These cuts happen to real people. Some of those people are veterans. I'd like to talk about one more--Department of State Police. As we go about cutting State Police posts and laying off troopers, the trooper's union stood up and are funding the salaries of state troopers. We say we care about public safety, but here we're talking about cutting $14.1 million from the State Police. That's a real issue. It happened to real public safety officials, and it's going to have a real long-term effect on the state of Michigan and its people. That's just two of these real issues that could effect real people if this Senate bill passes. Please, Mr.President, use my comments as my "no" vote explanation, and I would encourage my colleagues to really take a look at what they're planning on voting for here and they have to justify it. There is a thing called a mirror in this state and we should be looking into it.

Senator Gleason's statement is as follows: Is this what a representative of the citizens of Michigan get today? When we're talking about the standard of living and quality of life of Michigan citizens, we get this. Muhammad Ali, when he was getting ready to fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, he told his future opponent, "You can run, but you can't hide." Tonight you can run it, but you can't hide what's in it. I remember not too long ago, when I would meet people coming to the Flint area to seek work, they left homes down in the South trying to make their lives better for them and their family and future generations. At that time, a Republican Governor thought it would be fruitful for the state and more than beneficial if we began the income tax so that we had a steady stream of funding for programs that we thought were vitally important--education, police, fire. They thought it was kind of important at that particular time, too, that we take care of the environment. Not too far removed from that, another Republican Governor thought it would be appropriate that we increase that steady stream of funding. Now that next increase happened in every person's life in this chamber here tonight. The last few years, we've heard there is a philosophy floating around this town and others that if we cut taxes, our society, our state, and our country would be better; that if we cut taxes, we would create more jobs. I've been down in Lansing now four years and nine months. We've cut taxes pretty much every year. If that was going to be symbolic and emblematic of the job creation, I think, today we would probably have more jobs than we do folks who are unemployed. I don't think it's working out that way. Now many of you all know that I've had a strong and fervent dedication to the disabled. When I read about these cuts in this bill taking away transportation for the disabled to go to work, many of them, two million disabled Michiganians, a lot of them rely on public transportation. I see we have a line item in there to remove public transportation in inner cities. I don't think any of our inner cities are doing what they should be doing as far as job creation. You couple that with the elmination of funding for economic development in this state, I get back to that question if we cut taxes, there should be more than enough jobs to be going around today. But I don't know what kind of state you guys want, but I know I don't want somebody saying that bus isn't going to be there tomorrow to pick up some disabled Michiganian saying, "Well, I know you work real hard; you've got your life in order; it's very difficult; about 80 percent unemployment in the disabled community; but you worked hard and did what you were supposed to do; you got that job, but I'm sorry. Our state is just so hard off that that bus won't be there tomorrow." The generation before me that stood down here and tried to take care of business for my family and yours believed and hoped that their actions would give people around them, and even their colleagues hoped for, a better Michigan. I think our hope has kind of switched places with the political wants. I don't think we are a better state because of that. When I look at the history here, the income tax and other revenue streams, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even people who because of religious obligations couldn't gauge the political process, antied up and made sure that those who needed taking care of were taken care of. I think we must look a lot closer than what we have, and I think it takes a lot more time than a few moments to dig through a 900-page bill. But some of the things that jump out on us, I don't think we have to look at very long and very hard. I think we've lost a lot of our prudence. We can do better and I expect that we will. So, Mr.President, I hope that those in this chamber tonight would reflect in the same fashion. Those who served the Senate districts in the past did that. We fund our state to a level that, once again, we provide our citizens and ourselves hope. Mr.President, I ask that my remarks be recorded as my "no" vote. I strongly object to the cuts that we have before us tonight.

Senator Garcia's statement is as follows: I'm a little late with this, but I rise to give a "no" vote explanation on Senate Bill No.511. For those of you who know me, you know that I've consistently voted for cuts. As recently as a few months ago, I voted for budget cuts, and before this process is over, I intend to vote for even more cuts which will be substantial but not to the level offered by Senate Bill No.511. Many of the cuts included in this bill are unrealistic. I will support tough but realistic cuts. By moving this bill forward, we are delaying by a day what is inevitable. I've said previously that at the end of the day, there will be significant cuts and more than likely increased revenues. Here we are seven days from a government shutdown and we're still posturing. In my opinion, this bill includes cuts that aren't really there and has potential to impact public safety such as secondary road patrols. I could go on and list other impacts on services, but in the interest of time, I won't. Sometime in the next seven days, there will be another version of this bill here with fewer but more realistic cuts. As long as those cuts are significant and realistic, I intend to vote for that bill.

Senator Cropsey's statement is as follows: A couple of observations on this legislation and the following piece of legislation, you know, we did pass budget bills through here not too long ago. At that time, I don't remember the Senate Democrats offering any substitutes to those bills to have them tell us what their plan was. So right now, the Senate Democrats are asking the Republicans to negotiate from their starting position, not even knowing where the Senate Democrats have their starting position. You mean, we're going to negotiate with nothing? But I think if you are going to make that allegation, then put out your plan, Senate Democrats, if you have a plan. Just wanted to make a few comments on the part of the budget that deals with the Department of Corrections. Lo and behold, what we have found in the Department of Corrections, can we make savings there? You better believe we can make savings. I would like to have the Senate Democrats defend keeping these things in the bill. Cuts to nonholiday overtime, $10 million. Holiday overtime increased by one-third last year and we're trying to bring the holiday overtime into balance. Regionalization of the facilities at Ionia, Kincheloe, and Jackson is going to save over $5 million. Half-year of savings on the centralization of prisoner storage, this half-year is almost $4 million. Half-year of savings on the centralization of receipt processing. Over $100,000 savings through discontinuing athletic shoes to Level 4 prisoners. Now get this, Level 4 prisoners are almost the highest security level. They're next to the highest security level. Right now, we're providing them athletic shoes and that is costing us over $400,000 to provide athletic shoes to people who are locked in their cell most of the time. Now give me a break. I'd like to have someone from the other side stand up and explain why we cannot make these reductions and make these efficiencies in the Department of Corrections. Either that or come up and tell the people of the state of Michigan why you want to raise taxes to keep doing things as they have always been done. I would just challenge the Senate Democrats to come up with your proposal because, very frankly, I haven't seen it, and I don't see how you can expect us to negotiate with something that we haven't seen.

Senator Pappageorge's statement is as follows: You know, the world is full of critics and what we need are playwrights. Other than the good Senator's opening remarks from the 10th District, all I've heard is criticism. Now let's review how we got to this omnibus budget package. Most of you know the story, but I want to repeat it. In January, we have a revenue estimating conference, and the instant that we accept that estimate, it becomes a promise. Everybody talks about cuts from that point on. The fact is, this year that estimate was about $900 million too high. In the State of the State, the Governor offered something like 17 new programs, and in round numbers, that came to another $900 million. That's how we got to the $1.8 billion. Now as you all know, half of the budgets originate in the House, half originate in the Senate, and then by April, we're done and we switch those budgets. Then five people get in the room, the Governor, the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, and the two Appropriations chairs, and historically and traditionally, what was expected was those five folks would figure out how much money we had. They would allocate it among 17 budgets and those allocations were called targets. The targets went back to those of us who were on various committees and we arranged our budgets to not go over that target. This time in May, there were three Democrats and two Republicans in the room and the proposal was once we figure out how much money we have, let's pretend we have an additional $1.8 billion. Then the proposal was to the minority, "We want you guys to give us cover by voting for a tax increase to cover the $1.8 billion." Not surprisingly, the answer was "no." We began on the sly toward a possibility of shutting down this government when we refused to give targets to committees, and because committees could not meet and work on a target, we now wind up with this omnibus bill that is before us. That's how it happened; that's how we got to where we are today. The problem still remains, as the previous speaker said, propose something. The beginning of bipartisan is when both parties or three parties or however many are involved each propose something. So far, the proposals have only come from this side of the aisle.

Senator Schauer, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of Senate Bill Nos. 511 and 237 and moved that the statement he made during the discussion of the bill be printed as his reasons for voting "no." The motion prevailed. Senator Schauer's statement is as follows: I came to the State Capitol tonight, on a Sunday night, to come together to forge a bipartisan agreement to save our state. With all due respect to the Republican majority caucus, these bills move us no closer to a resolution to our state budget crisis. In fact, they move us backward. There are one of two possibilities concerning these bills. First, Senate Republicans truly believe that these $900 million in cuts are the way to balance our budget, or second, this is just a game. If the first is true, this approach of mortgaging our future is a nonstarter with Democrats who are committed to protecting our state and gets us no closer to a solution. If this is just a game with just seven days left in our fiscal year, we have wasted another day and have been moved one step closer to a government shutdown. Let me be clear, colleagues, Democrats here in this chamber are ready to negotiate a solution, but this is not a negotiation. And $900 million in cuts are not a solution. Make no mistake, the cuts supported by Republicans in Senate Bill Nos. 511 and 237 hurt our state, particularly jeopardizing education, health care, and public safety. Now I found it ironic to this point that no one in support of these bills have risen to speak. I wait with great anticipation to hear a defense of how these bills actually move us forward without hurting our state and jeopardizing our future. Democrats stand ready to work in a bipartisan way to save our state. I urge my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to reject these bills and get to the bargaining table. Our future relies upon it.

With all due respect Senator, what would you do if there simply was no money left to take? Unlike the businesses that support all of the budget through taxation, you in the government have the option of holding a gun (literally) to your customers (us) heads, and taking our money through tax increases. We business owners who provide EVERYTHING the government has, do not have the option of forcing our customers to pay more for our products. You really don't get it do you?

...passing HB4749? That would bring in a MINIMUM of $25 MILLION without cutting any services or raising taxes. That's not even taking into account the millions of new revenue that would be generated through increased motorcycle sales and tourism. It's time for the governor to put her emotions and opinions aside and do what's right. Granted $25 million isn't enough to solve all of our states problems, but it's a start. Who else is offering the state "free money" and asking so little in return? At this point it would be irresponsible not to pass this bill.

Senator Switalski’s first statement is as follows: Mr. President, I will be very brief. My apologies, you know, you sometimes have to do things to make the process move more smoothly, and rather than read this whole bill, I will just explain to everyone basically we are just amending the package to put the Governor’s proposal in that she had unveiled back in early February, I believe it was. It’s mostly university and community college packages. There are a couple other items that were left off that we added in there, small items. So, basically, you’ve got the Governor’s package in front of you, and we hope that members would take a look at that and say for the benefit of the stimulus that we give to this state—you’re talking about $1.4 billion of stimulus—that it is worth doing this, especially since these university projects, normally we’re contributing 75 percent and the university contributes 25 percent. You look at U of M, you look at Michigan State and Wayne State, they’re contributing 75 percent and we’re contributing 25 percent. So we’re leveraging way more spending as a stimulus to the state. I think this would be the perfect time to do this. I’ve often drawn a contrast to what the federal stimulus package is doing. That was passed by bipartisan votes in Washington. You’ve got a stimulus package where we just give people $600 or $1,200 and say, “Please, go spend it.” This would actually be giving people a job to create something, build a building, having something of value. People who have a job are much more willing to spend than people who get a one-time payment. I think it’s a much more responsible approach. I hope members will approve of the amendment to the substitute.

Senator Pappageorge’s statement is as follows: I rise in opposition to this amendment. Let’s just talk about what is going on here. There are three pieces in the capital outlay budget. The first one is to get some federal money for the airports. The second one is the state-restricted money, and the third piece is purely General Fund money to various colleges, universities, and so forth. Quite frankly, I can get folks on both sides of the aisle to look at that list and say, “You know, it needs works. It looks partisan. It looks this; it looks that.” That’s the proper thing for the capital outlay committee to look at. It is not proper, in my view, to hold that federal money and that state-restricted money hostage to the list that the Governor wants us to approve for the GF money. How we use that GF money is our job, and it’s very proper for us to pull and push and so forth with regard to that list. We can reprioritize that list. We can do as the Senator from the 10th District suggested. We can raise a cap. We can phase the thing. We can do all kinds of things with that GF portion—the General Fund portion—of the capital outlay budget. It is absolutely, in my view, unconscionable to hold that federal money hostage. I want that list or nothing kind of approach. I would urge you, all my colleagues, to understand there are things that the capital outlay committee can do and things that we’ve got to do today to save some money coming into this state. I would urge you to defeat this amendment.

Senator Switalski’s second statement is as follows: I had thought that we could just move to the vote, but, yeah, that was on the other substitute, but I had hoped we could just move to the vote. But I kind of have to get up and respond to my good friend, the Floor Leader, about partisanship. It’s all part of perspective. You could look at the Governor’s list and say, “Gee, maybe it didn’t include all the most worthwhile projects.” My good friend, Senator Cherry, just got up and said—and we’ve been saying in committee—hey, please if some have been left out that are worthy, bring them forward. We are open-minded about this. For the past two weeks, including just this morning, we’ve been bringing in universities and community colleges that were left off. It’s almost like a Republican love fest. You know, they get to have all their reps come in and have all their people there. They talked about their project. They are very worthy. I think we could easily work something out. I just didn’t want us to get into a partisan fight over this because I think it’s actually something that we’re going to eventually agree on. I think that the timing thing is important, but you don’t want to push it too hard because the federal thing was just passed in February. As I understand it, we’ve actually got until May 1 before it would even be possible and more likely after that, but I don’t disagree. I’m glad we’re moving forward with something today. It gets us into that process. It gets us into that negotiation. I would just add one last point. When we are the highest in unemployment, what better time to have a stimulus. What better time to put people to work making something of value. That is when you do this; when you have high unemployment; when you get a good product for your money that you expend.

Rep. Agema, having reserved the right to explain his nay vote, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: Once again we are denied due process of law by not allowing votes on the bill presented, but rather being forced to vote on the one suddenly substituted at the last minute. I refuse to vote yes on a substitute budget busting bill. This substitute jeopardizes needed Federal funds for airports, DNR etc. and a possible loss of $163 million in Federal dollars.”

Rep. Sheen, having reserved the right to explain his nay vote, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: The Republicans were not allowed a roll call vote on their substitute and the SB 511 was not made available until one minute before the vote. No one had a chance to read it and the legislative process was once again corrupted. This is not how representative government is suppose to function and another example of the present legislature’s dysfunction.”

Senator Cherry’s statement is as follows: Mr. President, I have to say that I am very outraged about what just happened here. We had the opportunity to invest in our state, to invest in our community colleges, and to invest in our universities and we chose to drop them. We chose to not provide jobs throughout our state and to not improve our economy and to make sure that we were not providing the improvements to our universities and community colleges that we so need to do. We made a major mistake, I believe. We also did that without proper debate.

Senator Switalski’s statement is as follows: I would concur in the remarks of Senator Cherry. I am very disappointed that you try to work with people and try to work something out and then you ask what is actually in the amendment that is just handed to you—the substitute—and there is no explanation. We have no time to offer an amendment, and it’s unfortunate. It’s hard to deal with that. But I’d like to offer my “no” vote explanation and I would remind members of the chamber that we just passed a capital outlay bill just last year and the vote was, I think, one “no” vote. It was like 33-1 or something in this chamber. What has happened since then? Wall Street has approved our resolution of our structural deficit problem, and our annual billion-dollar-plus deficits are gone and the national economy is teetering on recession, but we are relatively stable in the state budget. The government’s role is to stimulate the economy during downturns, and we have no budget deficit right now. We are arguing over a surplus and how much we should increase higher ed and K-12 and other state functions. In this environment, this capital outlay bill would help stimulate our economy and help stimulate a recovery. We have a lot more money right now than we did when we passed the previous capital outlay bill, and it seems like this would be a good time to do this. But what we have in front of us takes out all the projects, apparently, because I haven’t had a chance to review it, and no questions were answered about it to reassure me exactly what is in there. If we go back to February of this year, the Governor has proposed a capital outlay bill, in essence, reversing ourself from the time she had vetoed the one that we had passed at the end of last year and had proposed capital outlay spending. The Legislature had looked at that and evaluated it and found a few flaws. We’ve been talking about those flaws for the past three months. One of those flaws was, “Gee, not all the projects are in the bill. In fact, it seems like there are a lot of projects in Dem areas and not enough in Republican areas.” So we listen to that and we thought, “You know, that might be a fair criticism. Let’s see if we can find a more evenhanded bill.” We proposed and the original version of Senate Bill No. 511 that came over from the House had everyone’s project in—all Republican and Democratic projects. There was a second objection, which was the bond cap was going to have to be raised and it was time to raise that bond cap. We said, “Well, we don’t really want to raise the bond cap.” And we found a way to accommodate all of the projects over a series of years to stay under the bond cap and to not require a raising of that cap. So on the two principal objections, we found a way at the suggestion of one of my good Republican colleagues of phasing it in over three years and accommodating that. We went to the institutions and said, “Give us your top priority. Nobody gets more than one.” That was all put into the bill. Now, people who are fiscally conservative and careful about our money have worried about the bond cap and raising that bond cap. We addressed that by not raising it, but then they worried about our debt service. Our debt service would be less than it was in 2003, before we raised taxes when we had more money. Our debt service is the lowest it has been since 1997—for eleven years. As you know, when we do capital outlay projects, the universities and colleges have to spend their money first before the state kicks in its portion. In fact, the state wouldn’t have any outlays until probably 2011 before we’d have to start contributing. So it’s not a budget impact in this year or the year after or until 2011 before it begins. What do we get for that? We get a huge stimulus to our economy. We get tradespeople and construction workers who are laid off and drawing benefits and unemployment. We’d get them instead paying taxes. We get the benefit of science and technology buildings and nursing program building expansions that would actually train people to get jobs that are available and unfilled—to fill shortages in this state. About $125 million falls off our debt service each year and this would be falling off and keeping us under the cap. We’d actually have a cushion. So we could have done all these projects and not put ourselves into a difficult position. I think it would have been very wise to do that. The universities normally pay 25 percent match to our 75 percent, and in this bill, because of a $40 million cap, universities are paying about 78 percent on average. The Big Three—U of M, MSU, and Wayne State—would be putting in $100 million when the state is putting in $40 million. We get a huge benefit—huge stimulus—that we are not paying for. We’re leveraging those university dollars; so again, another good reason to do it. I would just pose one question to members and it deals with your vision of the future. To clarify your vision, I would say, would you ever tell your child, “Hey, don’t take out a student loan. Don’t go to college. The economy is bad and it might be tough getting a job. Don’t go into debt to get your education.” I don’t think any of us would tell our child that. It speaks to the essence of our economic problem today. It’s a crisis of confidence. The credit market is afraid to lend. Consumers are afraid to buy, and the banks are afraid of foreclosures. This makes everyone unwilling to act, and it brings about a recession. People are afraid to make any kind of move. So what is the role of government in this situation? I would suggest that in such a crisis, it is the government’s job to lead, and if the government doesn’t have the confidence to invest, how can it expect consumers and businesses and banks to lend or spend or invest? I think this is the singular reason that we should have supported a full capital outlay budget.

Rep. Agema, having reserved the right to explain his nay vote, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: SB 511 in it’s original form separated out the airport funding so that the people of the state of Michigan could take advantage of the $9 of Federal money for every $1 of state money. This substitute bill was an attempt by the democrats to force excessive spending at a time when we can least afford it. We will lose out on Federal money because of partisan politics. This is further evidence that the airport funding should be in the transportation budget so that the Governor can not use this leverage to put out partisan pork.”

Rep. Rocca, having reserved the right to explain his nay vote, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: Unfortunately, once again, a substitute version of the legislation was provided to members of the House of Representatives literally after the voting board was opened to take a record roll call vote for final passage, giving the members of this body inadequate time to review the content of this spending bill. While I may, in fact, support many of the items contained in this budget, I find it difficult to agree to spend hundreds of millions of the taxpayers’ dollars without first being allowed to review how that money will be spent.”