A Message from Leon Drolet —
This week is D-Day for the coming state budget: a balanced state budget is constitutionally required by the end of this week.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) and House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford) stunned the Lansing establishment and angered Governor Granholm when they announced that they had agreed to balance the 2010 budget with federal stimulus money and absolutely NO TAX INCREASES. Of any sort. No “revenue enhancements”, no “loophole closings”, and no fee hikes. In fact, state spending would actually be cut – for real.
But this afternoon, The Detroit News is reporting online that the “no tax hikes” agreement is in jeopardy.
Friends, I don’t do this very often, but I am going to do it now: I am asking you to please call your state senator and state representative. I know that you get these kinds of requests from grassroots groups all the time. Most people just hope that other people will call.
Please take just ten minutes to look up the contact number for your two state lawmakers and call them. Please tell them to balance the state budget by cutting spending with NO tax increases or “revenue enhancements” of any kind.
This will take ten minutes. Here are the links to the contact info for your state representative and your state senator.
Again, I won’t ask you to do this more than two or three times in a year. These two calls are the most important calls you can make to your state lawmakers this year. Please.
Here is a clip from this afternoon’s Detroit News update:
“Dillon: House may have to propose tax increases for state
MARK HORNBECK
Detroit News Lansing Bureau mHouse Speaker Andy Dillon said today the House may look at tax increases before the end of the week if there are spending targets that are too difficult to meet before the Sept. 30 budget deadline.
Dillon said after a joint appearance at the Detroit Economic Club breakfast with Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, that he’s especially worried about Community Health, Human Services and revenue sharing.
The Redford Township Democrat said it should be evident by 5 p.m. Tuesday — the deadline for conference committees to pass department budgets — whether there will be a problem garnering enough House votes to approve certain budgets.
“We may look at targeted revenues before the end of this week,” he said.
Asked which tax or fee increases he was considering, Dillon said: “I have a list of what my tax group has put together that we could get the most votes for,” but he declined to elaborate.
The speaker said passing a continuation budget for those departments in which spending targets can’t be reached “is a possibility,” but one he wasn’t interested in exercising before taking a shot at getting the entire budget passed. He said voting on budgets could begin as early as Wednesday, but would more likely happen Thursday and Friday.”
Ten minutes. Two calls. You may be surprised how much it may help.
Thank you. I’ll keep you posted.
Leon Drolet
Director, MI Taxpayers Alliance
www.mitaxpayers.org
