MEA Votes

If there’s not enough money in the coffers, how are you supposed to budget it?

That’s the quandary faced by Gov. Granholm – and, by proxy, our schools across Michigan. Because our antiquated tax system isn’t handling the challenges of a 21st century economy, we’re not bringing in enough revenue to fund schools and other critical public services.

That’s led to huge cuts to K-12 spending – a $165 per pupil cut by the Legislature; $54 million in line item vetoes by the governor; and another $127 per pupil proration announced yesterday by the governor.

Unless the Legislature takes action, these cuts will irrevocably harm our state’s students and economic future. The solution of choice for the past decade – cut upon cut upon cut – isn’t working. We can’t cut our way out of this crisis, because the problem isn’t spending... it’s our broken tax structure and education funding system.

What is the solution? Comprehensive tax reform. Taking a hard look at what/who we tax – and what/who we don’t. Michigan gives away hundreds of millions in tax incentives without any regard for whether or not those investments help our economy or create jobs. Our economy is shifting away from manufacturing toward more service industries – but we do nothing to tax services. Lower and middle income families pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes than our state’s top earners. These issues and more must be taken up by our leaders in Lansing in order for us to break the cycle of budget crisis our state has been trapped in for years.

It’s time for our Legislature to make some tough choices – it’s easy to hack and slash at the budget, but it’s hard to make politically unpopular choices with the best interest of the state at heart. That takes courage. The good news is that there are some in Lansing who are finally seeing the light and recognizing that the system is broken.

Take the “Freshmen Caucus” for example – this bipartisan group of first-term legislators is calling on the Legislature to reform the budget process – their proposal got front-page coverage in the Free Press. While it’s not a call for tax reform, it’s at least a step in the right direction – a fundamental realization from both sides of the aisle that the status quo isn’t working and everyone needs to work together and fix it for the benefit of our state and its children.

Voters, school employees, parents, students, business owners – every citizen of this state – need to make their voices heard right now. Call on your state representative and senator to set aside the politics and make the tough choices. Update our antiquated tax structure. Fix our broken system of funding schools. Invest in our future. Stop these massive cuts to public education. Keep Michigan a state where we all want to live, work and raise our families.