The consequences of Gov. John Engler’s vetoes of more than $850 million in state payments to local governments is started to be driven home.
East Lansing city officials began looking hard at the numbers this week, and started talking about how they can make up for $4.6 million in lost state-aid. Cities across the state will have to make the same tough decisions if the Legislature doesn’t use an opportunity Tuesday to override Engler’s ill-thought cuts.
Otherwise, our city is left with a few very unpleasant options: close the MSU fire station, close the public library, shut down the Hannah Community Center, raise property taxes and establish a city income-tax.
For anyone who might not have been paying attention before, these costs should be more than enough to wake up. Engler’s vetoes - which eliminated the state’s planned revenue-sharing with local governments and cut fire protection grants - would leave each individual community struggling to provide the simplest of services.
With any luck, plans in the state House and Senate will come through, overriding Engler’s altered budget with a two-thirds majority.
From the beginning, Engler’s plans have been malicious. In a move against three November ballot initiatives - one which would constitutionally set aside tobacco settlement money for health care, one that would require treatment for drug offenders and a third that would mandate arbitration for state workers - the governor cut money communities rely on.
As part of his reasoning, Engler said those ballot measures would ruin state finances, as well as rewrite the state constitution and limit the power and flexibility of Michigan’s elected leaders.
But if Engler or any other lawmaker wants these ballot measures turned down at the polls, they need to get their message out and do a little campaigning. These methods appear to be little more than scare tactics to manipulate Michigan residents to choose between putting local governments in chaos or supporting a ballot initiative they may believe in.
Republicans and Democrats have been lining up against these vetoes, including Engler’s second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, and rightfully so.
The GOP-controlled Legislature has worked to keep several tax cuts in place while it dealt with a tight budget this year, even taking money from the state’s “rainy-day” fund to keep from making major cuts or increasing taxes. Eliminating these tax cuts, some say, would cause Michigan even more economic trouble.
But with the revenue sharing gone, communities will be forced to raise taxes themselves, destroying state lawmakers’ efforts to keep taxes low to encourage the economy.
If these three ballot proposals will cause harm to Michigan, surely a man elected governor three times can command enough respect to be heard by the voters without strong-arming them. If there are negative consequences, Engler should talk about them with the public.
But instead of going this route, voters are being treated like their opinions don’t matter. That’s not the way democratic societies are supposed to work.
