The passed budgets pertained to the department of community health, corrections, environmental quality and natural resources. In the governor’s budget, the money allotted for those four departments totaled $5,188,408,500. The House’s budgets allotted $121,058,100 more than the governor’s proposal.

This early into the process, any criticism of the House’s budget is premature, said Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing.

“We don’t even have the total budget proposed yet,” Meadows said. “I’m not sure what the governor’s proposals have to do with anything, unless (Bishop) is willing to pass bills exactly consistent with what was in the governor’s budget.”

As the House’s budget is incomplete, Meadows said it would be impossible to know what the final numbers would be.

“We could have $100 million more in some of them, while other bills may have $100 million less. Ultimately, if we pass budget bills that don’t add up to a balanced budget, we will re-establish and revise them,” Meadows said.

The state is already strapped for cash and cannot afford any increase in spending, Marsden said.

“We have a current services budget we’re having trouble finding money to pay for,” he said. “You can’t have a logical discussion about investing in the state until you have had a bipartisan effort to make reforms in government to affect the state’s bottom line.”

In order to pay for these spending increases, there would have to be a tax increase slightly larger than the $1.5 billion tax increase assumed in the governor’s budget.

The increases in the House’s budgets do not indicate the House has any interest in cutting spending, said Steve Mitchell, chairman of Mitchell Research and Communications Inc.

“The fact that there seems to be no curtailed spending in these budgets released indicates the Democrats in the House do not intend to cut spending and hope some tax increase will come to bail them out,” Mitchell said.

The biggest problem with Michigan’s economic crisis is there is little consensus as to how to fix the problem, he said.

“About half of the Democrats and the governor want to increase taxes, and that’s one solution,” Mitchell said. “All the Republicans and half of the Democrats don’t want to raise taxes or take a vote to raise taxes.”

Any movement toward a tax hike from Democrats or Republicans could adversely affect their reelection chances, Mitchell said. Republicans are already threatening to recall any republican who votes for a tax increase, he added.

The solution to Michigan’s economic problems cannot come from raising taxes, Marsden said.

“Your first solution should not just be raising taxes,” he said. “We can cut our way out of this. It would be painful, but it could be done.”

Further cuts would come from programs like worker benefits, and those would weaken the state, Meadows said.

“We’ve already cut out fat, and now we’re reducing services for the people of Michigan,” he said.

But, if it comes to a tax increase, Marsden said Bishop would not stand in the way of such a proposal.

“The bottom line is Senator Bishop doesn’t think greater taxes leads to a stronger economy,” Marsden said. “He’s not an obstructionist and would not block a vote on a tax increase, but until reforms are met, we don’t have a taxing problem – we have a spending problem.”

The best thing Bishop could do in regards to the House’s budget proposals would be to wait until the full budget reaches the Senate and make changes then, Meadows said.

“He ought to do his job,” Meadows said. “He needs to get off his dead ass and do something about it.”