President Bush has created a $3.1 trillion budget proposal — a 6 percent increase from last year’s $2.9 trillion plan. Among some of the proposed spending is the $145 billion stimulus package that would provide tax refunds for individuals, tax cuts for businesses and an 8.2 percent increase in security spending.

One of the major cuts presented in the plan is a near $196 billion slash to health care during the next five years, which would be achieved by holding payments to hospitals and health care providers. All in all, there’s an expected $407 billion worth of deficits in 2009.

Closer to home, Gov. Jennifer Granholm introduced a comparably modest $44.8 billion budget, which is about 2.9 percent higher than last year. In it, she proposed $13.5 billion worth of funding to state schools — including a $108-$216 increase per pupil, with less affluent schools receiving more funding — a 4 percent increase in local revenue sharing, $8.5 billion for health care and $618 million for worker training.

And there would be about a 3 percent increase for colleges and universities.

Here is a set of completely opposing plans — an awful, fiscally irresponsible budget versus a well-rounded, long-term one.

While Bush solidifies his legacy with military and security spending to benefit his “war on terrorism,” Granholm is carefully crafting hers with a higher investment in education.

The now 5-year-long war in Iraq is still demanding most of the United States’ resources. Although our country is going deeper and deeper into debt, it never seems to be enough. And during the next few years, we’ll have less health care to show for it.

Granholm, however, is shifting the focus to schools while providing a boost to areas that have continually been financially deprived in recent years, such as police and local revenue sharing. Although the state is facing a variety of pressing concerns, funding education will indirectly help. The more educated people there are, the better the economy will be.

The good, and most enigmatic, part is that no new fees or taxes are being proposed to help fund these Michigan programs. And Bush is upping the spending and giving people a tax refund.

Budgets are simply magical like that.

But it’s unlikely these budgets will pass as they are.

What is proposed by these leaders must be OK’d by legislative bodies, which will undoubtedly change something or everything before they consider passing their respective budget.

But as they stand, it’s quite clear which is the winner and which is the loser.

So this year, we gladly say yea to Granholm’s budget and nay to Bush’s.