Lawmakers expect to meet Thursday deadline for $1.2 billion in Michigan budget cuts

state workers aren’t the general public…..? the majority of state employees are middle class struggling just like u.

Dear David Maatman,
FYI – I’m a state employee and the six furlough days this summer calculated out to a 10% pay cut. Our medical co-pays have doubled and my contributions toward insurance for myself and my daughter have increased by over $40 a month. Many of my co workers have taken second jobs to make ends meet. By the way, has your workplace every been infested with cockroaches or had holes in the roofs so large you could see the sky? Hmmm, mine has. Staff rigged plastic sheeting to divert the water from the leaking ceilings into the floor drains. So when you’re imagining state employees as having plum jobs you might want to think about my reality.

So when you cut state gov in ½ what part are you willing to shut down? Because in ½ is going to have a very large impact. Shut down all the rest areas, stop plowing the state highways and the interstates? How about the state police ½ of them are going to have to go away. The DNR no more hunting Sectary of state close ½ the offices and only open them maybe 2 days a week that will help sell cars. Shut down what is left of the unemployment operation? Shut down 1/2 the $$$ to education? At what point does this affect you and your family and your job?

The scale down in State gov has been going on steadily. The states budget problems have already been coming out of the hide of state employees just like every one else employed in our state feeling the pinch

I am amazed that people don’t feel the real problem is the tax base is gone in this state and the US. With the mass exit of companies and jobs gone out of this country this had to happen. Until we put people back to work in this country it’s just going to be more and more of the same pain. Let face it NAFTA put the US in a world market that then put the US worker and middle class in direct competition with every third world county on the planted. The only way things will change is when the middle class in this country is pretty much gone away and people are willing to work for the same wages as the third world countries.. As the middle shrinks away so does the tax base and we are caught in a various circle. The winners in this deal are the companies that can produce their products for ½ the price and bring them back to the US and sell them. That’s as long as there is some one to sell them to. That is slowly changing too.

We just keep electing these politicians who’s loyalty is to the special interest and where ever the largest campaign contribution come from.. The middle class in this county has been sold out, IMHO. When we put people back to work, a big part of this problem will go away!

State employees are tired of being the ones that ALWAYS have to bail the state out. We’ve had six unpaid layoff days since June. People are always wanting to cut the state employees.

This is is exactly why this place has gone to hell. You people want to sit and fight with each other rather than bring it up to the people that have caused the problem. I honestly think that the goverenment takes enough money out of us who work. It’s rediculous. You know i’m right. Don’t fight with each other. We all want this to get better don’t we? Why don’t we just go after the ignorant people who started it? Maybe like a revoulution or something yanno? People are just afraid now days. We gotta stand up for ourselves! Think of ways to help not fight

Michigan, although a great state from the years when I was growing up, has honestly always been on a downword spiral. There is a great number of issues both large and small that have made my opinion of Michigan change over the years. First and foremost, as much as it has been nice thus far not dealing with them, I strongly believe that Michigan should have considered a toll road. Think about it–Biden and Granholm were in West Michigan around the Kalamazoo airport just this past spring to discuss/launch/pass the “I-94″ project…obviously it is a well traveled interstate that is used by a number of in and out of state citizens. If we had tollroads/toll ways along certain portions of I-94, we would definitely help fund any improvements needed for years to come. In doing so, we could also fix the rest areas. They are horrible, horribly small and offer not much accommodation(s) to the public. I admit that there are a select few that have been redone and are of the higher end, but rest areas are definitely not a high priority or necessity to helping better Michigan.

My biggest concern of all time, coming from a future teacher, is that of educational funding. Does anyone in that room full of (hopefully) highly educated representatives for our state not want to better Michigan at all? There are schools for children with special needs that have already faced budget cuts. These children go to school year round not just because they need it to keep up with their motor skills/abilities, but because they enjoy it! I have a number of friends that got let go from a job they held dear to them with being teachers aids or part-time helpers assigned to a specific number of students at schools as such. Then we have the rest of our Michigan schools. With budget cuts, public schools will have less and less funding. I can tell you this, the drop-out rates will definitely increase with a great decline in those attending college after high school if programs like that of the Kalamazoo Promise are cut back or completely cut out.

And Grandholm….applause to you, lets please raise taxes so that the large number of unemployed will be paying from their unemployment pay or struggling to pay for much of anything like the rest of us. I think the most ridiculous tax I heard was in consideration was placing a deposit tax on bottled water! That is obsurd and outrageous…this just goes to show you we really cannot afford to cut back funding for education, no one can come to a considerable agreement, or really one at all. We have now created another two years of greater debt for ourselves in this state that is already over $300 billion dollars in the hole currently. And one last thing, yes, please shut down state/government employment offices for however long while cutting budgets for medicad and state funding for the mentall ill. This way we can have more helpless, homeless people running around in the streets without food and/or shelter with not much law enforcement to put a stop to possible mayham or places for them to get the proper treatment. Lets have the “baby boomers” running around sick and those that qualify for Medicad doing the same especially with the swine flu running amongst the population. Yet another great day for Michigan…watching the news is no longer an option because it has become so predictable and the one uplifting story holds no justice to the eight other heart-breaking, jaw-dropping, horrible downers. I know we are better than this and that we have great people working in government offices for our state, but my faith in is has been drastically diminished.