Gov. Granholm should be more creative when it comes to funding the Michigan Promise scholarship
Gov. Jennifer Granholm spoke Thursday at Charles V. Park Library Auditorium about her plan to save the Michigan Promise scholarship.
The scholarship was taken out of the 2009-10 state budget, when the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted to remove the scholarship. Gov. Granholm vowed to fight for the Scholarship. Now she is traveling to colleges across the state, encouraging students to contact their representatives to support her plan.
The governor’s plan is to cut part of a future tax credit increase and use that money to pay for the scholarship.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), at 10 percent, was scheduled to go up to 20 percent over the next few years, but Granholm is proposing that it only be increased to 12.5 percent and the remaining 7.5 percent that would be going back to taxpayers would be used to pay for the Michigan Promise.
The Governor’s plan is joined by some Republicans, such as Rep. Bill Caul, R-Mount Pleasant, a member of the Higher Education Appropriations Committee, who said he supports the plan because it would be “using existing dollars.” He went on to emphasize “the (state) government needs to tighten its belt, just like Michigan taxpayers have had to do.”
The Senate had approved the governor’s changes to the EITC last month; however, that money was going to go toward funding K-12 schools, not the Michigan Promise.
While I am glad the governor’s plan would not increase taxes, something that would be detrimental to Michigan’s economy, I am skeptical that cutting an income tax credit is the right thing to do. Michigan’s economy is suffering and, if the governor wants to spur the economy, she has to find a way to upstart spending, and a way to do that is to return money to the taxpayers.
If the state takes this money away from K-12 schools and moves it to fund the Michigan Promise, I think that hurts us more in the long run. The governor talked about a goal to double the number of college graduates in the state but, if she removes funding from the K-12 budget, that hurts Michigan’s future college students. K-12 schools are struggling right now, especially in areas such as Detroit. Now is not the time to take funding from them.
Bringing back the Michigan Promise is an important issue, and I would love to see the state find the money to do it, but I fear that this proposal will hurt taxpayers as well as K-12 schools. But I will commend Granholm and Caul on one issue: at least this proposal uses money the government already has.
I am glad the governor realizes a tax increase is not the solution here.
I would encourage the state government to sit down and try to figure out a way to balance the funding for the Michigan Promise, K-12 schools and a tax credit for Michiganders.
