The two candidates for Michigan’s 99th district House of Representatives seat debated at a forum hosted by the League of Women voters.

Cotter advocated efficiency in all facets of the legislature, from the environment and roads to the budget and taxing.

“I see Michigan as a state in crisis,” Cotter said. “Everything trickles down from the economy.”

Both candidates agreed new taxing methods and less business regulations are the keys to letting small business thrive and bringing jobs back to Michigan.

Sessoms supports a tiered tax to lower the burden on the lower classes, while Cotter disagreed.

“A single mother working two jobs is paying the same tax as a corporate millionaire,” Sessoms said. “(A progressive tax) doesn’t have to be anything that’s going to gouge anyone.”

About 90 people attended the forum at Mount Pleasant’s City Hall, 320 W. Broadway.

Education was a hot topic in the debate, as Sessoms and Cotter debated funding and private school vouchers. Both candidates said education was a priority and concrete funding is a key to paying for Michigan’s schools.

The candidates debated other topics, ranging from the environment to Bridge Card abuse.

Sessoms reaffirmed her stance on restoring the Michigan Promise scholarship. She said taxes don’t have to be raised and money can be found in places like tax credits to fund the Promise.

“We look for places to save like a small business would. We’re bleeding money at that level,” Sessoms said. “The Michigan Promise was just that: a promise.”

Cotter voiced his disapproval for Proposal 1, which would facilitate a rewriting of the state Constitution, and said it would be too costly. Sessoms said it was an issue that should be left to the voters.

“This is not the time,” Cotter said. “We do have ways of changing the document without opening up the document.”

That is my only answer as to why Michigan’s politicians keep telling college students that they will bring back the Michigan Promise scholarship.

The Michigan Promise is gone and much like ‘N Sync, never coming back.

After protests, editorials and outrage after the cut was announced, students have accepted that the scholarship is gone and have found other means to fill the void created by its elimination.

But now we have the Democratic ticket for governor filling students heads with visions of the scholarship’s return.

On Tuesday in an appearance at Wayne State University, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero said he will bring the scholarship back if elected governor.

This follows an appearance in Mount Pleasant last month when his running mate, Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence, said that a Bernero-Lawrence administration will not only bring back the scholarship but also freeze college tuition in the state.

While those sound like great ideas that would even get a die-hard Republican such as myself to vote for Bernero, they both left out one little fact.

How they would pay for it.

When asked at his appearance at Wayne State, Bernero offered no details on how he would pay for any of it.

Michigan’s college students are paying for eight years of Gov. Jennifer Granholm and now at least deserve the respect to not have empty promises flung at them just in an effort to garner votes.

We all know the state of Michigan’s economy and that the $140 million to fund the scholarship is something the state cannot afford.

While Bernero is off in dreamland about finding a spare $140 million in his couch cushions, his opponent is willing to speak truthfully on the issue.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder called the scholarship the “Michigan Lie” in a Republican gubernatorial debate in May at Grand Valley State University in May and said the program was “not the right answer” at an appearance at Central Michigan University in September.

Snyder is in favor of more financial need-based scholarships and grants.

The contrast between the candidates is clear. When faced with college students, the Democratic ticket will pander for votes and tell them what they want to hear while Snyder will actually have the respect for the students to tell them the truth.

The promise has been broken, now I just want the truth.

The Ann Arbor businessman spoke to about 200 students, university officials and community members about strengthening Michigan’s economy by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation.

“The government’s job is not to create jobs,” Snyder said at the town hall-style meeting.  “The government’s job is to create an environment where businesses can grow.”

Because his son recently graduated from college and is struggling to find a job, Snyder said he sympathizes with college students and recent grads trying to find work in the state.

After a question from a student regarding financial aid, Snyder addressed the Michigan Promise Scholarship, which has been an issue for students since it was cut last year. He said the program “is not the right answer.”

“We need to look at who really has the need,” he said.

Snyder also said the state needs to change the requirements for need-based financial aid.

Student attendance was strong at Snyder’s speech, which was announced this week.

“This is my first time voting for governor so I thought I’d go check it out,” said Midland sophomore Faith Gantner.  “I think his different background in business offers a new perspective and he can bring a lot of innovative ideas.”

After the event, students held signs and chanted “Hire Rick!” as Snyder exited.

Democrat protest

Several people dressed as cows, in a reference to Snyder’s executive background at Gateway, stood in the hall outside the auditorium to protest the event.

College democrats from different Michigan universities formed the crew to encourage fellow students to register to vote and stay informed about local politics. The volunteer crew follows Snyder around to each of his events  and plans to continue until the Nov. 2 election.

“Being a college democrat keeps me involved; I’ve always been a democrat and have strong democratic beliefs,” said Whitmore Lake freshman Kelsey Fearer, a member of the CMU College Democrats. “I’ve had friends and family whose jobs have been outsourced and I understand how unfair it really is.”

Gateway went from 20,000 employees to under 2,000 and outsourced work to China under Snyder’s leadership leaving many families jobless, said John Tramontana, Michigan Democratic Party communications director.

“If Snyder’s vision (for Michigan) is anything like it was for Gateway, we’re in trouble” he said.

Yet, even after five years, it is so difficult to believe it’s all about to end.

Next week, I will join a few thousand others at Kelly/Shorts Stadium in donning the black cap and gown as a tired but proud graduate of this university.

Just a few weeks ago, I handed in my application to work at CM Life, then sent an e-mail to then-editor Chad Livengood, now a political reporter at the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri, telling him I am dedicated to making his newspaper better.

And when I say ‘a few weeks,’ I mean four-and-a-half years.

But it sure doesn’t seem that long ago.

A time of change

Since fall 2005, two residence halls were built, the football team won three Mid-American Conference championships, a medical college was approved and tuition increased 57.7 percent.

That last item is particularly striking to me.

I was among the first students to receive the CMU Promise’s fixed tuition guarantee for my entire college stay. But because the state went deeper into recession and the university could only raise tuition for freshmen, CMU turned into one of the most expensive of Michigan’s 15 public universities.

I chose this place mostly for its cheap tuition (at the time). And I’m not the only one.

Now it costs $339 per credit hour, plus the inevitable July increase for 2010-11 students, to take classes here. Combine that with department cuts and wear and tear of the facilities, and you have what realistically is a devalued college experience.

Central Michigan Life, thankfully, helped pad my résumé in ways a classroom never would have. But most students don’t have the opportunity of gaining work experience across the hall. Most have to maintain Summa Cum Laude grades and cross their fingers to get a call back from an internship coordinator.

This is why I worry greatly for this university. It needs to keep its eyes wide and its money closer to the chest. Building a $25-million medical college, to me, is a slap in the face to other prestigious programs on campus that desperately need money to move forward.

goodbye to the community

Almost every day, I hear a CMU student criticize Mount Pleasant — not enough places to shop. No big attractions. It’s in the middle of nowhere.

Let’s face it — Mount Pleasant is not an ideal career destination for most, unless you’re good at dealing cards or serving drinks. But to say any of that is looking at the city in the wrong context.

The true beauty of attending college is crashing into people from all walks of life and making connections you never dreamed possible. Besides — it’s easy to call a town of 23,000 boring on an idle Monday night, but there are a ton of well-kept secrets here, if you look for them.

To every professor, student, adviser and colleague I’ve come in contact with the last five years — thank you.

I may be turning to a new page in my life, but I certainly won’t forget this one.

SGA protests education cuts in Lansing from CMLifeVideo on Vimeo.

One such candidate is Michael Trebesh, who is speaking to Campus Conservatives at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Bovee University Center.

The location at Bovee has yet to be announced. The event is free and open to the public.

“We think it’s important students see who their elected officials are, and that this seat will represent us as students,” said Hart junior Bryant Greiner, president of Campus Conservatives. “We are honored to have him as first speaker of the semester.”

Trebesh is seeking the Republican nomination for the 33rd state Senate District seat currently held by term-limited state Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt. The Michigan Constitution limits state senators to two four-year terms.

The 33rd state senate district covers Clinton, Ionia, Montcalm and Isabella Counties.

Trebesh, a certified public accountant, currently serves as the Bingham Township Treasurer, a position he was elected into in November 2008. He has spent nearly four decades as a professor at various higher education institutions including CMU, Michigan State University and Lansing Community College.

“If you would have told me five years ago that I’d be running for office I would have said, ‘Nope, somebody dropped you on your head,’” Trebesh said.

Trebesh’s main issue is to restructure Michigan’s tax code.

“We have to revise the tax code. It’s a patchwork method, a Band-Aid method,” Trebesh said. “We got to make the tax system fair. We have to fix Michigan before we can do anything else.”

Trebesh considers himself a fiscal and social conservative and served as president of the Clinton County Right to Life.

“We’re trying to bring this viewpoint to campus,” Greiner said.

Trebesh also supports restoring the Michigan Promise Scholarship for the students it was promised.

“A promise means a promise. If they said we’re going to do it, they should do it,” he said.

The Republican primary will be held Aug. 3 and the general election will be held Nov. 2.

Campus Conservatives handed out flyers, held up signs and chanted outside both entrances to the library, and had set up a table outside the main entrance with a pitcher of Kool-Aid, and was handing it out to passersby.

The Conservative said they handed out more than 500 flyers, from 7 a.m. until the beginning of the speech.

Wendy Day, an alumna protesting with the Campus Conservatives, was also handing out flyers that said “Don’t Drink The Kool-Aid!”

“I’m not sure how she can spin anything. Unless you ‘drink the Kool-Aid,’ and buy into the party line, I don’t see how you could buy into anything she says,” said Day, who identified herself as a “non-partisan protester.” “There’s so much government waste, and the political establishment is protecting it, on both sides of the aisle.”

Campus Conservatives Vice President of Recruitment Evan Agnello said the main issue they were protesting is the idea of taxing Michigan residents, college students included, to provide college students with the Michigan Promise Scholarship.

“The actual policy that we’re protesting is her idea of raising taxes to bring back the Michigan Promise Scholarship,” the Troy junior said. “Raising taxes to give out a scholarship is like taking money out of your left pocket to put it in your right.”

Agnello said the group also disagreed with the decision that Granholm would not be fielding questions from students.

While the Campus Conservatives protested the event and Granholm’s stance on the Promise Scholarship, the College Democrats demonstrated about 20 feet away, holding up signs supporting Granholm and the Promise.

“We want the Promise to be reinstated,” said Alex Teska, Trenton junior and advocacy co-chairwoman for College Democrats. “We believe that through the right taxes, like the one-cent tax on water bottles, it can be done. I know a lot of students are relying on this money to make ends meet.”

The idea is great in theory. Having the Governor put herself in front of students for an issue as important as this is always a plus.

The visit, however, was nothing more than shameless lobbying on Granholm’s part, as she failed to answer student questions or adequately describe how she would bring back the scholarship.

In the end, Granholm was “preaching to the choir” when she said the scholarship is important and did not accomplish much by coming to CMU.

The event was poorly planned from the beginning, as it was announced only days before Granholm came to campus. At 9:15 a.m., some students are on their way to class or work. The forum was held at the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium, one of the smallest venues on campus. And despite the forum being open to the public, students were turned away because there were too many people.

Only one question was answered, coming from a student who refused to sit down and be still.

The little talking Granholm did had no progress in bringing back the Promise. From the importance of higher education to families losing jobs, she delivered the same old rehash students have been hearing since the cut was proposed.

If Granholm really wanted to have an effective forum at CMU, she should have announced the visit further ahead of time. Plachta Auditorium at around 7 p.m. would have attracted a bigger crowd as opposed to a cramped auditorium early in the morning, even if she is busy.

Answering more questions from the audience would have made for progressive conversation. Instead, all she did was highlight the benefits of the Michigan Promise without giving a clear solution on how to bring it back.

And she spoke for 11 minutes.Too much time was spent on other speakers such as Student Government Association Vice President Brittany Mouzourakis which, as touching as her story might be, is the same sort of story we’ve heard from hundreds to thousands of other students. We want more higher ed funding; that’s nothing new.

Realistically, the forum itself was a useless idea. It’s a no-brainer that the governor will draw the most support to rally for scholarships at a college campus. But it’s not the students who make the laws and balance the budget. Granholm’s best advice was to get a hold of state representatives and let them know they want the Promise back.

As if no one already knew to do that.

Granholm would be much more productive rallying lawmakers in Lansing to ring the scholarship back and taking real action.

Leading by example will bring the scholarship back. Traveling from campus to campus and doing the same song and dance she did at CMU will not.

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.

“We know that times have changed and we have to change too as a state,” Granholm said at a packed Charles V. Park Library Auditorium. “The way that Michigan’s economy can get back on track is by the long term investment in education.”

The Michigan Promise, a state-sponsored scholarship that provided $4,000 to students attending at least a two-year institution, was cut from the state budget this year. To reinstate it, Granholm wants to slow a credit increase for the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Granholm said. “This is an issue about what makes sense for Michigan’s future. There are Democrats and Republicans that want to see this scholarship restored.”

She pledged to continue the fight to restore funding for the Michigan Promise because it corroborates with her goal of doubling the number of college graduates in Michigan, and encourages students to contact their senators and representatives.

Student Government Association President and Mount Pleasant senior Jason Nichol said he thought Granholm’s message was outstanding.

“It is such a rare occurrence to have a governor who is so committed to the students’ interest,” he said.

-Staff Reporter Lonnie Allen contributed to this report.