Things to keep in mind as legislators shuffle toward the October 1 deadline:
Bridge Feed- Urban farm plan reels in cash, tilapia
- Ethnic media alliance pushes stories of success, provides community leadership
- Michigan goes hard after student loan defaulters
- State takes cautious approach to freight hub proposals
- Land O Links
- Guest column: Student loan debt is next big bubble
- Half the investment on colleges means a full measure of trouble for Michigan
- Report: Michigan’s license ‘burden’ is above average
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One Comment
John, re your last point on the mass willingness to ignore long-term issues:some of the cuts only/reforms, such as the Senate passed early-out will dramatically increase the unfunded costs for pensions and retiree health care–on the order of $1 billion or more. In addition, the Senate numbers assumed that all of the eligibles leave October 1, which will be tough to do since the bill hasn’t passed both houses, so the “savings” number is overstated, plus losing some of these employees and not replacing them may have impacts on things like federal matching funds requirements and the troublesome little issue of who’s going to watch the inmates that no one wants to release. In addition, since the Senate proposed cuts were only presented at a conceptual level, and never adopted in detail, we don’t really know the full impact of cuts on services and things like federal matching rates..we could end up losing lots of federal dollars in addition to the state cuts. It will be tough to come out of the last minute crisis with a good balanced plan.