Citizens Research Council of Michigan: Snyder and GOP Budget Could Hurt Economy

From Michigan Democratic Party

But Timmy Skubick thinks
I'm doing a good job.

LANSING – The nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan has analyzed the budget passed by the GOP Legislature and signed by Governor Snyder last month and concluded that it could actually hurt Michigan’s economic recovery. The Council also warned about the economic harm caused by cutting public education and health care.

In its analysis, the CRC concluded that more than $750 million dollars will be taken out of public education and handed directly to major corporations and their CEOs.

“This analysis proves what Democrats and many voters have been saying since the budget was introduced in February – there is no proof that massive tax cuts for CEOs and major corporations will lead to any job creation,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said. “Indeed, according to the CRC, this budget could hurt economic growth in Michigan.”

“If we want to create jobs we need to strengthen the middle class,” added Brewer. “This budget and many of the GOP policies enacted this year are an attack on the middle class and will further damage our economy. Whether it’s unfair tax hikes on seniors and low-wage workers, cuts to public education and public safety, or an Emergency Financial Manager law that strips away voting rights, we know that none of these policies will create jobs in Michigan.”

“We hope this new report by the CRC will prove to the Republicans that they have put Michigan on the wrong track and must change course immediately,” said Brewer. “We need to focus on jobs, not giving nearly $2 billion to insurance companies, oil companies, and wealthy CEOs.”

To read the analysis, click the link below.
http://www.crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/2010s/2011/sbn2011-02.pdf

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Michigan House OKs $6.9B general-fund budget to close prisons, limit welfare to 48 months

BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF

LANSING – With only Republican support, the House today approved a $6.9 billion general fund budget for next year that spends $1.4 billion less than this year, and $165 million less than what Gov. Rick Snyder proposed.

That’s only half the battle done. 

On Thursday, the House is expected to vote on an even more controversial spending plan for public schools and colleges. That proposal would slash spending to K-12 schools by 3.5%, which means cuts ranging from $256 per pupil to $297 per pupil compared to this year’s spending plan.

It also for shifts about $900 million from the School Aid Fund to community colleges and universities – funding that has always come out of the general fund. 

Wednesday, only one of 63 Republicans voted against the 700-page budget plan for state government, which rolled 13 separate budgets into a single bill. 

All 47 Democrats voted against the budget, which totals $33 billion, much of it direct federal aid for roads, Medicaid and welfare programs. The $6.9 billion general fund includes only money collected by state taxes and fees.

Today's vote ignited an impassioned debate over the proper role of government, taxes and spending. 

Democrats called the budget plan immoral, unfair and even lethal because it reduces spending on social programs, such as domestic violence prevention. It strictly limits welfare benefits to 48 months – a limit that would drop about 12,000 from welfare rolls.

“You may have won an election, but you don’t have the right to hurt people,” Rep. Fred Durhal, D-Detroit, scolded Republicans. He said some people will die because they will be cut off from state-paid health care. 

Rep. Steven Lindberg, D-Marquette, warned that the Republican plan to privatize food services in state prisons could create safety threats. He said it would place inexperienced food workers among potentially dangerous criminals. He said inmates might rebel if cost-cutting affects the quality of their food. 

Rep. Chuck Moss, R-Birmingham, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, replied that the budget the state has too long spent beyond what it can afford. 

“That’s how we did things in the old day, but those days have to end,” Moss said. 

The House approval represents one more step toward Snyder’s goal of a completed 2011-12 budget by May 31. The Senate has already approved its budget version, although it has yet to vote on a sweeping tax reform plan that would slash business taxes by $1.7 billion, tax pensions and eliminate a tax credit for low-income workers. 

The House has already passed a tax plan, which includes a modified pension tax that exempts pensioners ages 67 and over. 

The administration, House and Senate now must reconcile differences among budget plans, although all three generally follow Snyder’s blueprint to erase a $1 4 billion deficit and to give businesses a large tax cut. 

For example, the House budget would close down the Mound Correctional Facility in Detroit, something the administration opposes. 

As Snyder proposed, the House budget plan also reduces revenue sharing to cities, townships and villages.

Town Halls Spawn Main Street Movement Pushback On Republican Ideas

By Jeff Spross 







The GOP-led House’s passage of a 2012 budget — engineered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — has laid the Republicans’ values out in the open for all to see: Strip huge amounts of funding from Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs aimed at supporting middle- and lower-income Americans, all to balance the budget (depending on whose numbers you believe) while keeping taxes on the wealthy at unprecedented lows.

Now that Republican representatives have returned to their districts for the congressional recess, everyday Americans at town hall meetings across the country are reacting with outrage at the perverse priorities of the Ryan budget. And this latestmanifestation of the burgeoning Main Street Movement against the right’s economic agenda has only grown in intensity since both ThinkProgress (and even some mainstream media outlets) began reporting on the phenomenon.

Watch a compilation video of some highlights from town halls across the country over the past week:

Pawlenty Dodges Question About Paul Ryan’s Medicare Cuts

By Igor Volsky 

Earlier this afternoon, House Republicans approved Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget framework that would reduce federal spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade and dramatically alter the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Ryan’s Medicare proposal would eliminate $30 billion from the program by forcing seniors to purchase private coverage beginning in 2022 and by retaining many of the Medicare savings that are part of the Affordable Care Act.

During a Tea Party rally in New Hampshire, likely presidential candidate and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R) endorsed the Ryan proposal, saying, “as a general matter and directionally, I think Paul Ryan’s plan moves in the right direction.” But when I pressed him over whether he supports maintaining some of the Medicare cuts that are part of health care reform, Pawlenty demurred, and took another question:

PAWLENTY: I like Paul Ryan’s plan directionally. I don’t think it’s fully filled out in terms of the fact that we still have to address Social Security and when we issue our plan later in this process, it will have some differences. [...]

VOLSKY: Do you support the Medicare cuts in his plan that he keeps from Obamacare?

PAWLENTY: Anybody else have a question besides this guy?

Watch it:

Ironically, Republicans attacked the Medicare cuts in the Affordable Care Act throughout the last two years, arguing that such reductions would ration care for seniors and would drive providers out of the program. In an executive order prohibiting Minnesota from implementing the ACA, Pawlenty referred to the cuts as “unrealistic assumptions regarding purported future cost-savings.”

Paul Ryan’s ‘Compassionate’ Budget Would Gut The Food Safety Net

By Pat Garofalo

The House today will vote on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) 2012 budget, his radical plan to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid while providing a healthy tax cut for the rich and corporations. Ryan’s budget has received a fair amount of criticism — and ismaking some House Republicans queasy — so Ryan took to the Washington Post today to defend himself:

Our budget offers a compassionate and optimistic contrast to a future of health-care rationing and unbearably high taxes. We lift the crushing burden of debt, repair the safety net, make America’s tax system fair and competitive, and ensure that our health and retirement programs have a strong and lasting future.

This so-called “compassionate” plan would double health-care costs for seniors,endanger vital Medicaid services, and likely increase taxes on the middle-class to finance tax cuts for the rich. But it would also undermine another important part of the social safety net: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps):

Converting SNAP to a block grant, as Chairman Ryan proposes to do beginning in 2015, would hurt the tens of millions of Americans who rely on the program. SNAP would largely lose the ability to respond to rising need, forcing states during economic downturns to cut benefits or create waiting lists for needy families.

Turning SNAP into a block grant to states would severely restrict the program during an economic downturn when it is most necessary. There was little increase in household hunger between 2008 and 2009 — despite the economy’s weakness —because of SNAP and the food safety net. Currently, three-quarters of SNAP benefitsgo to households with children and nearly one-third go to households with a senior citizen or person with a disability.

As the economy improves, SNAP spending will decrease back to its normal levels. And the SNAP program in its current form is hardly generous. The benefits breaks down toabout $4.50 per person per day. Currently, one in seven residents of Ryan’s own district did not have enough money to provide adequate food at some point in 2010.

SNAP is an effective anti-poverty program that is most important when the economy takes a turn for the worse. The budget that the House will vote on today would kick the legs out from underneath the program, with no clear benefits.

Ellison Stumps Republican On House Floor By Asking Him When Paul Ryan’s Plan Would Balance The Budget

By Travis Waldron

This morning, the House debated the budget proposal put forth by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a response to the budget drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). During the debate, CPC member Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) asked Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) when the Ryan budget would balance and create a surplus. After hemming and hawing for a few seconds, Rokita ultimately couldn’t come up with an answer:

ELLISON: When does the Ryan budget create a surplus?

ROKITA: The budget proposed and voted on by the committee — [...]

ROKITA: With responsible, gradual reforms to the drivers of our debt, like Medicare and Social Security, this budget will balance –

ELLISON: I asked the gentlemen when the Ryan budget created a surplus. He could have given me a year. He didn’t. That’s because he’s probably embarrassed about when that is. Let me tell you when the Progressive Caucus comes to surplus: 2021. That is known as a responsible budget.

Watch it:

The answer to the question is that the “courageous” and “innovative” Ryan budget would create a surplus for the first time in 2040, according to the Congressional Budget Office. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, meanwhile, determined that the CPC budget would indeed turn a $30.7 billion surplus in 2021, nearly two full decades ahead of Ryan’s “bold” plan.