I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
(Creative Commons photo by Visnyk via Flickr)
LANSING — With the gears of government officially frozen in time, Michigan politicians expressed dismay at finding themselves embroiled in a second governmental shut down in as many years.
Because both houses failed to adopt a balanced budget — or bill to let the government keep spending — by midnight Wednesday, the government was shut down for nearly two and half hours.
The machinery was turned back on with a temporary budget complete with a massive spending cut agreement reached by House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Township) and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) weeks ago. That framework sought to eliminate nearly $1.3 billion from the budget, and made no room for raising additional revenue.
The temporary spending law ends Oct. 31, setting up a potential Halloween showdown.
But government operation or not, politicians had plenty to say to drown out the screeching sound of the state’s operations coming to an abrupt stop.
“I’m angry it’s taken us this long [to find a budget solution]. We have tried to work with the Senate Republicans,” said Sen. Deb Cherry (D-Burton). “But they wanted to negotiate with the House Democrats. All they needed to do was talk to us. They made a deal, but we we’re part of it.”
Sen. John Gleason (D-Flushing), was even more blunt.
“I would shut it down rather than have these cuts. We’re going to lose out ability to function as a state with these cuts,” he said.
Meanwhile, House Republicans were sounding their fury over the shut down. Assistant House Republican Leader Arlan Meekhof of West Olive, issued the following statement:
“House Republicans were sincere when we proposed and published in July our plan to balance the budget without raising taxes on Michigan families and job providers. We believed then, as we do now, this was the best way to strengthen our floundering economy and move Michigan forward. There is plenty of blame to go around and no one should feel that they have captured the moral high ground.”
“The people of Michigan expected us to lead today and the Legislature — Democrats and Republicans — have let them down. House Republicans came here today to balance the state budget and remain ready to do the job we were sent here to do.”
The House will reconvene at noon, while the Senate will start a session at 2 p.m.
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