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.
Thursday, the Senate approved a state aid bill providing $26.1 billion in funding for cash-strapped local governments to use for Medicaid and teachers’ jobs. The provision is expected to save or create at least as many as 290,000 jobs, including 140,000 teachers’ jobs. Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the speaker of the House, announced on [...]
Yesterday, the Senate overcame a key procedural hurdle to move forward on a much-needed $26.1 billion state aid bill. The provision provides $10 billion in funds for teachers’ jobs and $16.1 billion for Medicaid. Without the additional funding, promised to states for months, local governments might have laid off hundreds of thousands of teachers, police [...]
The Senate this morning managed to overcome a filibuster on a bill that would send $26.1 billion in aid to states to pay for Medicaid programs and help avoid more teacher layoffs. Two Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats to achieve the 60 votes [...]
This evening, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attached an amendment with funding to preserve teachers’ jobs and to provide much-needed Medicaid funding to states to a Federal Aviation Administration bill. The amendment is fully paid-for, and the FAA bill is just a vehicle. Reid filed cloture, meaning the Senate will vote on the provisions on Monday.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm said on Thursday that hope for an extension of additional federal Medicaid funding to the states is fading as Congress struggles to pass new spending bills before the November election. If Congress doesn’t pass such funding, Michigan’s budget will take a major hit, the Detroit News reports:
The state of Michigan is waiting on $500 million from the federal government to shore up Medicaid spending. But the money is tied up in Congressional battles over extending unemployment benefits, which in turn are stalled by the unexpected passing of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia). Without the Medicaid funding, Michigan will have to trim [...]
Gov. Jennifer Granholm spent Wednesday pounding the pavement in the nation’s capitol seeking extensions to unemployment and additional Medicaid funding. Neither ended up materializing. Granholm was looking for Congress to approve $514 million in Medicaid funding, which will shore up the coming state budget; without it, Medicaid reimbursements will likely be chopped.
Even with all of this state’s budget problems, Michigan may actually be better off than other states in terms of waiting for Congress to pass an extension of the increased Medicaid funding including in last year’s stimulus bill. Stateline.org reports that 22 other states have already passed budgets for the next fiscal year that presumed [...]
Despite some calls for un-bundling the various provisions of the extenders bill and passing each provision separately, Senate Democrats are apparently intent on keeping the whole thing as one big package. The Hill reports that they are working behind the scenes to get the full package passed rather than trying to pass the Medicaid funding [...]
With the failure of the unemployment extension bill — aka the jobs bill or the extenders bill — late last week, at least in its current form, Michigan may be forced to cut another $500 million from the budget. Along with extending unemployment benefits, the bill also would have given billions more in Medicaid funding [...]
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