Cushingberry To Visit Shiawassee Dems Tonight
June 26th, 2007 | by christine |State Representative George Cushingberry, Jr. will be speaking at the Shiawassee Dems’ June meeting tonight. Cushingberry is Chair of the Michigan House Appropriations Committee and will be speaking on the State of Michigan Budget.
Cushingberry will begin at 7pm.
The June meeting begins at 6pm and will adjourn prior to the speaker’s presentation.
The public is encouraged to attend to listen to the presentation.
According to MIRS, a subscription only Lansing news service, Republican Senator Mike Bishop has targeted $1.8 billion in cuts, in order to balance the budget. The cuts include the one time sale or lease of the state lottery, a moratorium on new state projects, labor and wage concessions on public works projects, freezing the earned income tax credit, eliminating welfare coverage for 43,000 identified recipients, privatizing prison healthcare and other services, allowing mental health assessments via teleconference, and consolidating the DNR and the DEQ. There are many other targeted cuts, most of which attempt to cut wages and benefits for state employees and public school teachers.
The Shiawassee Dems meet on the 4th Tuesday of every month at the Corunna City Hall. All are welcome to attend.
4 Responses to “Cushingberry To Visit Shiawassee Dems Tonight”
By SideShow on Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
Ofcourse I missed it. Is there a transcript or meeting minutes available anywhere? Otherwise did anyone here attend, if so how was it?
By Tina J on Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
Too bad you missed it SideShow, it was a great presentation. Rep Cushingberry was a very good speaker, with humor and seriousness equally mixed. Some of the charts and statistics were very sobering.
A couple of examples: there is a direct correlation and dispells the myth that tax cuts for the wealthy stimulate the economy; our percentage of the budget allocated toward the corrections system has risen from approx 2% in the early 70’s to 20% now; of the almost 42 million dollar budget the state has, only approx 14-16% is not earmarked or mandated for specific spending which means they don’t have very much to actually ‘play’ with; his income tax proposal is actually a reinstatement of the income tax that was in place in 1972 and for many years after that; very little of the state budget is spent on general assistance/family independence programs; Michigan ranks somewhere around 39th in personal income tax in the nation.
He did a great job, and I really wished there were more people to see the charts and presentation he had. It was almost frightening the extent that we have allowed ‘talking points’ and hysteria cloud our perceptions regarding the State Budget.
By Z on Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
And then you get this.
That’s what’s going on in the House.
By SideShow on Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the responses…
Tina - I’ll see if I can find more on the presentation, it sounds really informative.
Z - Thanks for the article. It mirrors a bit of my feelings as of late.