JUSTIN A. HINKLEY
Lawmakers in Lansing are facing a very long Halloween season this year. Today, as kiddies everywhere started vibrating with anticipation over the candy and the costumes tonight, legislators were putting the finishing touches on a month-late budget deal that will make everybody angry.
With a $1.75 billion hole to fill, senators and congressmen had to make several cuts ($433 million worth) to things like prisons and privatized things like foster care and adoption, making Democrats upset. They also raised the income tax and expanded the 6 percent sales tax to include services, upsetting Republicans. The deal was only hours old when the protesters came knocking — loudly.
A coalition of anti-tax businesses has already been formed, petitions are being drawn up and it is a long way to 2008, when several legislators' seats will be at risk. People are talking about recalls and repeals. It will be an interesting November next year.
Who knows if this was really the best thing for the state? Nobody seems to think so. Even as lawmakers from Detroit and Novi babble to reporters about the valiance of collaboration, cooperation and compromise, inside they're fuming about the whole stupid thing. Which makes you wonder how the mess got pushed through. What kind of weird state do we live in where elected representatives cast votes for things they don't really believe in?
Of course, maybe there was no other way. All of the smart minds say this deal was about the only way we could keep the state of Michigan open for business.
Of course, while some 500 people working for Mike Cox were given an extra 3 days of mandatory unpaid vacation, none of the lawmakers took the knife to their own salaries, despite Lorence Wenke's pressing.
And that, as people empty their wallets at the gas pump and to their health insurers and to every other black hole that's opened up the last 10 years or so, when they start to realize that Michigan's trying to pull out several extra pennies, they'll start foaming at the mouth and go howling into the night like werewolves. Most of them will scurry into random acts of violence, like rabid and impotent dogs. They'll scowl at their children and cheat on their wives, but go nowhere near Lansing, because they are ignorant and dumb.
But there will be enough, like the Coalition to Ax the Tax, who will know where to go, what numbers to dial, which letters to write, and which doors to knock over, that it will make life difficult for Lansing for some time.
The lawmakers will be fearful to leave their offices, the House and Senate chambers will always be empty, and the streets around the Capitol will be empty. Every time they close their eyes, they will see ghouls and goblins and wicked vampires, all with the faces of the Michiganders who feel opposed.
Whether this right or wrong is a moot point, because it is hard to even have a bowel movement when you spend your personal and professional life living in one constant Halloween fear factory.







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