09.13.07
Posted in education at 5:11 pm by Brandon
If you hadn’t heard, Michigan’s budget is currently in the crapper. If you live in Michigan, I’d encourage you to write your senator or representative and tell them to fix Michigan’s budget problem. Also, if you’re interested, here’s a countdown clock to the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Below is a letter I’ve written to my state senator. If you find it persuasive, I would encourage you to write in to your representative (if you’re a Michiganian) and ask that they solve the budget crisis without slashing funding to education.
Here’s how you can contact your state representative.
And here’s how you can contact your state senator.
Dear Senator Hardiman,
My name is Brandon. I am writing to you to urge you to do all in your power to ensure the passage of a balanced budget before October 1st.
As you are no doubt aware, the state of Michigan is facing massive budget shortfalls. And, as you are also no doubt aware, the state of Michigan has significantly cut funding to programs such as higher education as well as K-12 spending—even since Governer Granholm has taken office. Some estimates place the projected shortfall of Michigan’s budget at around 1.7 billion dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.
Who is to blame? Frankly, I think this question is pointless. The more pertinent question, now, is what do we do going forward? I am sure that you value education like I do; we cannot continue to cut educational spending and expect a long-term solution to our economic difficulties as a state if we do not set education for our citizens as a priority. The bottom line is this: One way or another we need more revenue.
I like to pay taxes just about as much as the next guy: Not at all. However, we face a crisis. Either we raise revenue in some way, shape, or form or we will face disaster. Unfortunately this disaster is not a nameless, faceless disaster. No, this disaster will be immediate, this disaster will be discriminatory (it will affect our poor and vulnerable with less impunity than it does our wealthy), and most ominous, this disaster is but a few short days in our future.
On September 30th, I will become a father for the first time. The next day, a budget must be in place. If you do not find some way to fund the state of Michigan my life will be impacted in the following ways. My wife is a teacher in the public school system. She teaches English and Journalism. She’s a good teacher and she cares about her students. My wife’s superintendent has already issued a warning that her school may not be able to make their October 21st payroll obligations if you do not pass a budget. This would leave my family (with less than a month-old child) to survive on my salary alone. I am a doctoral student at Michigan State University. I make approximately $17,000 in salary per year. Assuming that Michigan State could still afford to pay me (which is a big assumption given the loss of funding to education after a failure to pass a state budget) this leaves our family to subsist on about 1,300 dollars per month.
I have lived in Michigan for many years. I like it here. To be frank, my wife and I are highly educated and highly trained; I am pursuing a doctorate and my wife holds a Masters degree in education. If Michigan hopes to retain highly educated and highly trained people, it needs to start funding the things highly educated people care about. I find it highly unlikely that my wife and I would choose to raise my child in a state that slashes funding to K-12 education, cuts care to poor and aged populations, and otherwise puts our most vulnerable populations out to twist in the wind.
We have cut too much. The same classroom that my wife taught in 6 years ago which held 25 students now holds 35 students—although, there’s not enough money to get each student a place to sit. I wish I could say that I don’t care how you get a balanced budget, but the fact is I do. We need more taxes, we need them now. We can’t afford the cuts any longer.
Thanks for your time,
Brandon
Tags: michigan budget, letter to representative, politics, michigan politics, michigan, budget crisis, michigan budget crisis
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Posted in education at 5:11 pm by Brandon
If you hadn’t heard, Michigan’s budget is currently in the crapper. If you live in Michigan, I’d encourage you to write your senator or representative and tell them to fix Michigan’s budget problem. Also, if you’re interested, here’s a countdown clock to the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Below is a letter I’ve written to my state senator. If you find it persuasive, I would encourage you to write in to your representative (if you’re a Michiganian) and ask that they solve the budget crisis without slashing funding to education.
Here’s how you can contact your state representative.
And here’s how you can contact your state senator.
Dear Senator Hardiman,
My name is Brandon. I am writing to you to urge you to do all in your power to ensure the passage of a balanced budget before October 1st.
As you are no doubt aware, the state of Michigan is facing massive budget shortfalls. And, as you are also no doubt aware, the state of Michigan has significantly cut funding to programs such as higher education as well as K-12 spending—even since Governer Granholm has taken office. Some estimates place the projected shortfall of Michigan’s budget at around 1.7 billion dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.
Who is to blame? Frankly, I think this question is pointless. The more pertinent question, now, is what do we do going forward? I am sure that you value education like I do; we cannot continue to cut educational spending and expect a long-term solution to our economic difficulties as a state if we do not set education for our citizens as a priority. The bottom line is this: One way or another we need more revenue.
I like to pay taxes just about as much as the next guy: Not at all. However, we face a crisis. Either we raise revenue in some way, shape, or form or we will face disaster. Unfortunately this disaster is not a nameless, faceless disaster. No, this disaster will be immediate, this disaster will be discriminatory (it will affect our poor and vulnerable with less impunity than it does our wealthy), and most ominous, this disaster is but a few short days in our future.
On September 30th, I will become a father for the first time. The next day, a budget must be in place. If you do not find some way to fund the state of Michigan my life will be impacted in the following ways. My wife is a teacher in the public school system. She teaches English and Journalism. She’s a good teacher and she cares about her students. My wife’s superintendent has already issued a warning that her school may not be able to make their October 21st payroll obligations if you do not pass a budget. This would leave my family (with less than a month-old child) to survive on my salary alone. I am a doctoral student at Michigan State University. I make approximately $17,000 in salary per year. Assuming that Michigan State could still afford to pay me (which is a big assumption given the loss of funding to education after a failure to pass a state budget) this leaves our family to subsist on about 1,300 dollars per month.
I have lived in Michigan for many years. I like it here. To be frank, my wife and I are highly educated and highly trained; I am pursuing a doctorate and my wife holds a Masters degree in education. If Michigan hopes to retain highly educated and highly trained people, it needs to start funding the things highly educated people care about. I find it highly unlikely that my wife and I would choose to raise my child in a state that slashes funding to K-12 education, cuts care to poor and aged populations, and otherwise puts our most vulnerable populations out to twist in the wind.
We have cut too much. The same classroom that my wife taught in 6 years ago which held 25 students now holds 35 students—although, there’s not enough money to get each student a place to sit. I wish I could say that I don’t care how you get a balanced budget, but the fact is I do. We need more taxes, we need them now. We can’t afford the cuts any longer.
Thanks for your time,
Brandon
Tags: michigan budget, letter to representative, politics, michigan politics, michigan, budget crisis, michigan budget crisis
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Trackback URL »
http://www.badchristian.com/2007/09/13/hey-michigan-you-want-a-budget/trackback/
Rose Bogaert said,
September 13, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Congratulations on the upcoming birth of you child. I am happy that your wife is a good and dedicated teacher. I assume you are an intern of some kind because I know of no other full time person at a Michigan university that only makes $17,000.
I am sure you appreciate the fine education that the taxpayers of the state have helped you get. You may, however, need to consider finding employment in another state. It seems that your sugestion that we educate more people is putting the cart before he horse. We must first have the jobs available to keep those we have already educated. People are leaving in droves. You at least have options. Think of those who have already lost thier jobs or those who will lose their homes. You say retrain them and I ask to do what? To go to another state to find work.
Please don’t think I do not value education. Understand that 37% of every dollar we spend in this state goes to education. Infastructure, recreation, security, revenue sharing pale by comparison. The only other that even competes is social service.
People who are still employed have taken cuts in pay and pay higher copays on their insurance. Parents are watching their children leave the state to find work. All our legislator can do is feed the beast that they have created with the few dollars taxpayers have left.
I am sorry I can not agree with you. We must fix the other problems in this state first. We must bring spending under control. We have been throwing money at education and we still don’t seem to be able hit a home run.
Rose Bogaert, Chair
Wayne County Taxpayers Assoc., Inc.
Brandon said,
September 13, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Actually, Rose, education funding has been cut even since Governer Granholm has taken office. The district my wife works in, which is only an average sized district, has seen several millions of dollars cut out of their budget. Classroom sizes have increased past the point that students learn well. Bussing has been reduced and in some cases eliminated. Service positions have been reduced from full-time. Administrators have taken pay-cuts, and teachers have agreed on pay freezes. Everybody in the district is doing their part.
Unfortunately, after years of budget reductions, there’s not much left to cut.
The Headlee Amendment (a conservative sponsored amendment) which sets guidelines for state spending maximums is at approximately 5 billion dollars above our current budget expenditures. I’m not sure how this equates to “throwing money at education.” Yes, education is a huge expense, but so is the expense of having a massive population of uneducated people.
It saddens me that you would simply suggest that I find employment in another state. Have you not considered that it is the highly educated innovators who actually are the ones who help create jobs? In fact, I should be exactly the type of person Michigan is doing everything it can do to keep! You see, your oversimplification of “cart before the horse” doesn’t quite hold water. Like you, I agree, we need jobs. Unlike you, however, I believe that education AND jobs must go hand in hand.
You make it sound as if we the beleaguered taxpayers of Michigan haven’t a dime to spare. This seems unlikely given that Michigan falls behind 20 other states in amount of taxes paid per capita. Michigan has cut it’s general fund by 39 percent (number adjusted for inflation) over the past six years.
Like I said, I’m not a big fan of taxes. However, let’s both take aim at Federal Taxes. Perhaps if we weren’t spending billions of dollars a month on the war in Iraq we could get a Federal tax cut. Michigan needs its money.
(P.S. As I said in my letter, I am a graduate assistant. There are probably 1,000 other students just like me who earn less than 17,000 dollars per year at Michigan State. An intern at MSU would earn far less than that.)