Should the whole Michigan Legislature be fired for not being able to adopt a budget?
September 30, 2009
Sitting on my living room couch just a few miles from Michigan's State Capitol, I wonder if our state has lost its ability to govern itself.
Why? It is not even close to adopting a state budget, it's most basic assignment, by the deadline of a little more than 12 hours. The legislature is nudging right up to a possible shutdown of state government with all kinds of unforeseen consequences.
It's scary that we have one of the best paid and best equipped state legislatures in the country and both political parties can only demand all or nothing. The result is that nothing gets done and the state of Michigan suffers.
Local schools, colleges and universities, local units of government dependent on revenue sharing and all the others don't know what kind of support to expect. Will they have to cut? How much? They are not close to finding out.
What can we do? Too bad we don't have a parliamentary system where new elections for the whole group can be demanded.
We should expect more from our elected state lawmakers and we should demand it.
I'm not ready to become part of the "tea party" movement because it has a certain fringe cache. Maybe we can call it the "latte party" movement and show our teeth and let them know that their lack of action is bullshit.
Anybody up for a "latte party?"