How to kill a business tax

Here's the bad news: There are no easy answers to solve the state's looming $400 million shortfall.

But the good news is, there's an obvious way to slay the much-maligned Michigan Business Tax surcharge. The Legislature rushed this 19.99 percent levy on top of the new MBT late last year in the frenzy to dump the service tax, which was deemed even worse.

The surcharge is now the bane of business owners' existence, with 9 percent telling the Michigan Chamber of Commerce they're considering leaving the state over it.

Senate Republicans have passed legislation killing the surcharge and promise to balance the budget with magical budget cuts yet to be revealed. While that might make Chamber members feel warm and fuzzy inside, it's akin to doing nothing because there's no deal with the governor or Democratic House.

Meanwhile, the credit crunch is smacking around our battered economy even more and unemployment is certain to veer into double-digit territory soon.

Republicans are right: We can't afford to keep a job-killing tax.

So I'll defer to an idea proposed by two GOP lawmakers, Reps. Chris Ward, R-Brighton, and Lorence Wenke, R-Richland. Let's snuff out the surcharge and up the income tax a bit, say between 4.6 and 4.8 percent. That'll cost the average family about an extra fill-up a year.

The time to do it is now, because as the deficit balloons next year, any kind of tax cut will be off the table.

Unfortunately, the odds of this happening are nil. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, isn't budging from his no-tax stance, even if it'll squeeze the business community. House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, is skeptical.

"We'd be sending the message that we're increasing people's taxes to cut business taxes," Dillon told me. "I was willing to do that a year and a half ago. So if Mike Bishop can find those votes and wants to send something over, he's welcome to."

It's true that Bishop could have OK'd this deal during last year's budget crisis and we wouldn't here today.

But the plan hatched by Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis and House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche (dear God) was to force as many Democrats as possible to vote for tax increases. That was the key to a GOP victory in '08.

So what was their plan to solve the $1.8 billion budget crisis? There wasn't one.

Astute readers will recall that Republicans actually lost nine House seats on Nov. 4. And the much-ballyhooed recall campaign failed miserably.

Not one legislator lost a seat over the tax hikes. Not one.

Ward just shakes his head. "Not only did we have bad policy, but it turned out to be bad politics, too."

Of course, Ward did lose. Not his seat - he's term-limited - but his GOP leadership post for being a grown-up willing to deal with the pagan Dems to get more budget cuts, less taxes and more reforms.

Oh, well. I'm sure the Chamber doesn't mind. Neither do business owners slapped with 1,700-percent increases in their tax bills.

Negotiating is for sissies.

Anyway, back to this year's budget mess. What's that you say? Can't we just cut fat out of the budget? I'm with you, brothers and sisters.

The income tax for surcharge was really Plan B. What Ward would actually like to see is cutting Corrections (which eat up $2 billion of our $9 billion general fund) in exchange for the surcharge. Gov. Jennifer Granholm first proposed the swap this summer, but she didn't provided specifics.

Now we have the blueprint, thanks to the $800 billion in cuts proposed by the economic development powerhouse, Detroit Renaissance. That's even more than what the surcharge generates, which is about $600 million this year and more than $700 million in years to come.

"It was something that we should have done during the budget crisis," Ward said.

Amen. Unfortunately, leaders don't want to take on politically unpopular reforms ranging from sentence guideline reform to shuttering prisons. Even the governor said it would be impossible to do everything in the last few weeks.

Corrections is the logical place to start. It's the one area of the budget that's been spared from the chopping block. Our prison population has soared by 538 percent in the last three decades and costs have skyrocketed 5,000 percent, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council. With more than 50,000 inmates, Michigan has the highest prison population in the Midwest. The cost of a year in prison is $30,000 per inmate.

Clearly, something has to be done.

This will be the battle of 2009, make no doubt about it. And everyone, from Granholm to lock'em-up Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, is sure grateful that a third-party group, the Council of State Governments, will be issuing a report with cuts they can hide behind.

Everybody claims credit for a tax cut. But nobody wants to be associated with cuts that could let the bad guys out (and more importantly, be used in political ads against them).

Looks like this budget battle could turn out to be as much fun as last year's. Lucky us.

Book Review Politics for junkies

Susan J. Demas

For the Enquirer

Dana Milbank dedicates his tome to Tom DeLay -- and that pretty much says it all.

Political junkies will delight in the absurdism of a tribute to the indicted Republican bad boy known as “The Hammer” for his soto voce leadership style.

And if you can’t quite place who DeLay is, well, “Homo Politicus” isn’t for you. In fact, it’s so smirkingly inside-the-beltway that even politicos outside the Washington orbit might feel a bit lost.

A creature of the Capitol for two decades, Milbank writes the merrily nipping “Washington Sketch” column for the Washington Post. Like his column, the book supplies slaps and flesh wounds to the Capitol gang, without going for the jugular like H.L. Mencken or Molly Ivins. Milbank’s goal isn’t to rail against the political power circle and call for its overthrow; he’s just the court jester who gabs and jabs – but ultimately doesn’t want to lose his place in the kingdom.

It’s written in anthropological tongue-and-cheek, chapters commencing with exotic anecdotes about the Vikings, Aztecs and the Masai tribe in Kenya. There also are scores of subheads on “Totem poles” (symbols like motorcades), “Kin selection” (parties choosing candidates) and “Moka partners” (gift-giving, lobbyist-style).

All this is meant to underscore the wackiness of Washington, i.e. Potomac Land, just as Horace Miner satirized American culture in his seminal, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.”

In 276 pages of often too-clever-by-a-half metaphors, Milbank hammers home his theme like any good stand-up comic or rush-hour radio DJ: No, it’s not just you. Your leaders really are crazy.

One reason for this: In the era of hyperpartisanship, Milbank sagely surmises, “Democrats and Republicans alike will tolerate almost any oddity in a person’s character as long as that person contributes to the strength of the party.”

The book is a series of snapshots of politicians’ most outrageous comments and egregious sins, belying “Potomac Man’s trademark sense of entitlement.” One might expect a D.C. insider to reveal rare morsels about pompous poobahs, but his passages on Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Howard Dean mostly rehash well-known yarns.

Milbank’s real genius is in his deft descriptions of luminaries, like that of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert “a huge and rumpled figure” known as the “accidental Speaker”(much as former state House Speaker Craig DeRoche was). Rep. John Conyers is skewered for treating “the House floor as his legislative playground” and helping “himself to a wife from his staff.”

The author nails Dick Cheney perfectly as “impossibly dour, his lips sagging in one corner, emerging occasionally to speak about the imminent demise of humanity, the absolute correctness of the Bush administration, or both.”

Milbank is at his least amusing and convincing when he critiques the Washington social scene of which he’s a part, taking a few swipes at his more gregarious colleagues.

He’s at his best penning an explanation for an empty index, which Milbank knows will frustrate Potomac Man, who narcissistically flips there first to find his own name and those of his rivals.

The highlight of the book is the glossary, which translates famous phrases such as George W. Bush’s “I don’t pay attention to the polls” (My job approval rating is 32 percent) and John Kerry’s “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” (I am trying to lose the election).

Milbank’s true genius is mixing self-deprecation with sublime self-promotion. His back-cover reviews include Sen. Barbara Boxer slamming him for “taking trash journalism to new heights” and a poll by snarky Wonkette.com: “Dana Milbank is … emblematic of the deterioration of the American media, 12.1% … the savior of American journalism, 13.5% … a publicity whore, 74.4%.”

In the end, “Homo Politicus” is a mirthful, breezy read – at least for those of us hankering for a break from C-SPAN’s “Road to the White House” or CNN’s “Ballot Bowl.”

The ‘09 budget: Let them eat cake

Nobody can feel your pain like Jennifer Granholm and she was in fine form Tuesday night.

After last year’s rancor and recriminations over the budget crisis, the governor reemerged at the State of the State as the great healer, a pro-business prophet looking to lure development and lead us back to the promised land of no new taxes.

“People are angry,” Granholm said at the start of her speech. “…Let’s be honest, that anger is aimed at us.”

Though Michigan continues to careen down the road of recession, Granholm offered up her can-do oratory, promising tax breaks for businesses in fast-growing industries, help for those trapped in foreclosure agony and a slew of new programs.

Using her honeyed tone – part cheerleader, part Mother Earth – to full effect, the governor swayed some of her conservative critics (though not state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, R-Kalamazoo, who in a flash of class, scrawled snarky blog posts during her speech).

Granholm imbibed the new designer drug of bipartisanship – something just about everyone in Lansing says they’re on, but they don’t get an hour to testify about it on tee-vee. You can’t beat that kind of PR.

But the real stroke of genius was that the governor cannily cut the legs from under the GOP’ election strategy – with a smile.

She beat the anti-tax drum hard – something a beaming Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop called “borrowing the Republican playbook.”

But that effectively stole the thunder from House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche, who’s vowed to take back the majority by (what else?) hitting the Dems on taxes. He looked particularly sour Tuesday, but denied the guv had outfoxed him.

“It’s not an election line (for us),” the former Speaker sniffed. “It’s what we believe in.”

Granholm’s strategy started with a carefully placed Associated Press interview in December that grabbed headlines across the state.

“The most important thing I learned is I’m not ever going to raise taxes again. It’s too hard. It’s too impossible,” she declared.

She could say that with supreme confidence because budget estimates show Michigan will stay in the black this year (thanks to those evil tax hikes).

So it’s time to roll out the feel-good programs – high schools that work, alternative energy Centers of Excellence and more early childhood education.

You can have your cake and eat it, too. No higher taxes this year, just “creative financing.” (Something Republicans also found irresistible when they ran the show during the last two decades – beats cutting spending).

Granholm plans to scrounge up $550 million by refinancing debt, selling bonds and reinvesting part of the state pension fund.

Her economic stimulus plan – especially creating jobs through much-needed infrastructure projects – shows promise. But don’t expect a big boost to higher ed, the best long-range economic development tool Michigan has in its arsenal.

And there were key pieces missing from the puzzle, ostensibly to come in the far less glamorous budget unveiling next week.

Where are the cuts? Where are the reforms? You don’t need to be a rabid right-winger to know much more needs to be done.

Just take another read of the blue-ribbon, bipartisan Emergency Financial Panel report penned a year ago by 12 leaders with hundreds of years’ combined experience in budgets, business and government.

Or in the case of some esteemed lawmakers, try skimming over the scant 19 pages for the first time.

“I honestly don’t know how many people read it,” a glum former Gov. Jim Blanchard told me last week.

Well, it’s never too late to get religion or give a few of the 12 Apostles a jingle. I have it on good authority they’d love to hear from you.

The fact is, Michigan’s government is still engineered for the 1960s. We have a bloated Corrections budget growing far faster than revenues, as we incarcerate 50,000 people – and counting.

Health care costs for state employees and retirees are spiraling out of control. We have 1,242 townships, 553 school districts and millions of dollars in needlessly duplicated administrative costs.

That’s just a start. With the limited cash Michigan has, we need to spend it wisely.

Now the bad news. Don’t look now, but the Mitten State hasn’t licked its structural budget deficit.

We don’t tax services, the growing sector of our economy, thanks to a bizarre last-minute plan last fall that enraged the hypersensitive business community and poisoned the well. It remains to be seen what effect the Michigan Business Tax surcharge will have on attracting new capital. And our income tax is outmoded – a graduated rate with more exemptions is a better fit.

The good news is, we probably could restructure without hiking taxes and stave off future $2 billion budget shortfalls.

But that would mean bringing up the dreaded t-word again. And with that bodacious bipartisan vibe we’ve got going, who wants to be a major buzzkill?

Can fringe GOP conjure up a clue?

After months of stunned silence, House Republicans are finally ready to rumble on the budget.

And they're not about to let pesky details — like the fact that final budgets passed on Halloween with near-unanimous consent — stop them.

It was the Senate that voted Thursday to delay the new service tax. But House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche & Co. want to slay it completely, unraveling nine months of anguished compromise.

Yes, after spending money Wednesday like welfare mommies at the Cadillac dealership (begotten from tax revenues few in the GOP voted for), straight-faced Republican reps revealed their flair for even more flagrant hypocrisy.

They want to make the service tax's $625 million magically disappear from the budget, perhaps via séance with Ronald Reagan's ghost.

Seems like if you abhor all those evil government programs, you shouldn't have just voted to fund them.It's bad form, bad policy and the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty.

Besides, if Republicans truly were committed to anti-tax policy, they would try to decapitate the income tax increase worth $725 million.But let's not forget, the GOP-led Legislature tax-cut its way to popularity while merrily ravaging about $4 billion in reserves since fiscal 2001. Beats significantly scaling back government. (One-time fixes didn't abate in fiscal 2007 when Dems took over the House, but now the bills have come due.)

Clearly, slashing government waste ain't the GOP's forte.True, the capricious list of oft-arcane services, from numerology to baby-shoe bronzing, is hard to defend. Legislators surely can conjure up a fairer levy, especially when they're not throwing together a slapdash bill four hours before the government shut down on Oct. 1.

That's why Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and House Speaker Andy Dillon — who have done the heavy lifting on the budget from the get-go — are feverishly talking to business barons about a revenue-neutral replacement.

That could mean a hike in the income tax or the new Michigan Business Tax.

But none of them — not even the Republican Senate head — is pushing the cockamamie scheme of cleaving millions more from the budget.

In a nine-month process with an endgame as gory and excruciating as childbirth, the Senate plan to skive more than $600 million was mopped away like so much fluid.The $433 million in cuts was all leaders could muster, made palatable by $1.35 billion in new revenues that allowed them to take credit for caring about children by barely boosting education.

Still, DeRoche insists on peddling a tired list of cuts, chock-full of vague promises to "streamline" Community Health by $93 million and "reform" Department of Human Services by $109 million — details not included.Sacred cows — like sentence guideline reforms and prison closures that could net $500 million — don't rate.

Cuts are necessary, DeRoche warns gravely, unless we want to "kill more jobs."

But he evidently sees no conflict in whacking $75 million from the 21st Century Jobs Fund, the economic development vehicle Republicans once touted as the elixir for Michigan's economic woes.

"It's not a real list — everybody knows that," the always cogent Rep. Lorence Wenke, R-Richland Township, says. "I give it no credibility whatsoever."

To be sure, DeRoche's plan has zero chance of passage. He doesn't have the votes. And without a functional relationship with any leader, even Bishop, the once-brash boy wonder who rode to the speakership at 34, has lost almost all credibility.

He epitomizes the fundamental lack of understanding of public policy by fringe Republicans determined to place partisanship and ideology above sanity.

There's no excuse for that in either party. The stakes are too high.

Evidently, some have learned nothing from bloody budget negotiations this year.

If DeRoche truly wants to be a player next year, he might want to stop drinking the Kool-Aid — and instead invite Dillon and Bishop to have a beer.

If they only had a plan

After two weeks vacation, our Lansing leaders are no closer to discovering the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who will magically solve the $1.6 billion budget deficit.

They've been stumbling down the yellow brick road since January, in fact, and still can't figure out which way to go.One path looks a lot like Dust Bowl-era Kansas — depressingly black and white, with the next twister right around the bend. Family farms are going belly-up, schools are ramshackle and downtowns are fast becoming ghost towns.

But at least the dang government is minding its own business.

The other path blooms in Technicolor — and if the gentle, wildflower-dotted hills don't quite look like Silicone Valley, it's at least Pennsylvania. After last week's partial government shutdown, the Keystone State promptly passed a budget boosting spending on schools, daycare and senior services.

Imagine that.

Of course, Michigan can just run out the clock until its Sept. 30 deadline. What's the worst that can happen? Record 7.2 percent unemployment? The continued exodus of business and bodies from our state?Stall on, Lansing. Budgets are hard work. And our leaders clearly don't like being on the surrealist journey together.Everyone's jockeying for first billing in this melodrama.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm plays Dorothy, the heavily rouged Democrat who thinks there's no place like home in Wayne County, where the McNamara machine would just take care of pesky tax questions for her.Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer is Toto, Dorothy's loyal sidekick, cute enough to fit into a picnic basket. Occasionally, the Bedford Township Dem pokes his head out to nip at Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.

Bishop, R-Rochester, stars as the Tin Woodsman in need of a heart, who thinks nothing of slashing college funding and medical care for poor kids.

Is he trying to appease the Wicked Witch of Notaxistan lobby, whose Flying Monkey, former state Rep. Leon Drolet, hounds legislators with his gigantic, fiberglass pig? Or are dreams of the governor's mansion dancing in the boyish Bishop's head?

The Cowardly Lion is novice House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, who clearly needs a shot of courage after going into hiding during the last round of negotiations.

Lastly, there's easily overlooked House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche, aka Scarecrow, who still wistfully calls himself Speaker and can't add up the deficit right. The Novi Republican is just now cobbling together a task force to help him out.

Like it or not, this preening cast of characters is stuck with one another.And we're stuck with them.But if they need help, there's not just one Wizard to consult — there are a dozen from the bipartisan Emergency Financial Advisory Panel, chaired by former governors William Milliken and Jim Blanchard.

They put forth sensible ideas the overwhelming majority of Michiganders support — investing in schools, the arts and health care; modernizing the tax code; and reforming state employee benefits.Precious little of that has been done — save for the new Michigan Business Tax — even as an F-5 economic cyclone barrels through the state.

Now I lived in Iowa long enough, surviving three separate tornadoes, to know that if you choose to shut your eyes in the middle of a twister, it'll still heave your mangled body onto the nearest barn or farming implement.

Our problems aren't going away. The storm grows stronger each day.

But our leaders seem content to keep using the budget as political theater, knowing they can always take cover in their tax shelters.

Right now, too many in Lansing see the world in black and white. It's up to us to tell them we'd rather live in Technicolor.

Not all tax pain is created equal

Pop quiz: If you're married, have two kids and make $57,000 per year, you're:

A. At the federal poverty level.

B. At the median household income for Michigan.

C. Now spending 92 percent of your salary on gasoline.

If you said C, you're off by several percentage points — but not as many as you'd hope.

If you answered B, you're right on the money. The poverty level for four actually is about three times less — $20,650 per year.

If you said A, you're probably a politician whose handlers forgot to feed you the correct answer on that and how much a gallon of milk costs.

Most of us know $57,000 ain't bad. We don't have to pick up staples at the food bank and sleep at the homeless shelter. But our hard-earned dollars don't stretch as far as they used to. We worry about losing our homes, filling our tanks at $3.65 per gallon and having our kids get priced out of college.

We know Michigan's in trouble just by looking at our drained bank accounts and nonexistent retirement plans.

Nonsense, argues Charles Ballard, a Michigan State University economist. The Great Lakes State is on a roll.

The past 30 years have been good ones for folks who probably flunked the means test above — those 100,000 or so households out of 3 million in Michigan. If you're looking for signs of recession, don't meander through the pristine enclaves of Okemos, East Grand Rapids and Bloomfield Hills.

Households making $166,000 per year or more — to put that obtuse richest 5 percent in real dollars — have been able to build McMansions and buy Mercedes, even as the Big Three implode and state budget deficits balloon.

Actually, the well-to-do are doing even better, thanks to tax cut after tax cut over the past 12 years. But money to keep kids vaccinated and police on patrol has to come from somewhere.

And it has — from you and me. Each cut has shifted the burden to those who work on the assembly line, teach young minds or are retired on a fixed income.

Ballard sums up Michigan's tax system, which is one of the most regressive in the nation, like this:

"What you have is the top 5 percent doing fabulously well, the top 20 percent ($92,000 household income) doing quite well and the other 75 percent struggling."It's a massive widening of inequality ... and nobody is talking about it."

A lot of leaders in Lansing don't get it. It's not just that they make a minimum of $79,650 per year. It's that many of them don't send their kids to public schools, don't ride the bus to work and don't worry about medical bills because they have the best plan money can buy.

When Gov. Jennifer Granholm blasts the pain of budget cuts, it's a pain she doesn't directly feel.

When House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche complains he can't sell his second house in tony Novi as proof that Michiganders can't afford a tax hike, he's out of touch.

What they need is more input from the majority — the struggling 75 percent — so they can pound out a budget with fairer taxes and better services.

But since hamstrung policymakers don't seem eager to invest in their constituents, we would do well to invest in ourselves.

Not just by voting for local millages to keep fire stations and schools up and running. But by socking away as much as we can, so our kids can go to Harvard like the governor, or study at the Sorbonne like Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.

Yes, even tuition at our world-class state universities has spiraled out of control, but they remain the best boot camp for the next generation of leaders.

And with the rate of progress in Michigan, they'll likely get stuck with plenty of problems to solve.

High school attitude ruling the State House

Washington may be Hollywood for ugly people, but it's the bickering beautiful people who reign today in Lansing.

The Capitol is at the mercy of the callow cool crowd from high school — the jocks, cheerleaders and Future Business Leaders of America who made sure their mugs were splattered on every yearbook page.

But they never really did anything.

That's not going to fly in Michigan right now.

We hold the embarrassing distinction as the only state with a negative credit rating from Standard & Poor's, because smug legislators slew the $1.9 billion Single Business Tax last year without bothering to replace it.

Right now, we're running out of time to plug a $900 million hole in this year's budget. And then it's off to tackling the $3 billion shortfall projected for next year.

What Michigan needs right now is leadership.

We didn't get it Thursday.

No, instead we're treated to the tiresome antics of Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, our very own homecoming king and queen sparring for the spotlight on the tacky gymnasium stage.

On Feb. 8, the immaculately-coiffed Democratic guv smiled at the crowd, trumpeting her budget plan complete with a $500 million business tax cut and a 2-percent tax on services.
Sniggering Republicans said they'd think about it, while House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche slapped a "Kick Me" sign on beleaguered Budget Director Bob Emerson's back.

Granholm, fresh off a landslide victory for her final term, still seems oddly paralyzed by Sally Field syndrome. She'd rather have people like her than make tough decisions in a truly comprehensive plan to save the state.

On Valentine's Day, the aqua-eyed Bishop dumped Granholm YouTube ninja style, announcing the GOP-led Appropriations Committee had rejected her executive order out of hand.

Mike felt betrayed by Jen, who would never return his calls. And he wanted his Duran Duran tape back.

The next week, Bishop proclaimed he'd solved the budget crisis sans tax hike in his super-secret plan, evidently ditching that day of history class on Richard Nixon's fictitious one to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam.

Bishop's main goal isn't to solve this fiscal train wreck. He'd rather tag Granholm with this mess and coast to the governor's mansion in 2010 John Engler-style.

Waiting in the wings is House Speaker Andy Dillon, the slick-haired student body president who's friends with everyone. He flirts with Jen in calculus but still cracks open a beer with football buddy Mike after practice.

Leaving the role of Granholm's cheerleader to Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer, Dillon came out last week with ideas no one can argue with, such as cutting legislator benefits.

Courted mercilessly by both sides, the Democrat clearly is relishing his role as the decider. He's willing to cut more services than Granholm but raise taxes more than Bishop — as long as the final compromise won't jeopardize his control of the House next year.

By the end of last week, the homecoming king had stopped talking to the student body president, and both were miffed the homecoming queen had jetted off to Germany.

Thursday, Granholm issued her executive order with $344 million in cuts. Bishop had already determined she didn't go far enough and led the Senate effort to slash schools by $34 per student. They're no closer to a deal.

And so the political posturing goes.

The frustrating part is that it doesn't have to be this way.

Ambitious, astute and all under 50, the Capitol cool crowd isn't wonting for talent. As a reporter, I've found all three eager to talk policy; where they falter is in solutions.

With only 14 years combined state budget experience, the trio needs to book some serious time with the old bulls who have been through this before. Say, the tragically underused members of Granholm's own bipartisan Emergency Financial Advisory Panel.

They might not look as pretty on TV, but they know Michigan has to reform employee benefits, invest in higher education and restructure outmoded taxes to build a better budget and a stronger state.

One thing is clear: The longer our leaders wait, the worse things get.

Entrepreneurs are refusing to set up shop in a state lacking a clear business tax structure. Poor children don't know if they'll still have health care. Students wonder if their schools can afford to stay open. Prison guards don't know if they'll have jobs.

Granholm, Bishop and Dillon have to decide if they like playing politics or if they love this state.

It's one or the other.

Ten million Michiganders await their answer.