Thursday, May 17, 2007

Michigan Governor Granholm Disgusts Me

Michigan must raise taxes – by a LOT – or "people will die." That's the message from our ineffectual, gutless leader in Lansing. She's referring to proposed cuts to Medicaid to help balance a bloated state budget with a $700 million shortfall. It's the basest, most incendiary rhetoric in the book--and she uses it with abandon in every declaration du jour.

"Cut welfare spending, and PEOPLE WILL GO HUNGRY AND DIE."

"Cut education spending, and PEOPLE WILL BE DUMB AND DIE."

"Cut highway spending, and PEOPLE WILL HAVE ACCIDENTS AND DIE."

"Cut any form of spending whatsoever, and PEOPLE WILL DIE."

Or some variation on that theme.

So yes, let's not cut spending. Let's raise taxes. Provide incentive for people and businesses to leave the state. Shrink the economy, thereby reducing state revenue. And instigate new tax hikes to cover the shortfall.

And guess what. When that happens, PEOPLE WILL STILL DIE.

I'm disgusted.

1 comment:

Christine said...

State Sen. Roger N. Kahn, a Saginaw Township Republican, said the pending Medicaid reductions are "offensive" and "illegal."

"Those who would vote for those kinds of cuts are, in my opinion, trying to extort money from hospitals and (engage in) blackmail," the cardiologist said.

The result shortchanges medical care providers who already receive below-cost reimbursements, he said. It also violates rates set in legislation last year and may encourage some medical care providers to drop Medicaid patients, Kahn added.

"Those people end up getting sicker and sicker and their prognosis gets worse and people die," he said. "Let's call it the way it is: Children die. This governor needs to understand something about caring, and she apparently does not."


http://www.mlive.com/news/sanews/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1179325203161170.xml&coll=9&thispage=2