State financial crisis

[Hermod]

Point well taken, I assumed that the budget deficit was due to overstaffing, which apparently is not true. I still maintain that cutting programs is a better strategy than focusing on employee wage cuts.

Bloatocracy in government [[any government) is due to parkinson's Law which shows that any bureaucracy is always undergoing a natural rate of annual increase without regard to workload.

Joe Bureaucrat has eight employees in his office and is paid as a first line supervisor. He submits a scheme for reorganization of the office into two four-man branches. Now tow of the guys get promoted to first line supervisor and Joe gets promoted to second line supervisor. This goes on constantly in government.

Another ploy is job descriptions. Sue Secretary works for Joe and does [[in his eyes) a decent job. She is at the top of the pay scale for secretary and already has more "Exceptional Service" plaques than her cubicle wall will hold. Joe rewrites her job description as "Administrative Assistant" and, presto, big pay increase. A couple of years later they have to hire another secretary because an admin assistant shouldn't do menial work.

The politicians don't want to hack off the workers, so they go along. As long as times are good and increased taxes roll in every year, there is no problem. When things slow down, there is no reserve and cuts have to be made. The bureaucracy always proposes cuts that hurt the voting public most rather than in cutting the built up fat.

Turn me loose in any department of education with a copy of the org chart and a stack of non-recourse pink slips, and I can save 25% without cutting a single teacher. The same is true of any other office in government. I could cut 25% without firing a single frontline worker.

[Danny]

The NERD better not take that film incentive away. I'll be marching into Lansing and pound at his office door.

[skyl4rk]

I have been watching the hearings on internet tv, every time they talk about a tax, the state is taking all the money and not using it for what it is supposed to be used for. For example, gas taxes are not going to roads but to the bloatocracy.

http://www.mgtv.org/video/live-programming/

[Novine]

"For example, gas taxes are not going to roads but to the bloatocracy."

Try citing some examples. Otherwise, you sound like one more uninformed radio talk show host.

[slick]

and to add to the bloatacracy,

all of Snyders new appointees came in with salaries higher than Granholm was paying her appointees. There was an article on the new salaries in the Freep in January.

[skyl4rk]

I saw someone from MITA [[ http://www.mi-ita.com/ ) testify today that on a $3 gallon of gas, 19 cents goes to a gas tax, 18 to Federal tax, and 18 to State sales tax. I heard him say that very little of that goes to road repair.

http://www.mi-ita.com/Legislative/Le...6/Default.aspx

It seems like gas taxes should all go to road repair. But instead they are being channeled elsewhere.

I thought the "bloatocracy" word was a pretty good description for a state budget that has a 1.8 billion deficit.

[Jason]

It's not the right word to describe it if the deficit is because the money is being spent on government programs, and not bureaucracy. As Novine said and you acknowledged, the state has one of the lowest state employees per capita, which means that the state is not outrageously bureaucratic.

That means that even if money from the gas tax is being shuffled around to other things, state money in general is mostly being payed on programs.

My take on the budget problem is that Michigan's economy is bad, so there is less income. Michigan's economy is bad because Michigan's citizens are bad at generating economic activity. The various programs in one way or another are meant to change that. Some programs might not be effective as others and some might not be performing well at all and should be canceled while others are great investments and should be expanded.


There's this myth that all government is bureaucratic and dysfunctional, all government programs are wasteful and counter productive, and all taxes are always too high.

But maybe the government is already reasonably lean, the programs are helpful and worthwhile, and the taxes are typical.

[EL Jimbo]

I saw someone from MITA [[ http://www.mi-ita.com/ ) testify today that on a $3 gallon of gas, 19 cents goes to a gas tax, 18 to Federal tax, and 18 to State sales tax. I heard him say that very little of that goes to road repair.

http://www.mi-ita.com/Legislative/Le...6/Default.aspx

It seems like gas taxes should all go to road repair. But instead they are being channeled elsewhere.

I thought the "bloatocracy" word was a pretty good description for a state budget that has a 1.8 billion deficit.

$3 a gallon has nothing to do with the first two taxes you mentioned. The Michigan Gas tax is set at 18 cents a gallon and does not change with the price. Whether gas is $1 or $3, it is always 18 cents. The same is true for the 19 cent Federal Gas Tax. It is a set tax and doesn't change. The only tax that changes is the 6% Michigan Sales Tax.

Of those three taxes, only the Michigan Sales Tax sees most of its money being used someplace other than transportation. That money is used predominantly for schools, but a small percentage goes to fun transit efforts across the state.

The Michigan gas tax is distributed between MDOT and other transportation agencies throughout the state based on the ACT 51 formula.

The Federal gas tax is sent to Washington and is redistributed to the states based on the formulas in the current authorization bill [[the repeatedly extended SAFETEA-LU bill that technically expired in 2009). When Michigan receives its portion, that money is again distributed between MDOT and other transportation agencies in the state based on Act 51.

Transportation in Michigan also receives funding from vehicle registration fees at the Secretary of State, the 6 cent Michigan Diesel Fuel Tax, the Federal Diesel Fuel Tax, as well as taxes on Av Gas and other smaller sources.

Quite a bit of money goes to road repair in Michigan. The problem is that it is still not enough. I hope this has clarified things a bit.