MichiganRadio

State Budget Approved, After Brief Shutdown LANSING, MI (MPRN) -

Michigan's government shut down at a minute past midnight. That's after Governor Granholm and the Legislature's Democratic and Republican leaders missed the deadline for finalizing a budget. This is the second time in three years a budget impasse has caused a state government shutdown.

The shutdown drama played out after midnight while most of Michigan slept, and it affected few, if any, state services before it ended after a couple hours. Even so, it was an embarrassment.

"Today was a very difficult day. It never should have taken this long and I apologize to the state," Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon says it shows how difficult it was to keep his side of the budget bargain. "I could have done it sooner, but there are a lot of parts to a deal and I delivered what I committed to"

And that was a budget that included big spending cuts but no new taxes or fees. The cuts would address about half of a shortfall that ballooned to two-point-eight billion dollars this year as unemployment rose, car companies went bankrupt, and state revenues tanked. The state will tap into federal stimulus money to take care of the rest.

Dillon says that was the only deal Senate Republicans would agree to. But he says that's just a first step, and now budget negotiations will begin again - this time on restoring cuts with new revenue dedicated to specific programs. Finding the money is next, he says, but he won't say where it might come from.

"There were cuts that were too deep, and we've said all along that it's education, it's senior citizens, it's Promise grants, and I've said, those cuts that were too deep, in our view, we will identify the revenues to pay for our priorities," says Dillon.

But that promise was not enough to convince a lot of Democrats to support the budgets, and progress stalled over money for education, local governments and Medicaid. The Medicaid cuts could force 60 nursing homes to close. Lawmakers were particularly upset over zeroing out of Michigan Promise college scholarship. Proposed cuts to schools were so controversial that budget remains unresolved.

For much of the day, House members were locked in the chamber while Dillon and other leaders tried to convince them to end the deadlock.

Lawmakers were forbidden to leave. Food was brought in.

Representative Fred Durhal was a Democratic holdout.

"Obviously, we have to have revenues. I think taxes and fees are a good plalce to look, but I think we have to temper that with the fact that we've got a lot of unemployed people in this state."

But he says those unemployed people also need government services and job training that would be cut in the budget.

Republicans also played a part in the impasse as they sat on budget bills for most of the day, refusing to send any of them to the governor while the House deadlock continued. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop says Democrats - including Governor Granholm -- were trying to run out the clock to build pressure for votes on tax hikes.

"So I say to the governor, I say to the Democratic Party, stop playing, stop being part of the problem, move out of the way. We'll solve it for you," says Bishop.

Governor Granholm didn't like the deal Dillon struck with Republicans to balance the budgets with cuts, and then go back and try to backfill them. But now it's her turn to weigh in with the budgets on her desk awaiting her signatures and vetoes. © Copyright 2012, MPRN