State shutdown...
What do you do when the state you live in is 1.75 BILLION dollars in debt and can not find a way to balance the fiscal budget for 2007/2008? The state congress has until Sunday night to try to find a solution to the budget. If they can not, than 35,000 state employees will be laid off and the state will shut down. Everything from the lottery to not having anyone to pick up the horse manure on Mackinac Island. Forget about being able to renew your drivers license or get tags for your plates. All construction will stop, and all the rest areas will close (so make sure you go before you leave the house). The state will keep the prisons open (for obvious reasons), the state police will still be doing their jobs (though all of the posts will be closed), and the VA homes will remain open. Part of me is relieved I do not live in Michigan right now, but the other part of me is very upset that all most all of my family and friends do. They will be the ones that are the most affected on Monday if this happens.
I hate taxes as much as the next true blooded American, but damn it they need to do something FAST. I'm not saying to raise taxes to some unimaginable amount, but if everyone pitched in a little maybe the state wouldn't be in the mess it is now. However that is not to say that it is totally the tax paying Michigan residents fault. Not at all. The fault is in the current government for allowing this to happen. Raising taxes isn't going to be the only thing that they need to do to fix the 1.75 BILLION dollar problem...they need to cut spending. I remember when the state had a surplus in the mid-1990's, I only wish the state could get back to that one day. I know it will take a LONG time to be able to do that. It just breaks my heart that my state is in the mess it is now.
All of this got me thinking, and playing the what if game. One of the worst times in my life was the day that I wasn't able to go back to CMU, and to finish my degree. I have come to terms with that. But what if I had been able to finish at CMU, and once I had graduated I was able to get a job with the state? I mean my degree is public administration, and I wanted to get a job as a bureaucrat. Now with the state close down looming over all the residents of Michigan I feel truly blessed that my life took a different path. I would have been one of the state employees to get a pink slip.