(MPRN-Lansing) The Legislature is cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from Governor Rick Snyder’s proposed budget to leave room for priorities of Republican lawmakers. Some of the biggest reductions are in health and human services, and corrections.
GOP lawmakers are trying to make room for their own spending priorities such as infrastructure, paying down debt or, perhaps, some type of tax cut – but there’s no consensus on which direction to go.
“Lots of discussions about that,”
says Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive)
“Some of my caucus wants to do tax relief. Some want to do infrastructure. Some want to fix other issues, like retirement, things like that. So we’ve got some work to do on that yet.”
Governor Snyder says that shouldn’t slow things down.
“People have different perspectives and views,” he says. “That’s the legislative process, and we’ve worked these out traditionally, and I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t be able to work them out again.”
Earlier this year, House Republican leaders tried to force through an income tax rollback. Snyder lobbied against the effort because there was no specific plan on where to cut or come up with new money to replace the lost revenue.
