Dear Gentle Reader,
I am back at working and currently blogging about a conference that I am attending for Crain's Detroit Business. The regular blog will be back next week with the last updates of the trip and my reintegration to the US and work-life! Here is the next installment:
So Why Don't We Treat the State Government like a Business?
One of the popular conversations overheard in the hallways of the Grand is about the state of the budget. Every time the conversation comes up, the first answer out of anyone's mouth is the need to make more cuts. The problem is that we have been doing that for the past eight years. We have managed to use up $6 billion in fiscal reserves and have enacted $4 billion in cuts.
If we were running the state government like a business, we would look at a combination of cuts, strategic investments and revenue increases. We wouldn't be cutting our research and development arm when they have the potential to strengthen the bottom line in the future. But here we are talking about cutting our universities and colleges when they are producing our next generation of workers and serving as economic engines for the regions that they reside in. Instead of making key investments in our infrastructure, we put it off for another budget cycle.
We would also examine our price structure or in government's case its tax system. We would expand the base of services taxed by the sales tax like other states. We would align our laws and sentencing guidelines with other Great Lake States to reduce the expenditures in the corrections budget. We would eliminate budget loopholes that don't bring anything to our bottom line. Corporate tax breaks should create investment and build the economy and if they don't they should be eliminated. We always say government should be more business like so let's get to it!
If we were running the state government like a business, we would look at a combination of cuts, strategic investments and revenue increases. We wouldn't be cutting our research and development arm when they have the potential to strengthen the bottom line in the future. But here we are talking about cutting our universities and colleges when they are producing our next generation of workers and serving as economic engines for the regions that they reside in. Instead of making key investments in our infrastructure, we put it off for another budget cycle.
We would also examine our price structure or in government's case its tax system. We would expand the base of services taxed by the sales tax like other states. We would align our laws and sentencing guidelines with other Great Lake States to reduce the expenditures in the corrections budget. We would eliminate budget loopholes that don't bring anything to our bottom line. Corporate tax breaks should create investment and build the economy and if they don't they should be eliminated. We always say government should be more business like so let's get to it!
Comments