Budget talks continue in Lansing as the deadline to avoid a state government shutdown approaches.
State Representative Brad Paquette of Niles tells us there’s still plenty of contention for lawmakers to get through, but that’s why the political process exists. He believes lawmakers will strike a deal before the October 1 deadline, but calls the situation “thorny.”
One sticking point, Paquette says, is an effort by House Republicans to crack down on “pork projects.”
“There has been a lot of nebulous pork barrel spending, a lot of dollars, taxpayer dollars going to these groups that no one really knows,” Paquette said. “You know, we’re out voting until five in the morning and I’m reading through some of these things and have no clue what they’re going to. And then we see years later in the headlines that, it’s going to politically connected people, groups that legislators are on the board of and things like that.”
Paquette says Republicans want to require a lawmaker’s name to be attached to legislation including such projects. In general, he says if the final budget includes some ethics reforms along those lines, he’ll vote for it.
Another sticking point has been roads as Republicans try to untie road funding from education funding.
“We want all the dollars that are paid at the pump to go to roads. Right now, some of them go to schools. So we had to make a shift there to be able to make that possible. So that’s why they got intertwined.”
Paquette says the House Republican budget substantially increases per pupil funding for schools. However, he says the struggle is between the Democratic Senate, the Democratic governor, and the Republican House. So, both sides are going to have to make some concessions.
Paquette expects the leadership in both legislative chambers to continue talking in the days ahead.
