[mombyprofession]

What the heck???!!! After all the budget crap that they pulled? What's going on here???!!!

[absolootezer0]

thank you. i saw this posted in the detroit news this morning, but they’re a forbidden site.

MI ping!

[Cagey]

Have no fear. They’ll spend it soon enough.

[CzarNicky]

SPENDING SPREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[11th Commandment]

The surplus is not part of this year's budget agreement, under which taxes were raised by $1.35 billion and spending was cut or restricted by more than $400 million to help wipe out a $1.75 billion state budget deficit and place the state on sounder financial footing.

Typical- balance the budget by a increase taxes over reducing spending by 3:1.

Also, most of this surplus is phony because it was achieved by delaying payments, which is why I suspect the School Aid Fund had a $94M "surplus". When they meet to decide how the money will be spent (as the article decribes), the funds will go to past due payments.

[Edit35]

Bush’s fault.

[thackney]

delaying payments to state universities and community colleges, dipping into funds set aside for job training and substance abuse treatment and selling off part of the state's future tobacco settlement

That is an expensive way to create a temporary surplus.

[frithguild]

Maybe they can give some to us here in NJ - you know Red State to Red State, Honor among thieves, etc.

[VeniVidiVici]

Reduced spending and higher than expected tax receipts helped the state leap into the new year with a $350 million budget surplus.

Only later in the article does the author reveal the massive tax increase the state levied on its citizens.

How about giving it back?

[Slapshot68]

So Michigan residents can expect a tax break right?

BWWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I made a funny :)

[Into the Vortex]

Well then, I guess the taxpayers are due a refund.

Snort!

[Panzerlied]

WTF!

[dashing doofus]

By delaying payments, and issuing tobacco bonds, they created this tiny “surplus.” Lets see what Jen the Red does this fiscal year....

[Snoopers-868th]

This was casually mentioned a couple of weeks ago on Tim Skubik’s Off the Record. There was little discussion about it.

[untrained skeptic]

They probably ended up with a surplus because they were expecting entitlement costs to be higher, but they were lower than expected because of the number of people fleeing the state to live somewhere with less crime and more jobs.

If they moved south to Ohio they're likely to be disappointed.

[MarineBrat]

GIVE.  IT.  BACK.

[TheRake]

I was in Oregon last month and they were all waiting for their tax refund due to a budget surplus. Oregon law.

[popdonnelly]

The government’s solution is to spend the money quick.

[moonman]

They have a surplus because they are moving, especially, to Florida. Last Michiganer to leave, please turn the lights off!

[2harddrive]

Like the Fed.gov, they probably just moved a lot of expenditures OFF the budget. Still SPENT it...it just is no longer included in the budget, so they can claim a “surplus”.

[FreeInWV]

They will need it to pay for the gold digging coaches that the got from WVU!