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How are the state's finances, given auto plant issues and the overall US economy? Has day-to-day living been affected in any way due to financial problems?
Sorry to say, this states fiscal health is terrible. Id say the state is on life support, and one day the plug is gonna be pulled.
What kinds of effects have you felt personally? For example, has crime risen significantly, are many home in your neighborhood in foreclosure and do you have friends who've been laid off for months who can't find work?
What kinds of effects have you felt personally? For example, has crime risen significantly, are many home in your neighborhood in foreclosure and do you have friends who've been laid off for months who can't find work?
I know no-one who is not working that wants to work. I know no-one that is under-employed. There are no homes that are even for sale in my neighborhood, let alone any that are empty or in foreclosure. Crime has not risen in my town at all, in fact it has dropped in the last couple years. Tax returns are on time for everyone I know who has them coming, property taxes have lowered overall in this County, schools are still well staffed and education has not dropped due to cuts in school budgets yet. People are still buying new cars and trucks here, even had a business expand and build a new building in my little town.
Sorry for the good report, but there are MANY places here in Michigan that are not affected by Detroit's ills overall.
I know no-one who is not working that wants to work. I know no-one that is under-employed. There are no homes that are even for sale in my neighborhood, let alone any that are empty or in foreclosure. Crime has not risen in my town at all, in fact it has dropped in the last couple years. Tax returns are on time for everyone I know who has them coming, property taxes have lowered overall in this County, schools are still well staffed and education has not dropped due to cuts in school budgets yet. People are still buying new cars and trucks here, even had a business expand and build a new building in my little town.
Sorry for the good report, but there are MANY places here in Michigan that are not affected by Detroit's ills overall.
Good to know. Are you still living in Marshall, as I read in your other post that you once commuted b/w Marshall and Battle Creek? How long was that drive, by the way?
What kinds of effects have you felt personally? For example, has crime risen significantly, are many home in your neighborhood in foreclosure and do you have friends who've been laid off for months who can't find work?
Not much personal impact yet. However the State broke the "Michigan Promies" and my daughters had to replace already committed scholarship money that was not paid. Services are down a bit, but not dramatically. The roads are in bad shape and there was little repair work last season. NExt year we may be looking at some major infrastructure decay if they donto come up with something. Some roads are already impassible to certain types of vehicles.
Crime has not risen at all in our area. There are quite a few homes (for or five) in our community that were foreclosed. There are hundreds of homes for sale and many have been on the market for years. We lost 65% of the appriased value of our home since 2006, and cannot buy out our construciton loan.
Business is down. The big concern is not right now, but where is future work going to come from? There is nothing going on.
My brother got laid off twice in the past four or five years. each time he quickly found better jobs. However in his current job, they have cut back his hours.
I have a friend who is an HR person. He lost his job and has been on unemployment for over two years. (I did not know that you could get unemployment for two years). Quite a few construciotn companies have gone out of business. Towns and townships and school districts are using up their "rainy day" funds and starting to make painful cuts. Nothing dramatic.
The State government is pretty broke but no where near as bad off as some states (like California). However they simply will not stop overspending. They cannot seem to understand what it means to make real cuts. Michigan pays the some of the highest amounts for certain services, I know that incarceration of prisoners is one, special ed schooling is another (becuase it goes longer than most other states). It is too bad, but tings like that have to go. We cannot treat prisoners as well as we used to or keep them as safe from each other as we used to. We need to cut back on everything and somethings will be painful and unfair. Our society spends a huge amount of moeny trying to make things fair and it just cannot be done. Time to stop. Try again later when ther eis money. Now there is not money for such things. It is time for a change.
There is a guy running for govenor by marketing himself as a nerd ("Vote for the nerd"). I thought it was an intersting campaign idea. I am not even sure which party he is with, but I remember his commercials.
Sorry I drifted a bit. the answer is for us, things are pretty scary, but we are still glad that we live in Michigan.
Well, the tri-cities/Great Lakes Bay Region... are desperate at best, as well as anything surrounding. Also, it must a difference of area, but most of the people i know out of work would kill to have a job.. well you know. I work for a small business, our price power allows us to stay afloat, but i can only imagine it will fail at some point, i think impact is self explanatory. That said, i have a friend who works at McDonalds, and there was an opening, of which there were 100 applicants.. Carry that around every day is impossible, but its a scary thought. I mean, how does all of this really effect me... i choose to keep my mind ignorant, because things are so bad i would go crazy really thinking about it for any period of time. Because of all the unemployment, school coarses have become hyper competitive. There is a massive influx of people schooling, which is not all bad, but like friggin half(exaggeration) the areas population trying to fit into already packed classes.. This whole situation is a struggle i wish i could just leave behind, trying to focus on school and a dire survival situation at the same time is stressful.. to say the least.
Please do not flame me, if your area is doing well, awesome, but the "great lakes bay region" is dieing slowly and i do not see a return anytime soon. The only thing that will save this area is a massive drain in population.. I'm not saying MI sucks, or anything like that, I AM SPEAKING ABOUT THIS AREA ONLY. Maybe, in like 3-4 years, and if graduates stay around, there might be a reason for investment in the area.. maybe.
I know no-one who is not working that wants to work. I know no-one that is under-employed. There are no homes that are even for sale in my neighborhood, let alone any that are empty or in foreclosure. Crime has not risen in my town at all, in fact it has dropped in the last couple years. Tax returns are on time for everyone I know who has them coming, property taxes have lowered overall in this County, schools are still well staffed and education has not dropped due to cuts in school budgets yet. People are still buying new cars and trucks here, even had a business expand and build a new building in my little town.
Sorry for the good report, but there are MANY places here in Michigan that are not affected by Detroit's ills overall.
Where is the utopia in which you live? I must strongly disagree with your last statement, Michigan as a whole has many "ills" and they are apparent in every town, regardless if you choose to see them or not. The idea that there are "shelded" utopias in this state free of economic crisis is quite laughable, even the most wealthy areas have seen great change.
I've noticed that in many of your previous posts its apparent that you do not believe that anyone is struggling financially. If I choose to only see what I want, and not what is really happening, then I am blind to all. A breif report from your small neighborhood does nothing to gauge the realities of Michigan. Detroit's ills are your neighborhoods ills, what happens in Lansing will affect your community regardless.
While economic turmoil is rampant in most major metropolitan cities in Michigan, there are some, a slim number at best, that are holding their own. Speaking from where I live and in my own opinion, the situation is grim and getting worse. There are those in the local government, frankly speaking, that are covering the problems with "dung" in hopes something beautiful will grow. However unless the problems are actually corrected, they will continue to fester and spread, just at a slower rate.
My town...Flint.
The blight in this town is horrendous. The neighborhood where I grew up has more empty, foreclosed, burnt down and falling apart homes than there are with people living in half way decent homes. The community school system..well..WHAT school system? In 2009, 6 schools closed permanently and by the end of this year, two more will get the axe because there is no money to keep them open. Currently there are police layoffs looming on the horizon along with the possibility of fire personnel. While it is fortunate that this isn't widespread, there are more places that are going through this than there are not.
Here's a good idea of what Michigan looks like under the economic microscope according to Governor's office:
Quote:
The budget deficit in the General Fund and the School Aid Fund combined is currently about $920 million. Yes, the Governor just recently approved budget cuts for the current fiscal year that totaled more than $1 billion. The main problem is that the current budget was written based on economic forecasts that showed the nation rebounding from the current economic slump sooner. The country still has not recovered, and Michigan’s manufacturing-based economy is still suffering. Michigan has lost more than 300,000 jobs since 2000, including 170,000 manufacturing jobs. When workers lose their jobs, the state loses funds from two important sources of revenue – the income tax and the sales tax.
More information:
Quote:
Although federal stimulus funds can help balance the Michigan budget in Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010, they also create a real possibility of aggravating the ongoing structural deficit by permitting policy makers to postpone actions to bring long-term revenues and expenditures into balance. This is one of the findings of a new State Budget Note released by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan.
The State has been operating with a structural deficit, a deficit that will not be eliminated by a more buoyant economy, during the past decade. It has met the constitutional balanced budget requirement principally by using nonrecurring sources of income totalling over $8 billion over that period and has not solved the basic structural problem. Federal stimulus dollars, available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will provide the State with $7 billion, which will help in the short run, but which may make more difficult the resolution of the structural deficit.
ARRA, which is aimed at the cyclical downturn, will provide significant new funding, but:
Will not be sufficient to prevent spending cuts
Will mask the size of the cuts necessary to deal with the structural deficit
Will not be available long enough see the state through the entire period of reduced revenues caused by the recession
Will cause a revenue "cliff" when the additional federal funding expires
"Policy makers must take steps to assure that the FY2011 budget is not more difficult than it has to be," said CRC Director of State Affairs, Craig Thiel. "While we won't be turning down the federal stimulus funding, we can't relax our efforts to eliminate the ongoing deficit."
Quote:
Lansing -- Collections from major taxes continue to plummet, sinking the recession-wracked state budget deeper into deficit, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Monday.
Sales, income, business and property tax receipts substantially lag estimates earlier this year. State economists say revenues were $100 million behind projections in January and February, and it appears March tax receipts will be down by a similar amount.
Granholm said $2.1 billion in unrestricted cash from the federal stimulus package over the next two years won't be enough to rescue the withering budget.
"You could use every single dollar to fill up the deficit, and you'd still have to cut a significant amount," she said.
Gary Olson, director of the Senate Fiscal Agency, said that's a worst-case scenario. He said the governor has recommended using $800 million in recovery money to balance the budget this year and next year. That leaves $1.3 billion in uncommitted federal cash that the state expects to get.
"Could general fund estimates go down by $650 million each year? That's an 8 percent decline. It's doubtful, but it's in the realm of possibility," Olson said. This year's general fund is about $8.3 billion.
Leaders in the Legislature will huddle with state budget director Robert Emerson on Thursday to hash over the gloomy fiscal picture. The state's top fiscal analysts will meet in May to figure out how much money the state will have to spend this year and next. The budget is based on those estimates. The projections made in January have proven to be optimistic as the state suffers from the recession and the staggering auto industry.
If it's decided this year's budget is out of whack, Granholm may have to make cuts by issuing executive orders in order to balance the books, which the state constitution requires. It's not known where the reductions would come from or whether leaders will use federal recovery money to keep from having to make cuts in the middle of the year.
"We've got to plan in the most conservative way possible and make the cuts that are necessary to be able to survive long term," Granholm said.
Granholm has proposed deep cuts in next year's budget that begins Oct. 1 -- estimated to have a $1.6 billion deficit -- including 1,500 state employee layoffs, closure of prisons and a mental health facility and elimination of a state department. Budget officials have said some of those cutbacks may have to be made earlier to balance this year's budget
What kinds of effects have you felt personally? For example, has crime risen significantly, are many home in your neighborhood in foreclosure and do you have friends who've been laid off for months who can't find work?
I live in a very small town in the center of the state, so crime is not an issue, however some dirtbag in Detoilet stole my identity and has caused me alot of trouble. Also I have relatives that have lost thier jobs. My bosses have become much more aggressive toward employees as they feel emboldened by the number of job seekers. There are houses for sale in my town, home values have tanked. Anyone who lives in Mi and owns a house has had that experience. I wanted to move, but now have to wait untill my house could be sold. Even though Im working still, the effects of the economic collapse are hard to escape. Like everyone Im doing what I can to save money, pay off debt quickly so if the day comes I am laid off or fired I will not find my self loosing my house or possesions. Im wondering how many more years will this state suffer??
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