Pappageorge: Michigan can't afford its own government

Senator Pappageorge's Guest Opinion column, reprinted from the Detroit News:

We are facing a huge budget problem. This is beyond puny solutions being posed by some. We must take care of the $1.7 billion problem we face.

Let me illustrate the enormity of the problem. If we had a million dollars in $10 bills in front of us, the stack would be around two feet high. A billion dollars would be taller than the Empire State building.

What ties legislatures into knots when putting a budget together is the issue of income redistribution. Conservatives oppose it and liberals want more. Consequently, conservatives will pound the table and say we have to make cuts. This sends people to the unemployment line. Liberals insist that taxes must be raised. This sends us all up the wall, and, eventually, a different set of folks to the unemployment line.

Neither argument preserves nor creates jobs. There is, however, a middle ground that can reduce the cost of government without cutting programs or sending anyone out the door.

I believe in times of crisis that public servants -- I don't call us public employees -- need to step up and share in the economic pain being felt by the private sector. And I mean all public servants, including those at local levels, college professors, legislators and anyone else who is being paid with taxpayer dollars.

The total payroll for Michigan public servants comes to $21.3 billion ($5.6 billion is for state workers and $15.7 billion is for all others), not counting health care. A 5 percent cut in pay for all of us would reduce the cost of government by $1 billion.

I have introduced a constitutional amendment (SJR U) that cuts our salaries by 5 percent on Oct. 1 and freezes any pay increases for a total of three years. Step increases will still be allowed, as will promotions. Any reduction already taken by a government unit going back to Jan. 1, 2009, will count against the 5 percent.

My colleagues Mark Jansen, R-Gaines Township, and Jud Gilbert, R-Algonac, have introduced constitutional amendments that will have all of us assuming 20 percent of our health care costs. Some now pay zero while others pay 20 percent. This will reduce the cost of government by $680 million.

That's the $1.7 billion we're short. We can reduce the cost of government without sending anyone out the door. This is the true middle ground between two opposing views that are creating gridlock in the legislature. It's exactly what private businesses have been doing for some time.

This is not a mean-spirited assertion that public servants are overpaid. They aren't. It's about what we can afford. With a two-thirds vote of the Legislature these resolutions can be put to a vote on the August ballot in time to affect the budget that begins on Oct. 1.

I despair at those who suggest we can end our differences by a combination of cuts and tax increases. This nonsense simply sends the same number of people out the door -- some from the public sector and the rest from the private sector.

The proper compromise is to reduce the cost of government.

Sen. John Pappageorge is a Republican from Troy and is vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.