Governor Mitt Romney speaks on Mackinac Island wkar.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wkar.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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LANSING, MI – State lawmakers failed to meet a self-imposed 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline to have a budget deal finalized. House Speaker Andy Dillon and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop set the deadline for more than a dozen committees hashing out spending agreements for state departments.
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Most of the committees postponed their meetings. Some of the toughest budgets deal with controversial issues such as Medicaid and the Michigan Promise college scholarship.
Committee chairs and leaders remained tight-lipped about the negotiations. This is House Speaker Andy Dillon. I want to be careful about the process here, he says. I don t want to disrupt it - it s very delicate right now. They Senate s watching us closely, we re watching them closely. I don t want something in the media to disrupt where we re heading.
State Rep says it s time to start trusting wkar.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wkar.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Laura Weber, Michigan Public Radio Network
LANSING, MI – Michigan s legislative leaders say they are close to an agreement on $1.2 billion in budget cuts. That is the amount of spending rollbacks the state Senate proposed earlier this summer.
But House Speaker Andy Dillon says the Democrats still want more spending than Republicans for K-12 schools, higher education and the Michigan Promise college scholarship. What we re saying is we re prepared to make and move very difficult budgets, he says. But those areas of priority that I ve identified, I need some comfort that I m going to protect the values of the Democratic House and the governor.
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LANSING, MI – State lawmakers say the old Michigan Central Depot in Detroit could bring federal stimulus money into the state if it s renovated. The state Senate held a hearing Monday to discuss the future of the building and of the state as a hub for international trade.
The dilapidated building sits on ten acres of land in a wide open expanse of Southwest Detroit. Most of the windows in the 500 thousand square foot building have been broken out and barbed fencing surrounds the vacant station.
Carmine Palombo is with Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. He recently toured the building with state lawmakers.