Keep 'em in your thoughts...

First and foremost in my mind right now is the tragedy in Minneapolis. My thoughts are with the victims, missing, and their families.

Last night on NBC Nightly News, there was, what I thought, a great broadcast regarding the bridge incident. They covered it from many angles, including the first responders, victims, and also the national realm. One thing that really moved me was a story on a bus full of kids coming back from a water park, and the camp counselor who helped get them to safety.

There was also a part where they reported on bridges throughout the country and their safety levels. According to the newscast, it is estimated that to fix all the bridges in the country would cost approximately $65 billion. Now, working in state government, my first question is - who's going to pay for it?

My gut feeling is that there are going to be a lot of citizens calling for these bridges to be repaired. So where does that leave lawmakers? Well, at the state level here in Michigan, we're having a large budget crisis. Who is going to pay for it? The taxpayers? Well, that's how it should be, but of course, many citizens want things, but don't necessarily want to pay for them.

Personally, I believe there's going to be a need for increased revenue in Michigan in order to address many issues that the citizens of the state deem necessary. However, I also think there are more efficient ways to do some of the things the state funds, but long term reforms are just that - long term. In order to put long term reforms in place, we need to take care of the current issue, but while doing that, we need to look at ways to save money. To me, the most difficult part of this is keeping the humanity involved - not cutting those programs that are critical to our citizens, such as police, fire, cities, townships, after school programs, children's health insurance (and my list could go on and on...). We also need to frame this issue in a way that people understand if revenue is not brought in, these services will be gone, and they'll have to pay for it elsewhere (tuition increases, car repairs because of bad roads, etc.)

Alrighty - I just realized I went off on a huge diatribe there...but this issue is one that has kind of taken over my life and the way that I look at things. This current tragedy in Minneapolis just sparked a fire under me...