WASHINGTON – Just in case anyone missed it the first several times she said so, Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants to make it perfectly clear:
Michigan would really, really like to be at the top of the list for getting any stimulus funds governors in other parts of the country might return.
She said so in a letter to Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday, putting it this way, “Michigan would like to be first in line.”
Today marks a key deadline for applying for education funds under the $787-billion stimulus plan, and questions have been raised for weeks whether South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, might reject them. The Associated Press reported Thursday that a spokesman for Sanford said he would accept a portion of the funding, leaving the state open to get the rest of the education money if it chooses.
But other Republican governors – Alaska’s Sarah Palin and Texas’ Rick Perry among them – have talked about turning back portions of their state’s funding under the mammoth bill. Since those governors raised the specter of returning funds weeks ago, Granholm has been saying she’d put the money to good use.
“I firmly believe we cannot afford to leave a single dollar on the table,” she said in the letter to Biden, who is overseeing implementation of the stimulus plan for President Barack Obama. “Since at least three governors have stated that they do not plan to accept all the funds allocated for their states, I would ask that these resources be reapportioned.”
Granholm’s got an additional reason for asking to pick up any leftover money: As the Free Press reported today, state tax collections are falling $100 million short of already dire predictions made three months ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment