By Rick Pluta, Michigan Public Radio Network
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-865140.mp3
LANSING, MI – Governor Granholm says she will use her line item veto power to free up money in the state budget to restore proposed cuts to Medicaid, local governments, and college scholarships.
AUDIO:
Governor Granholm says payments to doctors and nursing homes that take Medicaid patients, local police and fire services, and the Michigan Promise scholarship are too crucial to endure the big cuts in budgets approved by the Legislature.
She says the money will either come from new revenues approved by lawmakers, or she will find it somewhere else.
"If the priorities that are important for Michigan are not funded in this budget, we clearly don't have enough money to fund all of the things that are in this budget, and so there will be some things that have to come out," she says.
Senate Republican leaders are refusing to send the governor half a dozen budget bills in hopes of striking a deal before a temporary budget expires at the end of the month. That poses the threat of a state government shutdown if the bills aren't signed.