All over Michigan, working families are – with a great degree of misfortune – starting to grow rather accustomed to hearing the dreaded phrase “pay cut” uttered out loud. Now, however, it appears as though the Michigan legislature is ready to join us in what has been one of the most catastrophic economic downturns in recent memory, of which one can never comment enough on.

That’s right – today, the State House voted in favor of Senate Concurrent Resolution 11 (SCR11), which cuts lawmakers’ pay by 10%. We here at Progress Michigan have been fighting upwards since 2007, when a measure like this one first began to generate buzz at the Capitol.

The last time this idea was thrown about, the Senate seemingly balked at the idea, choosing instead of passing it to dismiss it as a case that required “further study” before submitting approval. But now both the Senate and the House have approved of a plan that will render a 10% salary cut for Michigan lawmakers, and give them an avenue for “sharing the pain” of the millions of suffering Michigan families.

Action like this is really long overdue. With these legislative pay cuts, our great state could see more money poured back into our struggling economy, rather than into the pockets of already overpaid legislators. This will also allow for a much-needed connection to be developed between our lawmakers and residents that will, with any amount of luck, spring forth a dialoguing process that could put a stop to this economic recession, once and for all.

It seems as though things are starting to look a bit sunnier outside, and that’s not just thanks to the blossoming springtime.

You all know the saying, 'you can put lipstick and a fancy dress on a pig, but all you get is a made up dressed up pig.' This is exactly what Senate Republicans (and a few Democrats) did yesterday in introducing their new "clean energy plan", which essentially gives tax breaks to coal burning plants that use carbon sequestration (pumping CO2 into the ground) as a way to label themselves as clean. The problem with this method of burning coal is that it is still burning coal, which is a dirty, outdated, and expensive way to generate electricity.

The Detroit Free Press has a story here about the plan.

 Not only is the price of burning coal steadily on the rise, so is the price of building a new coal plant, which one has to believe is the reasoning behind this move by Sen. Mike Bishop and others in the Senate, to pave the way for more coal plants in Michigan.

Couple the incredibly high cost of new coal plants (as much as twice as expensive as wind power and four times as expensive as energy efficiency) with the fact that carbon sequestration is a completely unproven technology that has never been proven on a commercial scale, it's hard to envision how the drafters of this plan can call it clean.

Coal is coal, regardless of how you burn it. Michigan has a chance to be a leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency before even thinking about building new coal plants. Let's hope that the policy experts in Lansing see this proposal for what it really is, just lipstick on a pig.