Gov. Granholm recently signaled she will use her line-item veto authority to entirely eliminate state funding for the MSU agriculture Extension program by having the treasury department withhold the scheduled October payment.

The move is raising tensions in the ongoing battle over the state budget.

Friday (October 23rd), local state Reps. Sharon Tyler, of Niles, and Matt Lori, of Constantine, warned the governor against vetoing the program.

“Agriculture is a bipartisan issue.  At some point people in Lansing need to recognize that agriculture is our second largest industry in this state.  As we continue to lose manufacturing jobs, the importance of agriculture to our state’s economy will continue to grow,” said Tyler, who serves as minority vice chair of the House Agriculture Committee.  “This program is helping the industry expand when nearly every other sector of our economy is hemorrhaging jobs.  For every dollar we invest, the state gets more than two dollars back.”

Extension is a Michigan State University program that gives farmers across the state access to agriculture research and information about best practices.  There is an agriculture Extension center in each of Michigan’s 83 counties, as well as 14 experiment stations throughout the state.  Funds from the program are also used to support community organizations such as 4-H.

“Vetoing this program demonstrates a lack of respect for the contributions of the farming community to our state’s economy,” Lori said.  “The governor’s blatantly political attempt to scare the public into supporting another tax hike by first cutting money for schools and then threatening to veto programs for farmers is absolutely disgraceful.  In my 30 years in government I’ve never seen a program that does more to boost our economy and our community, and I simply don’t understand how the governor can justify this cut.”

Tyler said House Republicans were willing to compromise and cut funding for the agriculture Extension program in half since the budget is tight and cuts have to be made everywhere, but completely killing the program will hurt one of the few industries in Michigan that is actually growing.

Lori said if the governor does veto funding for the program, he expects nearly all 43 Republican lawmakers in the House would support an override attempt.  However, for an attempt to be successful, at least 31 Democrat lawmakers would have to turn against a governor from their own party.

The odds of that happening are not good.  Lawmakers have only been able to successfully overturn a governor’s veto three times in the last 58 years.  Still, Lori said he believes in this case it is possible, since agriculture is an important industry in nearly every area of the state.

Agriculture contributes $71.3 billion annually to Michigan’s economy.  A recent study by Michigan State University showed Michigan’s agriculture industry experienced 12 percent growth in 2007.

For additional perspectives on this topic in the form of a “Legislative Newscast” from the Michigan House Republicans, click here.

Source:  News release and audio feature from Michigan House Republicans