Today, in response to the Governor signing the last of the budget bills for the 2009-10 Fiscal Year, Rick Snyder issued the following statement:

“Our citizens, students, businesses and communities are being punished for the failures of our career politicians to provide fiscal responsibility or leadership throughout the budget process. This administration and Lansing politicians should be ashamed of themselves. This budget is an unacceptable short-term fix to the structural and systemic problems our state government has to address. We need strong leadership in Lansing and an entirely new approach to the state’s budget process. We need a budget process that doesn’t use our students and schools as political footballs or allow special interests to prevent reform. In the coming weeks and months, I’m going to share with the citizens of Michigan how I intend to provide the leadership and solutions our state is desperately lacking and will lay out a series of reforms that will help us reinvent Michigan and move to an era of innovation. ”