I rise to voice my opposition to Senate Bill No. 232. There are so many reasons I'm voting "no." I don't know that I'll be able to talk about all of them. But the first is that privatization does not work. Privatization hasn't worked in other areas of government, and I don't think we should continue this experiment on children. There are examples across the board of the state contracting out work that has cost the state more money.

Michigan experimented with a privatized prison in Baldwin. The result was the most expensive per-prisoner cost in the state. The 1997 privatization of the state's liquor distribution system cost taxpayers between $6 million and $15 million in lost revenue in that year alone.

As a privatization pilot program, a three-year contract for road maintenance was awarded to ABC, even though its bid was nearly 30 percent higher than the MDOT engineering estimate. After that project failed to provide savings to the state, the contract was extended for another three years. A Senate Fiscal Agency report now indicates that the state paid ABC nearly twice what it would have cost had MDOT employees done the work.

Production of the Michigan Natural Resources magazine was outsourced in a so-called revenue-generating contract. A private firm was supposed to pay the state $10,000 a month and maintain the magazine circulation at 100,000. The firm did not keep up its payments to the state, and the magazine circulation dropped dramatically and then shut down altogether.

The private sector does not have a magic wand to reduce costs. Not every venture in this world is profitable, not monetarily, but that does not mean it is not worth doing. If we are considering this dangerous route, perhaps we would be better served to address the lack of revenue that is causing this debate. These companies are out to make a profit, and they will only put the children they are supposed to be protecting first if they make money doing so. That's not how I want my state making decisions about the welfare of children.

In addition, this budget cuts childcare in this state dramatically, as was discussed by another Senator, and as we saw in the amendments that have occurred on General Orders, we've cut an additional $11 million at a time when we are also saying that counties will be restored. We are fooling ourselves and fooling county government. I think they will catch on. Once again, this is a budget that, as I said earlier, we have given away our responsibility to determine where cuts should be made. If you want to make cuts, you should be able to say where you want those cuts to be made. This budget does not do that. It is not a good budget for children. It's not a good budget for the state of Michigan, and I urge my colleagues to vote "no."