I would like to commend the Michigan Progressive Party's platform to bring fiscal responsibility to the Michigan Student Assembly. I just wish the executive candidates actually stood for it.

While MPP has trumpeted responsible government throughout this election, MPP's leadership has lied about, manipulated and exaggerated information on MSA finances and the Ludacris concert. As a former Budget Priorities Committee chair who worked tirelessly to improve student government finances, I have to set the record.

MPP's claims on improving MSA's finances are blatantly false. According to its website, MPP claims its MSA presidential candidate Rese Fox "exposed a treasurer cover-up of historical tax form errors regarding student fee allocation, and ... worked with ... University administrators to correct MSA tax problems." MPP's position paper, MSA Financial Responsibility, further alleges that MSA is not currently in compliance with the Internal Revenue Service.

Charges that MSA's $700,000 budget violates tax law should not be taken lightly. Last summer, I was part of the MSA/administration committee that reviewed MSA's expenses to ensure compliance with tax exemption laws. No MPP candidates served on this committee. Edward Jennings, the University's tax manager and a member of the committee, described MSA's finances six days ago quite differently from MPP's deluded view: "MSA as a whole complies with the federal and state tax rules regarding charitable organizations and has not committed any excess benefit transactions or other prohibited transactions that may trigger excise taxes."

MPP's allegation that Fox exposed a financial tax scandal and subsequently corrected it is patently false. There never was a scandal to expose, let alone correct!

MPP's plans to financially clean house are amusing to me personally, because I already did it. Since the 2005 MSA election, I have written and cosponsored two significant code amendments - again without MPP candidates - which drastically improved MSA's financial accountability on discretionary spending and student group allocations. These changes made MSA's expenses, according to the General Counsel's office, compliant with state and federal laws. By codifying stricter procedures for MSA spending and severe penalties for violating these procedures, cronyism in discretionary spending was markedly reduced. But don't take my word for it.

The University Board of Regents believed MSA was responsible when it increased MSA's budget by around $40,000 per year last summer. Incredibly, revenue from student fees increased this year in tandem with MSA discretionary spending cuts. Discretionary spending was cut by $80,000, a 33-percent decrease from last year.

Stemming from its more efficient finances, MSA took the lead in planning the Ludacris concert, with Hillel and University Activities Center co-sponsorship. While MPP's MSA vice presidential candidate, Walter Nowinski, has called the concert an "unqualified failure," the Ludacris concert was one of the most fiscally efficient MSA huge-scale events. It was first large-scale rap concert at the University ever and turnout numbers only compared with crowds for Michigan sports. Twenty-seven hundred students, more than 7 percent of the student body, nearly sold out Hill Auditorium, filling 88 percent of it. Access for all students was ensured with prices that halved any comparable for-profit concert. Somebody had to pay for the concert, though. MSA spent $20,000, 12 percent of MSA's yearly discretionary budget, to hold the all inclusive concert. Last year's large-scale Sept. 11 conference provides some perspective: MSA spent over $25,000 and attracted merely 1.3 percent of the student body.

To be fair, the concert was not perfect. Costs exceeded the predicted budget because MSA overestimated outside sponsorship funding. Yet Nowinski has unfairly exaggerated the bottom line, alleging MSA planned to put on the concert cost-free. This allegation is false. According to MSA's resolution to support the concert, MSA invested in a budget designed to subsidize ticket costs. While the outside sponsors were not accurately predicted, this does not detract from the success of the concert, its minimal relative costs in MSA's budget or the future advantages from successfully working with the administration.

MPP has been disingenuous by propagating lies about MSA's finances, which are more accountable and efficient than ever. These financial improvements occurred without MPP candidates, who have irresponsibly taken credit for changes they played no part in. The results of their below-the-belt behavior are evident in their campaign. LSA Student Government vice-presidential candidate Daniel Ray's platform proposes to reduce funding application lengths by 90 percent, which would require budget allocations evaluate applications with essentially no information and likely in violation of federal law.