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Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, drew attention with a recent Facebook post.

(Emily Rose Bennett | MLive.com)

LANSING, MI -- Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, drew barbs from the political left on Wednesday when he published a Facebook post comparing his fixed $71,685 annual legislative salary to the state budgeting process.

Sen. Patrick Colbeck's Jan. 4 Facebook post.

Progress Michigan, a progressive advocacy group, put out a press release in response.

"It's not often that an elected official publicly complains about his own salary. But, Senator Colbeck has never been one for showing respect for the people he represents," said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan.

"The state's budget is not at all like a household budget. Colbeck is comparing the cable that he uses to watch TV at home to the crucial public services that benefit us all. While the people of Flint still struggle with poisoned drinking water and children across the state deal with cuts to education and other programs, the people of Michigan are being asked to give a damn about Senator Colbeck's cell phone bill?"

Colbeck, reached by phone Wednesday night, said the post relayed information about how the state budget can benefit from cutting costs but improving services at the same time.

"I understand why that's a threat to Progress Michigan because their only solution to any problem is to keep taxing," Colbeck said.

His post drew negative comments about legislative salaries, which are set at $71,685 per year.

"Yup, living on almost $72,000 a year (the fourth highest in the country) must be awful tough. Care to trade with a 12th year teacher with three degrees making 20% less than you and paying significantly more than you for health insurance and retirement?" wrote one Facebook commenter.

Others shared their own financial situations, or said that amount of money wasn't a fixed income.

Colbeck said lawmaker income was fixed, because it didn't change. Michigan lawmaker are not prohibited from earning outside income.

"When I was back in the private sector, I could typically count on a raise or I could get a bonus for putting in extra effort. Here you can't change what your income is," Colbeck said.

He and his wife gave up their jobs and put a lot of time, effort and financial resources into running for office, he said. He's looking to apply the principle of cutting back but keeping good outcomes to the state budgeting process.

"There are solutions to roads that don't involve increasing taxes, there are solutions to med expansion that don't involve raising taxes... I think it's time we started looking at those solutions," Colbeck said.