ABTICIiES XIV.— Finance and Taxation

1. All specific State taxes, except those received



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from the mining companies of the upper peninsula,
shall be applied in paying the interest upon the pri-
mary school, university angl other educational funds, ,
and the interest and principal of the State debt, in
the order herein recited, until the extinguishment of
the State debt, other than the amounts due to edu-
cational funds, when such specific taxes shall be
added to, and constitute a part of the primary school
interest fund. The legislature shall provide for an
annual tax, sufficient with other resources to -pay
the estimated expenses of the State government, the
interest of the State debt, and such deficiency as may
occur in the resources.
2. The legislature shall provide by law a sinking
fund of at least twenty thousand dollars a year to
commence in eighteen hundred and fifty-two, with
compound interest at the rate of six per cent per an-
num, and an annual increase of at least five per cent,
to be applied solely to the payment and extinguish-
ment of the principal of the State debt, other than
the amounts due to educational funds, and shall be
continued until the extinguishment thereof. The
unfunded debt shall not be funded or redeemed at a
value exceeding that established by law in one
thousand eight hundred and forty-eight.
3. The State may contract debts to meet deficits
in revenue. Such debts shall not in the aggregate
at any one time exceed fifty thousand dollars. The
moneys so raised shall be applied to the purposes for



CONSTITUTION OF MICHIGAN 259

which they were obtained, or to the payment of the
debt so contracted.
