Senators are deadlocked over Medicaid cuts and ACA subsidies as a government shutdown looms.
When Michigan’s top elected officials announced last week that they’d reached a deal to pass a new state budget by Oct. 1, averting a government shutdown — without sharing many details of the deal, or, you know, introducing budget bills — it seemed awfully optimistic.
It was. At midnight on Sept. 30, the state’s fiscal year ended without a new budget … but also without a government shutdown. Lawmakers agreed to fund government for a week as they hammer out the final details of the budget, which ought to have been finished by July 1. These eleventh-hour, down-to-the-wire negotiations aren’t just unnecessary, they’re bad strategy.
But that same night, when U.S. Senate Democrats allowed the federal government to shut down, it was solid strategy — at least, if it works.
Here’s why.
Details, schmetails
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids and House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland, issued a statement around 6 p.m. on Sept. 30, saying that while they didn’t quite have a budget deal, government wasn’t going to shut down, an announcement that made political insiders’ heads explode. (“I’m just going to try to disassociate for an hour or so,” one Lansing-ite texted me after the news broke.)
The Michigan Constitution doesn’t allow state government to spend money without a budget, operating without a spending plan is a short trip to fiscal calamity and joint press releases don’t change any of that. This momentary dive into chaos was curtailed before most Michiganders noticed it had happened when the Legislature rallied around 2 a.m., passing a $1.5 billion continuation budget to keep state government going for one week.
Brinks told the Lansing news service Gongwer that there are “some big wins” in the budget and that she’s “eager to be able to talk about those,” but also declined to discuss specifics. House Majority Floor Leader Rep. Bryan Posthumus, R-Rockford, said it’s “a pretty good budget that voters can be proud of.” Brinks said there are “a lot of moving pieces.” Posthumus told the Detroit News that it just takes time to type these things up.
None of this is reassuring. Nor is it reassuring that lawmakers are uncharacteristically quiet about the details of the budget they’ve supposedly all but finished, and about the sticking points that are holding things up.
What are the wins? Why is it a good budget? What has yet to be hammered out? It’d be neat to know.
The obvious
Last week’s announcement that a deal was within sight came with information only about a road funding plan: replacing the 6% gas sales tax — most of which funds schools but also generates $94 million for local governments — with a dedicated road funding gas tax, increasing marijuana industry taxes to raise $420 million and decoupling the state business tax from federal business tax cuts to preserve $677 million in revenue.
Schools aren’t too thrilled about the prospective loss of funding, nor are local governments, which have taken unconscionable hits to state revenue sharing over the last two decades. There is absolutely no margin for anyone in cutting school funding, so this ought to get resolved.
Last year’s budget, passed when Democrats held the Legislature, was $82.5 billion. Whitmer released a $84 billion budget proposal in February. The Democrat-led Michigan Senate OK’d an $84.5 billion budget plan in May that didn’t include a roads plan. The House put out a roads proposal this spring, and two months ago, approved a $78 billion budget proposal that cut $6 billion from the Dems’ plan.
But Michigan’s fiscal outlook doesn’t demand an austerity budget with steep cuts like those proposed by Hall. Michigan’s revenue estimating conference this spring projected a $320 million decline, largely due to uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs, a far cry from the billions Hall’s plan cuts.
It seems more like Hall is flexing, exercising the power of an elected official with enough power to kibosh the other side’s plans, but not quite enough to push his own across the finish line. There’s a huge space there for brinksmanship, and Hall seems willing to use it.
How much of Hall’s agenda will Whitmer and Brinks concede? I guess we’ll know once that draft is typed.
Meanwhile, back in Washington …
The minority in both chambers of the U.S. Congress, Democrats have largely been steamrolled by the second Trump administration juggernaut. Worse, the party has absolutely pancaked on messaging, whether or how to resist, plans to retake the U.S. Senate in the 2026 midterms or the presidency in 2028 or, really, anything else.
Democrats voted this spring to fund the government, and while that drew heat from some constituents, it was the right thing to do. Dems had neither a discrete ask nor much with which to negotiate, and it made sense to ensure that Trump and the Republicans would own the consequences of the administration’s ill-considered policies.
This is different. Trump has reshaped government at a breakneck pace, expanding the power of the executive office, empowering mask-wearing federal agents to snatch legal residents and sometimes even citizens off American streets, flouting the courts, sending the National Guard into U.S. cities, encouraging an assemblage of generals and admirals this week to use our cities as military “training grounds” … and so much more.
The authors of Project 2025, including Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, say American government is too big, too woke and too far removed from the government the Founding Fathers envisioned. The policy changes laid out in Project 2025, steadily enacted by the Trump administration, are intended to permanently shrink our government, even if that means ripping away programs millions of Americans rely on and gutting our civil liberties.
A shutdown is devastating for federal workers and their families, but Trump has and will continue to winnow their ranks regardless of whether the government is funded. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the federal government is expected to have 300,000 fewer workers in December than it did when the year began. Democrats have precious little ability to check Trump — including preserving crucial federal jobs — and must choose their opportunities wisely.
This time, Senate Democrats have a concrete ask — extend the Biden-era enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies and pull back Medicaid cuts that would strip health care from 15 million people — things that ought to be negotiable, if the folks on the other side of the table are actually interested in negotiating.
Two cities, two budgets
High-stakes negotations make sense in D.C., where a radical presidential administration is changing the shape of America.
In Lansing? Not so much.
State lawmakers have one week to get to yes, or maybe another week after that, as long as they’re willing to run the government on the equivalent of a month-to-month lease. But state government isn’t particularly controversial. Roads, schools, state police, tax collection, school lunches, it’s all important. Just fund it.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate have to keep saying no, because it is crucial to follow this to the end, not just for the Americans who will suffer without health care, but for the battles to come. Dems have, thus far, been unable to slow Trump’s agenda. Winning this standoff would change the dynamic of the next few years, sending a message about Democrats’ power — and so would losing.
Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: [email protected]. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
Get our sharpest, most relevant takes delivered straight to your inbox each week — subscribe to the free Freep Opinion newsletter.
Read more on Detroit Free Press
