Tim Skubick

In an analysis of the new state budget, we have reached a Joe Friday “just the facts” moment. (Don’t know who he is? You are too young to be reading this column. Return immediately to your social media device. Thank you.)

Here are those facts.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has proposed a new $80 billion-plus state budget.

Senate Democrats have adopted a budget that is a billion dollars over the governor’s figure.

House Republicans, led by their fearless leader Speaker Matt Hall, have not passed any current budgets, professing that they need more time to do a deep dive into all of the figures to figure out where they can slice and dice state spending. Or, put another way, they intend to spend less than the governor and democrats have suggested.

Sitting impatiently on the sidelines watching all this are school boards and administrators around the state who know there is a July 1 deadline for lawmakers to tell them how much they will have in state aid for the next school year. They can’t finalize their spending blueprints until they fill in that blank.

The speaker is prepared to blow past that deadline, without penalty, to allow more time for the dive and as a likely strategy to move get the Democrats to give in on more budget cuts. He has never said that, but one can read between the lines on that one.

There is only one conclusion: Writing the budget is a mess at this read.

Enter the conversation, Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, who chairs the House Appropriations committee and, as such, has tremendous power over what numbers are attached to each state department spending plan. She’s on a mission to find wasteful spending to save tax dollars, and she could teach Elon what’s-his-name a thing or two about that.

She wants to start by paring down the size of the state government workforce. The governor proposes to hire 1,000 more of those workers. The chairwoman wants that on the chopping block.

She has targeted the administration’s energy policies, including the purchase of more EVs for the state fleet. Bollin is not impressed.

She has in her sights all the spending on “pet projects” that legislators request for their home districts. Everything from refurbishing the local public pool to underwriting grants for a barbershop quartet.

So while the Republicans try to restrain the Democrats, there are some ominous economic clouds hanging over the whole shebang.

Item: 42% of the state budget is based on federal dollars. When the dust settles, if it ever does, no one here knows what percentage will be left after the Trump administration is done. There are billions of federal dollars, for example, that could be removed from the Medicaid budget for needy families. Bollin supports the concept of good health care for them, but she notes there are some “discretionary” programs that the Whitmer administration has created that may not be “reasonable.”

Item: The long-term impact of the president’s tariffs on the auto industry, including makers and suppliers. A recent U-M study indicated the possible layoff of 13,000 workers in that sector.

The chief bean counters for the governor tried to slap a smiling face on that prospect by saying because the state’s economy is more diversified now than it was decades ago, other sectors will be growing to make up for the lost jobs in the auto industry. While that may have appeal on the macro side of things, if you are one of the 13,000, it will hardly keep you sleeping at night wondering where your next paycheck will come from.

Years ago, during less contentious times, a divided legislature would haggle over the state budget; each side would huff and puff, but before the deadline, they worked it out.

But these days, there are some in the gov’s orbit, the speculation goes, who think Hall and company really do want to shut down the government. He says the same thing about the Democrats.

Wonder if Sgt. Friday would believe either one.