Brinks: House Making Budget Shutdown Threat Real

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 08/13/2025) Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) hasn't had a one-on-one meeting with the House Speaker in about a month, and she's concerned that the state is careening towards a Sept. 30 shutdown because House Republicans have not been able to produce a budget that makes their road funding and tax cut promises add up.

In an afternoon press conference held after session, Brinks said that, contrary to the assertions made by House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) last week, she has not been having conversations with the head of the House Republican caucus throughout the summer. Staff is meeting, but she hasn't talked to him one-on-one in about a month.

To that, Hall said later in the day that he didn't want to contradict her statement but the “press like to write stories and say I don't talk to her, but I actually talk to her quite a bit.”

Also on Wednesday, the Senate Leader said she is concerned about the prospects of a shutdown, in part because she's heard House Republicans publicly say “they wouldn't mind” seeing one. She noted it's “incredibly expensive” to start to wind down non-essential parts of state government and then try to restart those again after days.

“It's disruptive to people who depend on the services that the government provides and, frankly, to the entire state, who have a reasonable expectation that the House should be acting responsibly and preventing that from happening,” Brinks said. “But we've certainly seen that there are folks who are more than happy to go down that road.”

The legal authorization to fund the state government expires Sept. 30 unless a Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 spending plan is signed into law by midnight Oct. 1. The Governor introduced her budget proposal in February. The Senate passed their recommended budget in May. The House passed a K-12 funding plan in June, but is still working on the general government portion. Hall said last week subcommittee chairs are working on their proposal and their recommendations will be out “soon.”

Hall wants to get a $3 billion long-term road funding proposal done alongside the fiscal year budget, which Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is on board with, but he wants the Senate Democrats to come out with their preferences, so everyone can start negotiating.

Brinks said the Senate Democrats have not kicked out their own road funding plan because she feels like it would “narrow our chances” to get a budget and a road deal done together, which she said needs to happen in order for the numbers to work.

“(A roads deal) needs to be sustainable if we're going to take tough votes. I want it to do the job, and I want to do it well, and I want to do it in a fair way,” Brinks said. “We continue to be at the table and so all the different pieces of the plan can be put together, but right now, without conversations about the whole budget, it's very, very difficult to do that in isolation.”

She said the only way to get a substantive road funding package done is through the budget process, but she's not going to agree to anything that “guts essential services” like education and it “has to get the job done.”

Hall said Wednesday that the House Republican budget he's working on with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) doesn't cut education or Medicaid. In fact, he said the Medicaid budget may end up being larger than last year.

But until he can show the numbers, Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) stressed that Hall doesn't really have a “roads plan." He has a “roads press release,” because the way he gets to $3 billion in funding without new taxes is only spelled out in a press release, not actual bill text. And from what Irwin sees, the numbers don't add up.

Asked about Hall's charge made last week that the Senate's budget passed in May no longer works because the state has since revised its revenue estimates and the President has signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Brinks said numbers always fluctuate during a budget process, but that's not a reason not to negotiate.

“It feels like it's being used as an excuse,” she said.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton), the chair of the Senate K-12 education budget subcommittee, said the Senate's School Aid Fund budget, which is sitting in the House, has a surplus built into it and is “ready to go.”

Brinks didn't dispute Hall's observation that Whitmer is not in complete alignment with the Senate Democrats, but she said that's true with any caucus and a governor of the same party.

“I understand he is eager to try to give the impression that there's a wedge between the Democrats in the Legislature and the Governor and that is simply not the case,” Brinks said.

Also attending Wednesday’s press conference in Brinks's Capitol office were Camilleri, Irwin and Sen. Dayna Polehanki (D-Livonia). Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) was preparing for a 2 p.m. committee meeting on the One Big Beautiful Bill's impact on Michigan.