Is There Waste, Fraud Or Abuse In The Budget, Governor Whitmer?

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 03/09/2026) You'd need to take your shoes off to include your toes and hands to count the number of times House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) has talked about "waste, fraud, and abuse" or "ghost employees" when critiquing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's budget proposal.

Up until now, he's had the playing field pretty much to himself as he alleges all this misspending in most, if not all, of his weekly encounters with the Capitol press corps.

For the first time, Whitmer entered the conversation with a decidedly different opinion.

Asked on Off the Record if there was $5 billion of "waste, fraud and abuse" in her budget or was it "made up out of whole cloth?"

Gov. Whitmer dismisses it as "a talking point. You know I don't get worked up over it the way they talk about the budget. It's predictable. This is what always happens, and it's a reflection of the rhetoric going on down in Washington D.C. It's nothing that makes me rethink the priorities we've set and the hard decisions we've had to make."

She does concede that "there's probably some inefficiencies to be had. All entities, including WKAR or Gretchen Whitmer's household," have some.

"It's politics today," the Governor said. "I don't put a lot of stock in that."

And she added that under her leadership, the state has adopted good budgets. "We've been good stewards of the taxpayer's dime and will continue to do so as long as I'm governor."

On the issue of alleged "ghost employees," she was asked, "are there employees that are not employees and the money has been allocated for" them?

Her first response was, "there are a lot of hardworking state employees … I'm grateful to count myself among them for the next ten months."

She was asked basically the same question again. This time she gave a to-the-point answer of "no."

"I'm not going to say anything incendiary. We've built a pretty decent working relationship (referring to the GOP leader). I expect the opposing party to throw their best at me, and we'll have some tough debates and ultimately have tough negotiations and at the end of the day we've got to find common ground for the people of Michigan."