Budget talks: reason for optimism

“We’re getting close but we’re not there yet.”

In the last seven months since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer released her new state budget, nobody in this town has uttered those eight little, but important words. Instead a ton of the rhetoric has centered on not getting a budget agreement which would create a government shutdown on October first the deadline for getting the budget job done.

But then seemingly out of nowhere was the House GOP Speaker Matt Hall during a zoom interview reporting that he and the governor were not only working on a deal but actually piecing one together and he was confident they could meet the deadline.