Hall disputes media claims of budget increase

Michigan’s newest budget is $800 million smaller than the previous year, House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an interview.

Differing numbers have been reported in the media over the total for the state budget. House Appropriations Chair Ann Bollin, R-Brighton Township, states that the final budget is $75.1 billion, an $800 million decrease from $76 billion in 2025-2026. Many media reports state that the budget total, at $84 billion, is substantially larger than last year’s $76 billion budget.

Hall explained the discrepancy in a phone interview with CapCon.

“They tried to include federal funding that has nothing to do with Michigan,” Hall said. “Where the Detroit Free Press got it wrong is: I did not say that all federal funding has nothing to do with Michigan

Hall pointed to Rx Kids program funding. The federal government gives funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as TANF.

“And we get to decide what we do with that money within parameters,” said Hall. “So that money is included. Because in that case I eliminated the funding for Rx Kids. Instead, we put it into five very specific pots that I picked.” This, the speaker told CapCon, ensured that the funding would go to a cash assistance program that has been running a deficit.

And we like that one because it does have eligibility standards,” Hall said. “So that would be included.”

The State of Michigan, Hall noted, has no authority over federal spending decisions. The state directly controls about $75.191 billion in spending.

The Speaker noted that the budget is assessed by three independent fiscal agencies: the State Budget Office, the House Fiscal Agency and the Senate Fiscal Agency.

“And they're trying to start setting a baseline to determine what the state is doing — and so they're making calls that make a lot of sense on what is federal funding and what is state funding and what is within the purview of the state government,” he explained.

The reports of the three agencies, said Hall, all come to the conclusion that this state spending this year is smaller than it was last year by about $800 million.

Hall told Bridge Michigan in late June that passing a smaller budget was his line in the sand.

“What these fake news reporters are doing is basically they hate me and they have a vendetta against the Republicans,” Hall told CapCon. “And so, they're trying to go back and add all of this other spending in there that has nothing to do with the state, in order to try to depress the Republican vote in the election and show that the Republicans are hypocrites. It's ridiculous how political it's gotten.”

He also took aim at the media over its minimal reporting about pork spending.

The House speaker said traditional media would find plenty of scandal if they investigated legislative requests for district grants, and he noted that there was little coverage of his successful effort to got rid of most earmarks in the past two budgets.

During the 2023-24 Democratic trifecta, Michigan enacted $4.3 billion in what are known as legislatively directed spending items.

This year, the amount allocated for the requests ranges somewhere between $125 million reported by the Legislature and $180 million reported by James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.