The state Legislature won’t hold a session for at least the next two weeks, and Governor Gretchen Whitmer is not happy about it.
That’s because the Republican-led Legislature went on break without finalizing the state’s budget.
“No one in Michigan, no one in any other field is allowed to go on a vacation until they get their work done," she said. "They’re expected to work and stay at the job until they’ve gotten their work done. That’s exactly what we need to demand of our leaders in Lansing as well.”
Whitmer presented her proposed budget to the Legislature in March. She says she has yet to see a comprehensive funding plan from the Legislature that would fix the roads, improve education, and clean up the state’s drinking water.
Whitmer’s budget proposal contains a 45-cent per gallon fuel tax increase. Republican leaders have called it a non-starter.
A spokesman for Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield says the House and Senate committees are resolving differences between the proposed budgets of the two chambers.
The budget, or some sort of placeholder bill, needs to be done by October 1 in order to avoid a government shutdown.
Copyright 2019 Michigan Radio