LANSING, Mich. (WWJ) -- Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed all 16 state budgets to avoid a government shutdown as the new fiscal year begins on Tuesday.
The first-term Democratic governor issued 147 line-item vetoes, representing a reported nearly $1 billion in Republican-backed spending. The budget is more than $59 billion.
"The Republican budgets were a complete mess, and today I used my executive powers to clean them up to protect Michiganders," Whitmer said in a statement. "The state's budget is a reflection of our values, and make no mistake that public health and safety, access to health care, and protecting classroom spending is more important than handouts to lobbyists and vendors."
The vetoes included $357 million in one-time road funding.
"While line item vetoes can only clean up so much of this mess, additional steps will be needed to protect Michiganders, protect access to health care, and help close the skills gap, and it will take Republicans and Democrats working together to get it done," Whitmer said.
Speaking live on air Monday night, WWJ Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick says the Republicans and Democrats may not have a massive falling out over the budget.
"The first indication of what this means comes from the Speaker of the House, Lee Chatfield. He issued about a three-paragraph statement that was not snarly, it was not confrontational," Skubick said. "It started off by saying 'all of this could have been avoided,' but at the end of it, he was saying, 'now we have to talk.' If that tone is maintained by the Senate Republican leader, then a 'holy budget war' is not about to break out as a result of these vetoes."
"This budget impasse was silly and completely avoidable. Instead of working this out together, the governor decided to play political games and walk away from negotiations. Her tactics wasted everybody's time and manufactured a crisis out of thin air. I hope it was worth it," Chatfield's statement says. "Now that her shutdown threat has been shown to be nothing more than empty words, the cameras will stop rolling and the headlines will move on. Hopefully that means she will finally accept our invitation to come back to the negotiating table and get back to work."
Skubick says 147 line-item vetoes is a record for governors.
"Nobody has ever come close to that number of vetoes, and it underscores her 'disdain,' if you will – my word, not hers – of what the Republicans sent her," Skubick said. "Remember, there were no negotiations between she and the Republicans on this budget after she walked away from the table, saying 'I'm done with you on roads; we can't agree, therefore I'm out of here,' and the Republicans said, 'okay, if that's the way you want it, we'll send you the budget.'"
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