House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) said Wednesday the impasse with Senate Democrats was broken after the Senate passed five House bills in the chamber and that legislation will continue to move as long as the Senate continues to move more House bills.
But Wednesday’s Senate action doesn’t necessarily mean the Republican House is going to start moving Senate bills. Hall said, as far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t have to.
“We’re not moving their bills. They’re moving our bills and that makes a lot of sense. I mean, they’re caving. They’re backing down to pressure,” he said.
The issue, Hall said, is that the House is sending the Senate bills that are “ready to go” while the Senate is sending the House bills that “are not ready to go.” The one exception was the recently negotiated cell phone bill in which Sen. Dayna Polehanki (D-Livonia) was slated to get a public act for her requirement that local schools ban student cell phone use during instruction time.
However, House Democrats torpedoed the House bill in that two-bill package, he said, so that whole deal is now off the table.
The fact the Senate passed five House-introduced bills is significant. Until today, the Senate had only passed three House bills this entire 2025 session. However, the House has only passed three Senate bills, none of which were sponsored by a Republican.
“Senate Democrats are moving bills that have broad bipartisan support. I appreciate their efforts,” said Rep. Tom Kunse (R-Clare).
The bills in question deal with deep fakes and some highway renaming (see related story). What the Senate hasn’t passed is Hall’s so-called shutdown prevention plan. It’s essentially a continuation budget that keeps local governments, jails and state police and some other core functions funded until a full fiscal year budget is passed.
“We passed that bill to . . . ensure that our local prisons stay open, local governments have the funding they need. We wanted to ensure that kids weren’t pawns in the Democrats’ shutdown game,” Hall said.
Asked if she’d rule out passing the House’s continuation budget, Brinks said, “I’m laser focused on getting a budget to the governor’s desk well before Sept. 30.”
Income Tax Cut Will Not Be Part Of Budget
In other news from Hall’s press conference Wednesday, the Speaker conceded that the income tax cut passed earlier this year will not be included in the House’s budget recommendation, which Hall repeated will come out “soon.”
In March, the House passed HB 4170, which lowers the income tax rate to 4.05 percent from 4.25 percent.
Hall said he believes the Republicans, instead, should “magnify” the tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill, meaning the state has an opportunity to eliminate the tax on Social Security, the tax on overtime and a tax on tips.
“I think people in Michigan would be mad if they thought they had no tax on tips, and then they still had to have a state tax on tips. They still have a state tax on overtime,” he said. “I think it’d be a problem.”
The fiscal impact of the aforementioned tax changes run between $150 and $180 million, he said. Cutting the income tax would cost around $713 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis.
Asked again how he plans on paying for his proposed $3 billion new revenue stream for the roads, Hall reiterated capping legislative earmarks to $100 million, getting rid of corporate incentives and “flushing fraud, waste and abuse” from the budget.
Hall Agrees, Lawmakers Should Not Be Paid In A Shutdown
The Speaker said today he agrees with independent gubernatorial candidate Mike DUGGAN when he said lawmakers should not be paid if there’s a government shutdown. He said if that language were in effect earlier this summer, it would have helped him get a K-12 budget deal done by July 1.
Hall wasn’t ready to say whether staff should also go without a check if the state government wakes up Oct. 1 without a Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget in place.
Is Nessel Now Going After The MEDC Coincidental?
Speaker Hall said he believes Attorney General Dana Nessel is being critical of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) because she has “embraced Donald Trump.”
Asked if he agrees with Nessel that the MEDC should have their funding frozen until there’s more oversight over the grant spending, Hall didn’t answer, instead:
“Did Dana Nessel ever investigate Gretchen Whitmer before she started embracing Donald Trump?” Hall asked. “The answer is no. Were there things that Gretchen Whitmer did before Donald Trump won in 2024 that should have been investigated? The answer is yes.”
Pushed again on whether he thinks the MEDC’s funding should be paused, he stressed that departments should not be allowed to squirrel away money for specific earmarks if the money isn’t being spent well. The same standard should be in place for corporate incentives like the one given to General Motors for battery plants, he said.
Article courtesy MIRS News for SBAM’s Lansing Watchdog newsletter
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