Months before the Sept. 30 deadline, Republican leadership in the Michigan House quickly unveiled and voted through their plans Thursday to prevent stoppages in their version of essential services should the Legislature, split along partisan lines, fail to pass a state budget.

Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, unveiled the plan to members of the media before the session, which includes a $20 billion spending plan to maintain government services in the event of a government shutdown, as well as $49 million to “close the books” on expenditures in last year’s budget.

Democrats have accused Hall of setting his sights on a government shutdown rather than working with them in his chamber and the Democratic majority in the Senate on a new state budget.

But Hall said he’s interested in taking the bite out of those claims by securing funding for key government programs such as schools and local law enforcement

“Let’s just stop the games … Democrats stop using schools and prisons and veterans homes and local governments and police as pawns in your political game to threaten the government shutdown in order to bond your very unpopular radical left programs,” Hall said.

The plans speedily were put to a vote on the House floor shortly after their unveiling Thursday, with full support from Republicans and Hall ally Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit.

Democratic leadership decried the move at a news conference after the vote as foreshadowing of how budget negotiations will go.

And the plan leaves out funding for transportation and resources for rural schools, as well as free meals at schools, cutting the school aid budget by about 25% of what it was last year, Rep. Regina Weiss, D-Oak Park, said, adding that Republican priorities put the state’s most vulnerable families at risk of losing out on help from the state.

And if Hall is trying to make “Art of the Deal” political moves, invoking President Donald Trump’s book, Weiss said Hall is putting Michigan kids in danger.

“This is bad politics. This is bad policy. This is going to hurt our kids,” Weiss said. “It is dangerous and we don’t need this s— in Michigan.”

House Minority Leader Rep. Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton, acknowledged that Michigan exists in a “split government” where the people of Michigan have elected a Republican-led House and a Democratic-led Senate, but there are certain priorities — like making sure school kids are fed — that should cross partisan lines.

“…Michiganders are sick of the partisan divide, the political rhetoric. They want real solutions to lower costs, improve their lives and this isn’t it,” Puri said. “This is Hall playing with vulnerable kids, families, Michiganders all over the state, just for his own personal power grabs his own personal political game.”

The plan has a long way to go and there will be time for negotiations, House Appropriations Chair Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, told members of the media on the House floor, and it simply serves to show that House Republicans don’t want to see a government shutdown in an act of good faith.

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