(gentle music) - Okay, Nolan and Zoe, Governor Gretchen Witmer's sixth State of the State address was Wednesday here in the state of Michigan.

I thought immediately that this was a more modest speech than we heard from the governor, especially last year when she was sort of in the initial days of this new powerful majority of Democrats in the State House.

She had a really ambitious agenda.

This time it was a little more calculating and I think a little more strategic given that that majority is not there right now, at least in the House and, of course, this is an election year, which means that we won't get anything done after about May or June anyway.

But I'm curious to hear what your reactions were.

Zoe, I'm gonna start with you.

- Yeah, I mean I think it was a more muted speech, right?

Not the enthusiasm.

I mean, we have to note, of course, all of this is happening in the midst of Lions wins and so the governor certainly mentioned the Detroit Lions quite a number of times, more I think even than road funding possibly, if you can imagine that.

So, I mean, she was enthusiastic, but I think particularly when you look back to last year, right, when Democrats came with that...

I mean they each had like printed sheets of the things they wanted to get done vis-a-vis social policy, whether it be abortion or LGBTQ rights, or the economy, whether that be the earned income tax credit changes.

But this year, I mean, I don't know that anyone could come out and say, "Here are the six things and they're really amazing and exciting" in the way that last year.

So yeah, I don't think it was, compared to last year, as much of just sort of a powerful, in your face, "Here's what we're gonna get done" and some of that, as you mentioned, is because of the politics surrounding all of it.

- Yeah, Nolan, nonetheless, we saw the Republican response last night just light a fire about this speech, essentially accusing the governor of hyper-partisanship.

I mean, you're always gonna get the opposing party to say, "Hey, we thought the speech sucked," but in this case it seemed like there was a bit of an overreaction to what she was talking about.

There was a mismatch.

- Well, I mean, we spent the past year watching hyper-partisan politics in action.

They were included on very little of the decision making.

Being in the minority after 40 years in the majority, it's sort of a hard pill to swallow and so there's some bitterness there.

But this speech to me had the grogginess, the post-Thanksgiving meal grogginess you feel.

They spent $9 billion of federal money and they're just gorged on it and now they've woke up from their nap and they're tryin' to cram down another piece of pumpkin pie.

It's just that feel.

"Oh, can we do it?"

And there wasn't a whole lot new.

What struck me though is she continuing this expansion of government assistance programs to the middle class and wealthy and I don't really understand that.

We've got a lot of people in this state who obviously need help and it would seem to me like you can't help them as much as you ought to if you're giving out freebies to middle class and wealthy people.

She talked about her universal pre-K program by saying, "No matter how much money you make, you're gonna get to..." That should never be what government says.

Assistance should go to the people who need assistance.

- Well, I mean, I guess that's if you see these things as assistance or welfare.

I think a lot of people would say these are pillars of good economies.

You look at other states in the Midwest and what they're doing, they do these things.

Minnesota, I think is probably the best example of that.

These are the kinds of institutions that states that are outperforming us gird with public support and they don't see it as giveaways.

They see it as making sure that everybody has access to the same kind of necessities and that you don't tailor it in a way that takes it from people who need it.

But Zoe, what do you think of that idea of her leaning into the idea of giving stuff away?

- Well, I mean, all of this, let's put into context, is coming with what we thought I think was that there was gonna be a lot more details or at least pushing it forward from the Growing Michigan Together Council proposals, which we've all talked about a lot, right?

Which is this idea of sort of a strategy to make Michigan a top 10 state again, whether it comes- - We should maybe take top 20.

- I was gonna say- - Top 40 would probably be more reasonable.

- Yeah, top 25 would be nice.

And so, I mean, again, this goes back to the idea of "Who's strategy?"

because I mean, what you're both talking about is this sort of Democratic verse Republican strategy when it comes to growing the economy and the issue is, in politics and in government, there isn't this block where someone gets power for 20 years and can sort of see their vision from A to Z and so this is now Democrats in charge saying, "This is how we think we can grow the economy."

To Nolan's earlier point though about this $9 billion, I mean, you're absolutely right.

I don't know about the pumpkin pie analogy, although now I really do want some pie.

But I mean, the fact is there was this $9 billion surplus.

A lot of that of course because of what Republicans like to call Biden bucks, right?

This was federal dollars that came into the state because of the pandemic and much of that money is indeed- - It's gone.

- And so really, what Democrats have to figure out, when you're talking about 10,000 new housing, whether that's rehabilitation or building new houses, I mean, I think we can all agree that there is a housing crisis in this state, but when you're talking about one and a half billion dollars, where is that money gonna come from?

And so that again is where you could talk about these policy proposals, particularly as Democrats, what they think is going to grow the economy, help the middle class.

But with all of it, it's "Where are the dollars gonna come from?"

And we'll hear from the governor, right, February 7th?

- Well, the budget address is just around the corner.

- Exactly.

- We've only got about two minutes left.

Of course, they never give us enough time.

How much of this can she get done with the uncertainty in the House and with the election looming?

Nolan, what's your take?

- Well, none for a while, but I was surprised here.

She just had this growth council and put out its report.

I thought the speech would be all about that and had you not known that there had been a growth council report, you wouldn't know it from the speech.

This was her opportunity to sell Michigan on that and to lay out that strategy and she didn't do it and I can't quite figure out why.

- Hmm.

Zoe?

- In terms of getting it done, I mean, this is gonna be a relationship with Speaker of the House, Joe Tate.

I was talking to him last night exactly about this.

"What are you gonna tee up first?"

He has a caucus right now of 54 members to manage all of their priorities.

Possibly as early as April we could see a 56 majority again.

But then, at that point, they've gotta focus on the budget.

So it's gonna be really interesting to see how they stack these proposals and which ones they even bring to floor votes.