by Tim Skubick
September 25, 2009

For months the “T” word has been in play. To tax or not to tax?

Democratic Speaker Andy Dillon and Senate GOP leader Mike Bishop have played cat to Governor’s Granholm’s mouse as they’ve gone back and forth on new revenue.

But don’t look now. Another more important “T” word has entered the fray: trust.

And while the two aforementioned “cats” have it between themselves, it is sorely lacking with the “mouse.” As the budget judgment day draws ever nigh, that spells another “T” word: trouble.

In the aftermath of the 2007 temporary shuttering of state government, there were all sorts of analyses on why it happened.

A lot of it had to do with the status of the trio’s relationship, or lack of same. And to address that, Granholm, Dillon and Bishop — with spouses in tow — broke bread over the holidays. With chestnuts roasting on an open fire, a pledge of sorts was made to do better the next time around.

Somebody cue the chestnuts. It didn’t work. Here we are in the midst of a most contentious budget battle and the governor found herself wondering about a “deal” the two guys brokered.

Dillon and Bishop decided to cut the state budget by $1.2 billion. That would allow the GOP leader to pay off on his oft-stated desire to pass a budget without a tax hike.

The subplot, of course, is that Bishop wants to be state attorney general and can’t stand another tax hike on his watch. Recall that in 2007, even though he voted against the income tax hike, he was whacked around pretty good by the right-wingers in his party for not using his authority to prevent a vote in the first place.

Bishop’s A.G. opponent is already making hay on that as they move into next year’s election cycle.

Hence Bishop has said that there are no votes in the GOP caucus for a tax increase, and to hammer home the point he says that even if there were a vote to raise new revenue, “My members want to vote on it just to kill it.” Chest pounding to follow. But in a quieter voice, he has never pledged to prevent a vote on it.

Apparently the Democratic speaker trusts Bishop that eventually there will be a Senate revenue-raising vote.

Enter the governor with her own take on the “T” thing.

“Where’s the leverage to ensure that [more revenue] happens? Once you sign off on something like [massive budget cuts], then there’s no guarantee that the next step [more moola] will happen.”

“So you don’t trust the Republicans?” she was asked in her office the other day.

She answered a different question. But let’s be candid here, gang. When she uses the word “guarantee,” isn’t that all about trust? As Sarah P. would say, “You betya.”

In the midst of all this lack of trust, and it extends deeply into the legislative membership as well — especially on the Democratic side — one reflects on those days when trust was alive and well.

Substitute for Bishop the name John Engler, and for Dillon, Gary Owen. If those two veteran leaders from opposite parties had made a similar deal, the “T” word would not be a question mark.

But alas, Dillon is not Owen, and Bishop is not Engler, and you can blame another “T” for others not trusting them: term limits.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

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This Thing Could Work
What a difference two years make. In 2007, Capitol correspondents were running all over the joint trying to keep an eye on the illusive governor, who shuffled from one legislative office to another trying to work a deal to balance the budget and avert the government shutdown.

Fast-forward to right now. Alas, the governor’s role in this current budget struggle appears to have been reduced to issuing press releases from the sidelines through the press secretary. No one has seen hide or hair of the state’s top executive in the midst of all the turmoil this week.

There’s no question Gov. Jennifer Granholm is engaged and is being kept up to date via her budget director, but she’s not negotiating with anyone as far as we can tell. The two guys who run the House and Senate have taken over the task … a rare scene to say the least.

At this read there are strong signs that the guys, Speaker Andy Dillon and Senate GOP leader Mike Bishop, may actually pull this off: adopting $1.2 billion in budget cuts to balance the books, and then come back next week to raise some new revenue to restore some of the monster cuts adopted this week.

It’s the most unorthodox budget strategy ever seen in this town, and it just might work, despite the protestations from the governor and other Democrats who don’t trust Dillon or Bishop.

If it works, Dillon’s stature goes sky high and chatter about him running for governor will go up with it. Bishop’s role in handling the revenue increase remains a work in progress, and how he does it will impact his bid for state attorney general.

Another key figure in all this is Rep. George Cushingberry (D-Detroit), who is the guy in the room with the most budget experience. He’s using it to push the all-cuts budget with the trailer revenue increases to follow.

“Cush,” as he is affectionately known in town, is confident all this will work.

And by the end of next week, a reluctant and bystander governor may have to concede it did.

Talk about your rare scenes.

Those Pesky Facts
Remember the hard-nosed TV detective Joe Friday and his famous one-liner: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Well, when you apply that to what’s going on in our beloved state Capitol, here’s what you get: don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.

Given a chance to spend a little money now knowing that it would produce more money or save you money down the road, you’d do it in a heartbeat.

Legislators have that chance and are choosing not to do it.

Item: The Pure Michigan tourism campaign is an unqualified success. Folks from other states visit and spend their money here. The facts say that for every dollar spent on that advertising, about three dollars come back to state coffers, yet lawmakers are not fully funding the thing.

Item: Every educator promises that if you get children into the pre-school education system, the chances of long-term success are out of sight. The state is now paying $38,000 a year for a raft of high school dropouts who, had they had an early head start on school, would be in a job today rather than a prison cell. Never mind the facts, the Senate Republicans have voted to wipe out the pre-school funding and enough Democrats may go along to kill it.

Item: Also on the budget chopping block is a Special Alternative Incarceration program, which is just a fancy name for a prison boot camp that enjoys a 90-percent success rate in re-educating inmates to get a GED. They get a strong dose of anger management, substance abuse help, discipline, and voc ed training, too. Yet despite those facts, lawmakers want to slash $30 million to close the camp. Go figure.

Part of the problem is that lawmakers are loathe to tell voters that in 10 years what they have done today will produce benefits for everyone.

Ten years! Egads! In this instant gratification culture of ours, no one gives a hoot about that. Hence, lawmakers can’t get reelected by doing the right thing, so why bother — even though those pesky facts suggest they should.

Foolish Predictions
Years ago when you had veteran legislative leaders at the helm, you could pretty much predict which direction the ship of state was headed.

That meant if you reported such and such was going to happen on such and such day, you had a 99-percent shot at being correct.

As we moved into this critical final week of budget negotiations, you’d have been stupid to make any predictions about what this relatively inexperienced bunch was going to do. Oft times they don’t know what they are going to do until they actually do it!

But what they hey, let’s be stupid. Here were my predictions at the beginning of the week:

1. They will not shutdown the government on October 1.
2. That’s because they will adopt an emergency budget that will give everyone 30 days to work out all the budget kinks, just in case they don’t get it done early next week.
3. There will be a boatload of budget cuts that will produce howls from the cops on the beat to the teachers in the classroom.
4. However, after they adopt all the cuts and allow the GOP to gloat that it passed a budget without new tax increases, they will come back and raise new revenue to restore some of the cuts they just made.
5. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But this is the strategy that House Speaker Andy Dillon and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop apparently worked out. The governor wants no part of the strategy because there is no “guarantee” the Rs will pay off on their end of the bargain.
6. Republicans are headed to Mackinac Island this weekend, where about 2,000 bedrock, hard-nosed, anti-tax, grass roots delegates will gather. There is no way that any GOP legislator is going to vote for more revenue this week and head up to the island to be accosted by the mob of 2,000 for doing so.
7. The national media, including a Washington Post reporter who’s been assigned to chronicle the countdown to shutdown, will be disappointed because Michigan will stay open for business.
8. And that means Lettermen, Leno and O’Brien will have only the Lions to pick on in their monologues next week.