GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The State of Michigan could have spared a lot of current stress for the roughly 1.4 million Michiganders who receive SNAP benefits, if not for wasteful spending in past years, says the Republican Speaker of the Michigan House.
Speaker Matt Hall (R - Marshall) spoke with FOX 17 on Monday and said if the state had not spent past budget surpluses on what he called bad economic deals it would have the cash on hand to cover SNAP benefits for the month of November.
"We need to make better decisions with our tax dollars," said Hall. "I mean, you look at the billions of dollars they spent on the big corporations. We could have used that to fix roads, bridges. You know, if we hadn't spent our state surplus on things like bad economic development deals, we would have the money to pay SNAP benefits right now. You know, it's been a real waste."
WATCH: Full answers from Michigan Speaker Matt Hall
Around 1.4 million people in Michigan receive benefits though SNAP. Last week the state revealed it was told the program did not have enough funding to provide benefits in November.
Hall highlighted how the current stalemate in Washington D.C. over the federal budget shows how prudent Michigan lawmakers were to keep the state government open while they worked to finalize a spending deal.
"The fact that we got a budget done in a divided government at the state level, I thought was really important," said Hall. "We didn't try to leverage our political demands in a continuing resolution. We passed a continuing resolution. We needed about a week to finish up our work and we got it done."
"Little over $300 a month that many Michigan families get from the food stamp benefits and the SNAP program," continued Hall. "And that's money they spend to pay their grocery bill. And when it just goes away because of dysfunction in the federal government that's hard for a lot of people."
"When I was faced with these similar decisions here in the state of Michigan about, should the schools stay open? Should the veteran's homes stay open? Should the state police stay open? Should we fund local governments?" recalled Hall. "I thought it was important to compromise and make a deal and not to try to use a continuing resolution as leverage, but to give the governor, the Democrat governor, a clean continuing resolution so we could keep our negotiations ongoing in good faith."
Hall said while he did compromise on some items in the $81 billion budget, he is proud of what wasn't included for Fiscal Year 2026.
"We delivered a budget that was smaller than last year," said Hall. "We dedicated $800 million of cuts to waste, fraud and abuse. We're dedicating that to fixing our local roads, and we passed the biggest roads deal in Michigan's history, where we're taking waste, fraud and abuse, and we're dedicating it to roads. We're finding over $2 billion of new money for roads between the revenue and the cuts."
READ MORE: State budget increases funding for roads
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One of the cuts was to de-fund the Strategic Operating and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) program, which offered state funding for developments that promised new jobs in Michigan. Conservatives called the program wasteful.
But Hall and Republicans aren't content with the progress they made. There are other programs, the Speakers says, which also should be sunset.
"We want to eliminate these bad deals that pay cash to corporations, and we want to come up with something new," said Hall.
Hall told FOX 17 he'd prefer to eliminate the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and instead have the state's Treasury Department handle incentives for companies.
"Rather than pick 4 or 5 deals and pay them cash up front, let's set a criteria for our employers to try to achieve," explained Hall. "If they create the jobs and they pay above average wages,then all of them can get an incentive from the state. That's where we want to try to move this to before the end of the year."
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