Leadership Quote by Jennifer Granholm

A budget deficit is the politician's version of bad weather: real, inconvenient, and oddly useful when you need to explain why the picnic is delayed. Granholm's line tries to do two jobs at once. First, it normalizes pain by widening the frame: "like many other states" turns a local failure into a national condition, an implied message to voters and reporters that Michigan isn't uniquely mismanaged. The move is subtle blame diffusion, but also coalition-building, inviting listeners to see themselves as part of a broader economic story rather than the victims of one administration.

Then comes the pivot word that matters: "But". It's a rhetorical reset that refuses the deficit as destiny. "We're trying to grapple with" is deliberately tactile and modest; it suggests effort, not mastery, the kind of phrasing designed to sound honest in an era when confidence reads as arrogance. The slight stumble of "I've, we have" also plays as unscripted humanity, a moment that can signal authenticity even when it's accidental.

The promise at the end, "we will have progress despite the deficits", is classic executive-era optimism: a vow to govern through constraint. It's not a specific plan; it's a reassurance aimed at stabilizing expectations. In the post-2008 climate that defined many state budgets, this kind of language functions less as policy and more as emotional triage: keep the public believing motion is possible even when money isn't.