"I've, we have in this state, like many other states, we're experiencing an enormous budget deficit that we're trying to grapple with. But we will have progress despite the deficits"
About this Quote
A governors voice under fiscal strain comes through: candid about the hole, adamant about climbing anyway. The halting start, "I have, we have", marks a quick shift from personal burden to shared responsibility, a reminder that the crisis belongs to the whole state and so will the solution. By adding "like many other states", she situates Michigan within a national downturn, softening blame and emphasizing structural forces that battered public revenues.
The backdrop is a period when Michigan was reeling from the loss of manufacturing jobs, a shrinking tax base, and later the shock of the Great Recession. State constitutions typically require balanced budgets, which turns a deficit into a set of painful choices: cuts, tax changes, and restructurings that can sap political capital. Against that reality, the pledge of "progress despite the deficits" is not a promise of easy wins but an argument about priorities. Progress can mean protecting core services, focusing on education and workforce training, attracting new industries, modernizing infrastructure, and laying groundwork for long-term growth even when dollars are scarce.
There is a rhetorical pivot here from scarcity to agency. Naming the deficit acknowledges constraints; insisting on progress asserts that leadership is measured by what gets built under those constraints. It rejects paralysis and all-or-nothing thinking, embracing incrementalism: not everything will be funded, but something important can be. That stance also underscores a political calculus. Voters must be reassured that government remains capable of action, that sacrifice leads somewhere, and that investment is not a luxury but a necessity when an economy is trying to reinvent itself.
The phrase reads both as grit and as strategy. Grit, because it calls for collective endurance. Strategy, because it argues for targeted, forward-looking choices rather than blunt austerity. Progress, then, is not the absence of deficits; it is the will to set priorities and move anyway.
The backdrop is a period when Michigan was reeling from the loss of manufacturing jobs, a shrinking tax base, and later the shock of the Great Recession. State constitutions typically require balanced budgets, which turns a deficit into a set of painful choices: cuts, tax changes, and restructurings that can sap political capital. Against that reality, the pledge of "progress despite the deficits" is not a promise of easy wins but an argument about priorities. Progress can mean protecting core services, focusing on education and workforce training, attracting new industries, modernizing infrastructure, and laying groundwork for long-term growth even when dollars are scarce.
There is a rhetorical pivot here from scarcity to agency. Naming the deficit acknowledges constraints; insisting on progress asserts that leadership is measured by what gets built under those constraints. It rejects paralysis and all-or-nothing thinking, embracing incrementalism: not everything will be funded, but something important can be. That stance also underscores a political calculus. Voters must be reassured that government remains capable of action, that sacrifice leads somewhere, and that investment is not a luxury but a necessity when an economy is trying to reinvent itself.
The phrase reads both as grit and as strategy. Grit, because it calls for collective endurance. Strategy, because it argues for targeted, forward-looking choices rather than blunt austerity. Progress, then, is not the absence of deficits; it is the will to set priorities and move anyway.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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