By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: February 13, 2019 2:27 PM

There are a few certainties we can count on in life. Death. Taxes. The sun rising in the east and setting in the west. The Detroit Lions never playing in the Super Bowl. And the opposition party bemoaning a lack of details in a governor's State of the State speech.

The names and party affiliations change, but the reactions are the same.

The governor gives a speech emphasizing themes, concepts for new programs, but does not get into the nitty-gritty of how to pay for them. Such details are generally reserved for the governor's budget presentation.

Then the opposition party in interviews, among its reactions, usually focuses on the lack of details in the speech. That happened last night when Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer made it clear she would propose large increases in spending on roads, K-12 schools and water infrastructure, but offered no specifics as to how she would pay for them.

In a fairly typical response among Republican legislators interviewed, Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Potterville), said, "I don't think Michigan needs a reminder that our roads need to get better, but she did not provide any meaningful solutions or any solutions at all."

Let's take a quick trip through the Gongwer News Service archives for some snippets of reaction to State of the State speeches of yore. I'm not going to include everything I found, but in our digitized archives that run from late 1993 to the present, I found examples of similar complaints from Democrats of a Republican governor in 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013, from Republicans of a Democratic governor in 2010, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2003 and from Democrats of a Republican governor in 2002, 2000 and 1999.

2017 from then-House Minority Leader Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) of then-Governor Rick Snyder: "Until you have those details and things that actually show an investment into people that are feeling that economic anxiety and to deal with the tough issues facing our infrastructure and the state, we will have to continue to question the sincerity of those levels of investments from this governor."

In 2013, Ms. Whitmer, then the Senate minority leader, said after Mr. Snyder emphasized road funding in his speech that Democrats awaited a specific proposal from him.

In 2010, then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) said then-Governor Jennifer Granholm lacked details on how to pay for Pure Michigan, restoring the Michigan Promise Scholarship and avoiding cuts to education.

A 2006 story on Ms. Granholm's State of the State that year had the headline "Republicans say specifics needed on proposals."

In 1999, when then-Governor John Engler discussed his intent to pursue a takeover of the Detroit Public Schools, then-Rep. Buzz Thomas (D-Detroit) said, "This is a shell of a plan – zero details."

I dusted off the hard-copy archives and perused Gongwer's coverage of a few pre-Engler State of the State speeches. Guess what?

In 1989, Mr. Engler, then the Senate majority leader, said of then-Governor Jim Blanchard's speech as Republicans questioned how the governor would pay for his proposals, "We'll see what the details look like in the light of day."

And in 1981, then-Senate Majority Leader David Plawecki (D-Dearborn Heights) – yes, the Democrats actually ran the Senate back then – said then-Governor William Milliken's speech offered no specific solutions to the state's problems.

Governors, then and now, seem to regard the State of the State as their one annual opportunity to speak in an unfiltered, extended way to the public and want to use it as a way to state their general values. They don't want to go all wonky and tick off a list of proposals about what they intend to do with a whole bunch of alphabet soup departments and agencies that could cause viewers' eyes to glaze over.

And if Ms. Whitmer had proposed some type of tax increase to pay for new road funding, all the coverage would have focused heavily on it instead of her overall emphasis on the crises she said the state faces in education and infrastructure. The speech appeared part of an effort to build the case for what she will propose March 5 in her budget.

That said, I've always been of the mind that if you have the podium before the 148 members of the Legislature, a statewide television audience and almost every news media outlet in the state hanging on your every word, why not put your plan out there and make the case for it? The budget presentation, while heavily covered, does not generate nearly the attention of State of the State.

Former House Speaker William Ryan, considered one of the greatest speakers of all time, offered this observation in 1981 after Mr. Milliken's speech that might have answered my question about why a governor might not want to get too detailed at State of the State. By this time, he was no longer the speaker, but he was still a committee chair. He's the lone voice I found among opposition party legislators against a governor being more specific.

Of Mr. Milliken's generalities in that speech, Mr. Ryan said: "We're going to have to sit down anyway and work something out. I don't know if proposing a specific plan would have helped advance the process that much."