Who are the winners and losers in the state’s new budget? 

Is the federal government still shut down? Well, rest assured, your state government is not. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a budget deal Tuesday (Oct. 7) that landed on her desk after sessions that ran “only” as late as 2 a.m. and endured no worse than a four-hour shutdown in the middle of the night, which impacted no one. 

Compared to Washington gridlock, that’s not too bad. 

Each side is claiming wins. At long last, the governor scored a long-term road funding deal with the Legislature that’s sufficient enough for her to claim, accurately, that she’s fixed the damn roads. 

The Republican House pushed the administration to wipe 1,800 vacant state government positions off the books. They also pushed Whitmer to consolidate office space so that taxpayers don’t have to keep mostly empty office buildings open post-COVID. 

The Democratic Senate was given the OK on a long-sought program that cuts checks to pregnant women and women with infants under 1 year old to help with the diapers and stuff that comes with having a baby. 

But who were really the big winners and losers in all of this? Let’s break it down. 

Winner 1: The road funding lobby – No limited-time-only bonding used here. At long last, there’s a new revenue stream for funding local road repairs that isn’t coming from drivers’ paying more at the pump.  

At long last, Michigan’s roads may finally be getting fixed faster than they’re falling apart. 

Winner 2: Medicaid recipients – With cuts projected to come rolling down from Washington, Michigan reconfigured how it taxes health services in such a way that allows it to still receive federal money for healthcare without cutting off people from services. 

When the alternative is a heavy loss, this one is a big win for Democrats. 

Winner 3: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer – These budget negotiations looked like they were on the verge of collapse many, many times. Simply put, Senate Democrats were not interested in playing ball with House Speaker Matt Hall and his Trump-style big mouth. 

But for the first time in her tenure, Whitmer stepped in to play peacemaker among Republicans and Democrats. She’s eased off her firebrand reputation a lot this year. She demonstrated that she can be a tension reliever and facilitate bipartisan compromise. 

Loser 1: The cannabis industry – A 24% wholesale tax is going to crush the budding marijuana industry, according to the people in the business. The governor argues Michigan’s taxes on legalized pot will still be lower than those of other states with recreational marijuana. Either way, $420 million in new revenue from people smoking weed? Whoever smoked out that estimate has to be giggling, even if the people paying it aren’t. 

Loser 2: Transparency in the process – The House’s several hearings on budgetary pork were a huge upgrade, but $81 billion in taxpayer dollars was still granted final legislative approvals within a few hours of its release, as I projected last week. 

Reporters, industry professionals, lawmakers and essentially everyone except the staff who had ironed everything out are still trying to figure out what the hell happened and how it all works. 

Loser 3: The business community – The big tax write-off the Trump administration gave businesses on their equipment isn’t filtering down to the state level because of what happened in this budget. 

Plus, the big economic development fund Whitmer created to grease the wheels for these advanced battery and microchip factors is getting drained to pay for diapers and formula for poor mothers and their kids. It’s strange to see Republican lawmakers find their traditional benefactors so expendable. 

Toss-up: Schools – Let’s face it, if schools aren’t receiving a record per-pupil grant from the state every year, something is seriously wrong. The free lunch and breakfast program remains in effect. There’s a lot more money available for at-risk school districts and for teaching English-language learners. 

Still, $400 million more from the School Aid Fund is going to the universities. It’s a record amount from a governor who said on the campaign trail she was going to stop the slow bleed away from K-12 schools. 

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)