One priority has been missing from the budgets being passed around in Michigan’s House and Senate. Grants to targeted legislative districts, which have become a huge part of the state’s budget in recent years, are not yet included in the spending bills. But lawmakers are unlikely to have lost their taste for pork, and like in previous years, it will only pop in at the last minute of the budget process.

Elected officials at all levels perennially desire to show their constituents that they can get them extra cash through the political process. Legislators always have some project in mind that could use taxpayer funding.

District projects didn’t used to be such a large part of the budget, and sometimes lawmakers passed budgets without them. There was a massive pushback against earmarks and district grants in the federal budget in the early 2010s, and Michigan lawmakers took note. There was a time when lawmakers approved the state budget without earmarking funds for district projects.

That restraint ended in 2015. The 2015-16 fiscal year budget contained $5.2 million in earmarks for district grants. This grew to $38.6 million in FY 2017-18. Lawmakers took some years off from the habit until FY 2020-21, when they added $31.3 million in district projects.

All of this is pocket change compared to what happened after. The amount of district grants in the budget mushroomed to $1.8 billion in the current year’s budget.

A couple of factors could lower the amount of pork in the budget. One is that the state budget isn’t growing as much as it has in the past few years. The latest revenue estimates suggest a 2.5% growth in state revenue for next year.

Last time around, lawmakers began the budget process with a $7 billion surplus, which they’ve already spent. This could result in less pork, too.

Yet elected officials can get creative when their pork priorities are on the line. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has already recommended underfunding the school employee pension system and spending the savings elsewhere. Lawmakers have the wrong priorities if district projects are a higher priority than paying down the state’s largest debts.

Whitmer also insisted on hiking the income tax by misinterpreting a law that cut taxes. That gives the state $700 million more to spend on officials’ priorities, including district grants.

It doesn’t have to be like this. The state constitution gives governors the power to eliminate any particular line item in the budget. There would be no pork in the state budget unless Whitmer wanted it.

Pork projects shouldn’t be a priority at all. They divert resources away from their best use and toward political uses. If lawmakers felt that the state could use more cricket fields, splash parks, or other facilities favored in recent budgets, they should establish a grant program, set criteria for determining the best projects, and let administrators fund the winners. Otherwise, the budget benefits particular politicians rather than the public interest.

The large number of district projects tells us that elected officials are behaving badly. One way to encourage better behavior is to expect them to practice restraint. Under a Sustainable Michigan Budget limit, the budget grows at no more than the inflation rate plus the population growth rate. This would ensure there’s not a lot of extra money sitting around to be used for district grants.

Until legislators decide to exercise restraint, residents will have to wait and see how much more taxpayer money will go to pork projects.

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