Michigan senior Democratic congresswoman, Representative Debbie Dingell is here to tal about the end of the government shutdown and its impact in Michigan.

So sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of off the record, as made possible in part by Bellwether Public Relations, a full servic strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com.

And now this edition of Off the Record, with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Off the Record.

Well, the federal government finally is back at work.

And so what's the impact in Michigan?

Well, the impact in Michigan is that Snap benefits are finally fully back into effect.

There was a pause and the the unpause and the pause again.

So if you've been a snap beneficiary, I' sure it's been a maddening time to have this on again, off again cycle with the lawsuit.

Fight over using emergency funding for this public food assistance program.

federal workers are back to work.

airlines say that they should expect no more delays heading into the busy Thanksgiving season.

We'll see.

Wait a minute.

We have that anyway.

Well, I mean, typical holiday travel is usually very busy, but, certainly there were widesprea delays that impacted travelers in recent days during the shutdown, which all points to the fact that this has been a uniquely painful government shutdown.

I mean, certainly stands out as the longest in US history, but it inflicted pain in a wa that past government shutdowns have not.

And the outcome politically that we're seeing is this infighting among the Democratic Party about how this all ende with a small group of Democrats who hail from swing districts and swing states breaking with their party to vote with Republican to end this thing.

I mean, I think there are a lot of people that are relieved that it is over, but I think there are even more, maybe even more people who are just very confused and frustrated, particularly Democrats within the party who are looking at themselves and going, why did we even start this fight if we weren't going to finish it?

Because let's let's be clear, the agreement is that they're they got a promise of a vote on Medicaid, which was the big sticking point for Democrats.

was this continued funding of of Obamacare, essentially.

And now they've gotten essentially like a handshake, maybe a wink, saying like, yeah, no, no.

In a few months we'll vote on that is fine.

And there's a lot of people who are like, you just sold everything for a bag of beans.

Like, this is just.

So what was even the poin of doing this longest shutdown?

Well, I mean it had the effect of reigniting if it was ever really tamped down, this this fight between the progressive wing and the, you know, moderate wing.

As to what the strategy and tactics ought to be when it comes to taking on the Trump administration.

And it seemed like the win was with the Democrats on this, that, you know the public was largely holding the Trump administration responsible for the shutdown.

And so now and our guest soon will, you know, be able to talk more about this is how is this going to play out during the upcoming political campaigns when it comes to democrats saying, well, you know, we need to be there in order to hold the administration's fee to the fire on these promises.

Let's just peel back this onion on the agreement.

The promise to hold a vote, a promise to hold a vote is not the same as we have something that we are going to vote on and try to pass.

There is no substance to vote on.

You could you can promise a vote.

That's a gimme.

Well, and Speaker Johnson has already said that he needs to see a lot of reforms to health care before he can contemplate holding a vote.

And I think it's really worth noting, even though we are seeing this divide in the Democratic Party over the shutdown vote in Michiga and the congressional delegation here, it was party line saying we have moderate Democrats who are par of our congressional delegation, and we have some left wing Democrats.

And across those ideological lines, they were united over the fact that this deal was not good enough because of the sticking point of the expiring health care subsidies, which is driving up people's premiums.

Well, then how serious is this continuing portion of the sag within the Democratic Party is?

It searches for its soul?

I mean, I think, I think that everyone was very confused, particularly given the recent election that we saw a few weeks ago where Democrats did real well, like in in places that they didn't think they were going to do that well and now and that you would think tha that would signal, okay, working against Republicans is a winning strategy and is something that you can do.

I don't know I mean, it seems like right now you have just enough who decided to cave.

And I don't know how you work with them, and I don't know how that's going to play out with the larger party, with the people who with the Democrats who were like, no, I didn't want to.

I didn't want to vote on this.

I didn't want to cave, I didn't cave, but the rest of the party did.

So I think there's just going to be a lot of people who are like, what is a Democrat right now?

I think that the acid test for the Democratic base is how people on the camp treat campaign trail speak about the Democratic leadership and how the shutdown was managed, and how the exit from the shutdown was bad for it.

Well, I mean, they might try, but that's I mean, that's the question that I'm hearing.

Well, you're going to hear some of the critics of the progressive say they can't.

This is their catnip, okay.

They can't just not let that alone and move forward.

Am I right or wrong?

I mean, probably and also, this is going to come back up again in a few months because it wasn't like a full funded budget.

This is like a continuing resolution situation where it's like we got we're going to be back here again in February.

So like we've made it through the holidays.

Everybody enjoy your Thanksgiving, your Hanukkah, your Christmas, and then after that.

But we're going to be back to this Katy bar the door.

And that seems to be part of the strategy, which is we have not exited the conversation in its entirety.

And so that might be the chance for some leadership recovery.

How about this?

How about if the Democrats try to wallpaper over this?

But the Republicans don't and they go to the voter and say that party is divided.

If you put any of them in office, they're fighting with themselves.

They're not going to fight for you.

Well, they can make that point.

But we're also seeing the Epstein files resurface.

And that's surfacin divides among Republican ranks.

So both sides now have some ammunition here politically when it comes to infighting.

And don't forget, Republicans were being held responsible for the shutdown in this last go around.

What how is that going to play out in the next one?

I talked to Tim Walberg on the eve before the vote and I said, all right, so are the D's at risk coming back home here trying to explain why they voted no.

He says given the redistricting that was done, I think everybody safe.

Whether you have an R or a D after your name, does everybody agree with that?

So there's no blowback from the voters?

I wouldn't say no blowback.

And I mean, we all know that there are surprises in every election.

But, he's he's probably at this juncture that's not some that's not bad analysis.

Right.

No surprises here.

Matt Hall wants to change the way we do economic development.

And he had a news conference on that.

Let's peak in on that one.

Back when President Obam and Michigan Governor Granholm were desperately trying to keep the Big Three automakers out of bankruptcy, they did it by the state offering so-called make of credits or tax breaks to the auto company.

The House Republican Speaker, Matt Hall, at first wanted to wipe those credits off the books, but now the Republican come forth with a new approach.

Representative Mark Tisdel wants to stretch out from 5 to 10 years.

Those mega grants which would reduce the yearly hit on the state coffers, but would basically ask the employers, the car companie not to lay off a lot of folks.

We're not walking away from the from the commitment and the deal that we've made, but, we're simply going to to restructure that and, and try and get that out in ten payments over the next ten years.

based upon the recipients, 7 or 8 companies left that are that are getting those dollars, maintaining at least 95% of the full time jobs that they had on the books in September.

The Republican economic growth strategy also includes allowing businesses to create jobs first, and then in return, they could keep the withholding taxes of employee that normally go to the state.

They would pocket this amoun at the very least, and a full, full time job, an annual tax credit of 20 $1,200.

that's up to a 12 year capture or, excuse me, a ten year capture rate.

And the biggest benefit to this is it's not corporate welfare.

It's not upfront taxpayer money.

It is sincerely performance driven incentives that goes right to the job creators in this state.

These proposals from the Republicans in the House are part of the agreement that the speaker says he made to get a deal with the governor on economic development by the end of the year.

So we're working very hard on those things.

You know, this is part of an agreement that I mad with the governor, and leader, and then I'll get in that room with Gretchen Whitmer and I'll make a deal.

Whoever the speaker and the governor have a major disagreement over whether to target specific industries for these credits, which the governor wants, or taking a shotgun approach and getting as many jobs as you can by letting anybody apply for them.

The two have to resolve their differences before there is a deal.

By the end of the year.

All right, Ricky, you'r chomping at the bit to jump in here.

Well, it's just w we have seen this movie before.

I mean, you'll remember John Engler, state governmen not picking winners and losers.

And then General Motors in the Willow Run plant came along and government, you know, was was cornered into providing incentives.

We had Jennifer Granholm saying that we are there are going to be deliverables for providing state assistance to businesses.

Then the Great Recession hit and.

All bets were off.

Well, yeah, we went from requiring a certain number of jobs to be created to abating the layoffs that will happen in order to, in order to get the assistance.

And so, I mean they can make deals right now, but especially in subsequent years, subsequent administrations and developing economic conditions that I mean, well, don't forget about Rick Snyder, the gardener.

Yeah.

Economic gardening.

Yeah.

Yes.

We're going to get our hello and go out there and just dig a little dirt.

I mean, every governor change a shot in order to in order t meet the conditions at the time and the demands from the public that something be done.

And this is this payrol tax credit is a kind of revival of the Snyder era program.

It's something Governor Whitmer had called for in her state of the state address in 2024.

Didn't happe under the Democratic trifecta.

Now, this is sort of version 2.0.

We'll see if it happens again.

This was part of, getting economic development package done, part of the budget negotiations.

I think it's worth pointing out the fact that this divided legislature kind of has only responded to external pressure you had on minimum wage and sick leave, a court order that was going to change both of those laws, which kind of prompted the legislature to move really quickly.

A budget deadline, that went and passed that and made them scramble and put together a deal with time to, avoid a prolonged shutdown.

I don't know that there's the same external pressure when it comes to economic development.

I mean, we have the expiration of the state's largest corporate subsidy program was saw going away, but is that enough for them to come together by the end of the year?

I don't know.

Well, and there's really not a lot of year left.

There is 8 or 9 session days left and something like that.

I mean, they show up.

I mean, if they show up, there's there's holidays coming up.

I will say, if you want to hear Matt Hall's unedited thoughts about all of this or uncensored thoughts about all this, you should check out the MichMash podcast, because we spoke with him.

and that is out now.

So there's a full interview about all of this is still going on, and it is.

So check out your MichMash podcas wherever you get your podcasts.

And you can hea all of his thoughts about this.

Cool to promote.

Exactly.

But I think in, you know, fierceness.

I think that they're just running out of time.

This is just like, yeah, they'll do it after the first of the year.

Sure.

But like, he really seems to want to do it now.

And if you and everything we all know that like if it doesn't get done before the end of the year, once that they come back after the holidays, it's just like it's such a fascinating part of this debate.

We were talking about divisions within parties.

We have progressive Democrats siding with conservative Republicans all shouting dow with corporate welfare, right?

Oh, absolutely.

And that is one of the challenges that Republican are going to have to get through if they're goin to get this through the House.

And then also, let's keep in mind that every governo has taken a bite of this apple, and we're still trying to figure it ou some 50 years into the mission.

I'm not sure we ever do.

Yeah.

And that sort of alignment across party lines is not totally new.

There have always bee folks on the left and the right who had this sort of coalition against what they call corporate welfare, state subsidies for businesses.

But that coalition has really grown, especially in recent years, where at the outset you had wide bipartisan support for creating PSAs in response to For going to Kentucky and Tennessee.

That program did not last that long.

and there's been a lot of fallout as the deals have changed and the jobs that have been promised haven't all come to fruition.

And what comes next?

That is the end.

The next tutorial administration and the next legislature that comes together do will say this time, this time we've got the formula.

Exactly.

I still remember standing on the Capitol lawn with the governor the day after that headline showed that Tennessee and Kentucky were getting everything, and she was really, be-foxed.

Is that a word?

No, but but it is now.

All right, let's call it Debbie Dingell down in Washington.

Madam.

Congresswoman, good morning.

Good morning.

Tim.

Good morning, everybody else.

It's great to hear you this morning.

Thank you for doing our program.

We appreciate it immensely.

So the promise that the Senate Republican leader gave to the Democrats is not worth the paper it's written on?

that's probably true.

I do think that there'll be a vote at some point in, the Senate, but we don't know what the vote is going to be on.

We don't know what th negotiations are going to be on.

And I do believ he made the promise for December since the Affordable Car Tax Credit, are going to expire at the end of the month and which is going to result in very significant serious increases for too many people on their health care insurance.

But there has been no promises made in the house for bringing up anything.

And as we all know, it takes two houses to pass any piece of legislation an then the president has to sign.

How frustratin has it been to be in the House to, you know, sort of all be fairly on the same page and then to see your colleagues in the Senate go and break ranks and decide to enough of them decide to vote to end the shutdown.

And now you'r sort of being left in the dark.

How how is that working as far as being able to legislate?

So first of all, I'm focused on how we're going to hold our Republican colleagues accountable, for what's happening in health care across the country.

And it's not just happening in my district or Democratic districts.

It's happening across the state.

And I am going to say with respect to all of you, I do think that there are some frontline congressional districts in this state where issues are going to really matter and the cost of health care is something that is going to impact every single member of this delegation.

But in close districts, it does play.

and there are major medical, you got major medical centers in some of those districts and people don't realize this.

And it's not just this bill that passed, but the big IPA blame bil that passed earlier this year.

Do you realize that we've already had ten ob gyn line that have closed in the state?

So women in rural areas are not able to get ob gyn care close to their homes.

We have four hospitals that are close to closing and story after story of people saying I can't afford health insurance next year.

So I'm focused on working with everybody.

By the way you know, I'm somebody who tries to work with everybody, in trying to get something done.

We got a broken health care system.

I don't think there's anybody that doesn't think our health care system is broken.

And even if you have health care, access is a very serious problem.

You can't get an appointment for a year for dermatolog at the University of Michigan.

I know someone who had an aneurysm who can't get an appointment with the neurologist for four months, but we've got problems and we need to be working together and working together for the people we represent.

Well, representative, since you opened the door to that conversation, you've laid out the problems.

But where do Democrats, especially here in Michigan, go next in order to make tha case and and win some elections?

Well, mean, I'm going to keep working.

It has I have been, the governor has been very active on this as well.

So we've been talking about the issues, I think the hospitals and the insurance companies who don't, by the way, some days I think World War 3r May break out between them all are trying to present the issue and get people to understand what these what the costs are.

But, you know, I'm talking to my colleagues across the aisle, bu I'm also working in Washington.

If we can get something, I'm on the energy and commerce Committee, and I do have some bills that I think it's not going to address the extension of the Affordable Care Act.

But I've got a pharmacy benefit managers bil with Buddy Carter from Georgia.

we got to do something to reduce the cost of prescriptions, and I think we've got a good chance of getting that through.

We got to make telehealth permanent.

I think we've got it That's another bipartisan bill.

I am I think there's some good chances that some things we need to do will absolutely get done.

And then we I just don't think that they can ignore the collapse of the Affordable Care tax credits, because too many people in too many districts across this country are going to go without insurance, and that's going to backfire on everybody.

Representative, when voters ask you heading into next year's elections, what the government shut down was for, what will you tell them?

I'm going t be very clear that at some point you had to put a line in the sand, and we were fighting for the affordability of health care.

But it's not just the affordability of health care.

I mean, this is a real problem.

You know, they say, oh, what do we have to do it now?

They don't expire till the end of December.

I'm going to remind everybody, we have to go back to Washington for the 4th of July, during the 4th of July recess.

So those billionaire whose tax credits were going to expire at the end of December, they wanted their tax, their, what we gave them, we didn't.

The Republicans did.

They wanted those made permanent before they had to have that vote in July.

We have people now who have gotten their premium cost from their insurance companies, who are making decisions about whether they can afford insurance.

And we had to act.

We had to work now.

But we'r also I hope that nobody forgets and I mean nobody that what happened on Snap and that we had set up a contingency fund.

And let's be really clear, that is going to be so clearly addressed.

And I dare Republicans to vote against it.

we have a standalone bill.

It'll don't get put up under, a discharge petition if we if we have to that we never see that again.

But we had a president of the United States who was prepared to go to the Supreme Court to not give money to people who needed a helping hand and let them go hungry, says a lot about our values.

Representative, if your beloved husband was still with us today you're not a person to get even.

But he is.

What would he have said to those eight mavericks over in the Senate?

And I you know, I look, I'm not I don't know what he would have said.

I do wish we could all read his tweets or what he would have said.

He would have gone ballistic.

This this issue has been in your family for over 50 years, ma'am.

It's been more than that.

We are going to I'm going to get health care.

I'm I swear to God, people, I'm not going anywher until we get health care fixed.

It is something that I care about.

But what would you put that?

I also know that he would have the conversations privately, although he'd be colorful.

Let's admit it.

But we had a focus on.

I'm not interested in the circular firing squad.

I'm intereste in holding people accountable, the need to do something about the health care for the American people.

That's where I'm focused.

That's where I'm not going to stop going, and I'm going to keep working it.

I'm going to be a pain in the bazooka of a lot of people.

And that's where we got to focus.

How do we build the coalition for action?

Well, representative, and this is kind of a raw politics question, but is there a benefit to Democrats with the fact that the Epstein Files controversy is still hanging out there in terms of moving ahead on the health care tax credits and maybe some other related things that Democrats are trying to accomplish.

Look, I've never seen anybody handle.

I mean, I have I mean, he is not handling this issu well in any way, shape or form.

so the fact that we were to vote on it in the House next week, and I think people will probably be surprised at how a number of people, vote.

I think that mega, has been clear on one issue.

I'm glad to know that they do care about it.

that that the molestation of children is not okay.

And they just they want to know what happened and that people should be held accountable.

They should not have.

I mean, by not swearing in ad deleted from Arizona, for seven weeks.

It kept it.

who is winning now?

Who's sworn in now but but not swear new in it brought seven weeks of attention to what they were doing.

They didn't want the files to be made public.

And, you know, then the committee, the oversight committee leaked.

More leaked isn't the word they subpoenaed and files were released.

So there's going to be a lot that look, that vote's going to take place.

People are going to hold them accountable.

But you can walk and chew gum.

And we got to hop we got to get the facts on that.

But we can't stop working on health care.

John Thune is promised a vote.

People are going to hold him accountable for the vote, and we're going to wor hard in the House to make sure we are getting something done to representative.

you've raised concerns about this data center coming to Saline Township and DTE Energy Plan and how the regulatory body is, set to review that.

Can you just sort of bring people up to speed and any concerns you might have about how that data cente could impact Michigan's ability to hit its clean energy targets?

So I want to say this is a very complicated subject, and I have spent more time, studying data centers in the last three months because my district is getting a couple of the very big ones.

And the first thing that was wrong last week was, first of all, I didn't know about any of I've learned the same day you all did about Oracle and Open AI, and we knew there was a fight over in Saline, but people were talking to us They were giving us the facts.

I had a town hall that was actually expected to be complainin about a different, data center in Ypsilanti Townshi when everybody from Selene came.

And, I really dug into this.

I don't ever want to pick up a newspaper again and again.

I'm learning the way everybody else's and see the headlines.

Public shouldn' have input into a public process that the public has a right to have input about.

What is going into their community.

Now, we need to be at the forefront of innovation and technology and there are right ways to do data centers.

And there are very significantly bad ways to do, data centers.

Now, they claim that this data center, well, that no ratepayers should pay increased costs because a data center is going there.

And they say that the storage that's going to be done for the Selene data cente is going to be with the battery.

it's not going to increase or ratepayers, rates, and it's going to help support the infrastructure.

But how do you get that in writing?

You guys were talking about jobs that were promised before.

How do we make sure promises made now are promises capped when things come?

And that is, to me, a ver important part of all of this.

They're all there's also a great deal of water usage for cooling for these data centers.

Now, they say that they're going to do a loop, cooling which is the right way to do it.

But again, how do you hold them accountable?

How do we know what's going to be there?

Michigan needs to stay at the forefront of innovation and technology.

But they got to be done right.

If you were sitting on the panel making the decision, or are you a yay or nay?

And I don't have the data.

I don't have all the facts, which why?

Tim.

So you need public hearings.

Well, then you can do as much.

I think the people Saline know more than I do.

To be perfectly frank, the Saline Township council, I mean, they're doing all these, you know, disclosures.

No.

Yeah.

What do you call them?

Non.

But you can't disclose anything.

I'm not written into any.

I'm learning righ along with the public right now.

I'm going to let you end the program on a punt.

Who's your candidate for governor?

I am, want to see.

Okay.

You know who's your candidate for the US Senate?

Same answer.

Right?

Okay.

I'm watching.

let's see them.

Let's hold them accountable.

Let's see them out there answering questions.

State taking stance.

Then Ill tell you Representative its good to see you.

Thank you.

It's good to se you have a week a good weekend.

Catch up on your rest okay.

Thank you.

Take care.

Thanks to our panel.

See you guys next wee right here for Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in part by Bellwethe Public Relations, a full service strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com.

For more Off the Record, visit wkar.org.

Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of Off the Record.