The Michigan Legislative Black Caucus is sounding the alarm over House Bill 4706, the Republican-backed budget proposal they say threatens the very foundation of health, safety, and equity across the state. Introduced weeks past deadline and pushed through the House chamber with no real chance for public input, the bill carries cuts that lawmakers and advocates argue would devastate already vulnerable communities.
The numbers alone tell a grim story. The budget slices $4.8 billion from Medicaid, guts more than $333 million from food assistance programs, and cuts the Department of Civil Rights budget by more than half. Funding for programs designed to improve birth outcomes for Black mothers and babies is eliminated. Millions set aside for water affordability are stripped, jeopardizing efforts to help residents pay overdue bills and avoid shutoffs. Even Secure Cities Partnerships — a program that supports law enforcement in Detroit and other areas in combating violent crime — is wiped out entirely.
Rep. Donavan McKinney of Detroit, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, did not hold back in his condemnation. “One thing I know for certain is that Michiganders can’t afford House Republicans’ political games,” McKinney said. “With rising costs across the board, students returning to schools, and harmful cuts to health care and food assistance coming out of Washington, it is unconscionable that Michigan Republicans steadfastly continue putting politics over people. There is no justification for gutting $4.8 billion for Medicaid funding, defunding SNAP by over $333 million, cutting 53.4% from the Michigan Department of Civil Rights budget or slashing more than $26 million — including $10 million specifically for water affordability efforts. Michiganders deserve better. We deserve leaders who put our communities, families and children first, not a partisan budget worked out behind closed doors ignoring the entire committee process.”
The scope of the cuts raises questions not only about priorities but about intent. Prohibiting any state spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, erasing water affordability assistance, and eliminating the Office of Community Violence point to a reshaping of state government that retreats from equity and abandons preventive strategies. If the role of the budget is to safeguard stability, Republicans have instead advanced a plan that destabilizes communities from multiple angles — health care, housing, food security, and public safety.
Rep. Kristian Grant of Grand Rapids made clear what’s at stake: “The budget passed by House Republicans slashes funding from housing, community investment and public safety — undermining the stability of communities all over the state, weakening essential services and putting vulnerable people at risk. The people of Michigan deserve so much better.”
For the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus, this proposal is not just a fiscal matter — it is a rollback of decades of hard-won progress. Rep. Amos O’Neal of Saginaw, chair of the caucus, placed the moment in stark terms. “This budget plan represents a retreat from Michigan’s commitment to racial equity and public well-being,” O’Neal said. “By underfunding civil rights protections, cutting health and food security programs, destabilizing energy assistance and risking federal financing for hospitals and care providers, this budget disproportionately harms Black Michiganders. As the chair of the MLBC, I call on the Senate and the governor to maintain their commitments to restoring funding, safeguarding civil rights enforcement, and reinvesting in community health, food, and energy security to ensure a just and equitable state budget.”
The Michigan Legislative Black Caucus carries a responsibility that is both political and deeply moral. When they rise against House Bill 4706, they are not only challenging a reckless budget, they are defending the survival of communities that have been targeted, overlooked, and underfunded for generations. Their presence in Lansing is the direct result of decades of struggle to ensure that Black Michiganders had a seat at the table where decisions about their lives are made. That history makes their voice urgent in this moment. To cut Medicaid, food assistance, water affordability, and maternal health is to cut into the lifelines that keep Black families alive. The caucus knows what it means when budgets erase equity: it means mothers burying their children too soon, elders going without medicine, and entire neighborhoods left without the resources to thrive. Their condemnation of this bill is a demand that Michigan not repeat the cycle of writing budgets that balance the state’s books on the backs of Black communities.
The bill’s elimination of water affordability programs hits Detroit and other urban centers especially hard, where thousands of residents face water shutoffs each year. By cutting $10 million dedicated to keeping water affordable and accessible, lawmakers effectively undercut public health in a state still living with the memory of Flint’s water crisis. Similarly, removing millions for programs aimed at reducing disparities in maternal health outcomes strikes at Black women who already face some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. The symbolism is as striking as the substance: programs designed to protect those who have historically been left behind are among the first on the chopping block.
House Republicans have described their approach as fiscal discipline. But Democrats argue it’s not discipline, it’s dismantling. The Secure Cities Partnership, once touted as a bipartisan strategy to address violent crime, is eliminated with no replacement. The Office of Community Violence, which connected grassroots organizations to state support in addressing violence prevention, is gone. Both losses raise a question: what becomes of public safety when prevention and partnership are erased in the name of cost-cutting?
For communities of color, the proposed budget represents not just an economic threat but an existential one. To slash civil rights enforcement by more than half in a state where discrimination complaints remain widespread is to deliberately weaken protections. To ban DEI outright is to codify exclusion. To gut health care and food assistance is to gamble with lives. And to do so while rushing the process behind closed doors — without review, debate, or public input — is to bypass democracy itself.
The MLBC’s condemnation is clear and unambiguous: House Bill 4706 is not a roadmap for fiscal health, but a blueprint for inequity. Whether the Senate and the governor can hold the line and restore critical funding remains to be seen. What is certain is that the communities most impacted — Black, low-income, disabled, and elderly Michiganders — cannot afford the price of this budget if it becomes law.
