By Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Guest Columnist
Earlier this month, I signed my seventh balanced, bipartisan state budget that delivers on the kitchen table issues for all Michiganders. It lowers costs, cuts taxes, fixes the damn roads, feeds kids, protects public health and safety, and grows our economy. I’m proud of the ways that this budget will help your family live, work, and thrive in Michigan.
At a moment when so many people are struggling with rising costs caused by global inflation and DC Republican tariffs, the Michigan budget cuts taxes and puts money back in the pockets of hundreds of thousands of Michiganders. It continues to roll back the retirement tax on our seniors, saving half a million households an average of $1,000 a year. It continues the expanded Working Families Tax Credit, which delivers an average combined refund of $3,800 to 650,000 families. But this budget doesn’t just continue old tax cuts. It adds three new ones too. I’m proud that we are ending state taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security. We want to make sure that seniors, as well as working people in service or manufacturing, can keep more of what they earned.
We’re going to fix more of those damn roads with this budget. For decades, we’ve had bad roads, and Michigan drivers paid the price—almost $3,000 a year per person in Metro Detroit. This budget is the largest roads deal in Michigan history, which includes an additional $2 billion annually. Our budget will fix state and local roads, so your entire drive from your house to work, school, or the store is faster, smoother, and safer. It will also create and protect tens of thousands of good-paying construction jobs.
Our budget also helps kids stay safe, fed, and focused in school. The budget delivers the highest per-student investment in state history for the seventh year in a row. It reduces class sizes, supports teachers, and improves school safety and mental health. It continues free breakfast and lunch for all 1.4 million public school students, saving parents nearly $1,000 per kid, per year. And it continues before and after school programs so young people have a safe place to go where they can do homework, make friends, and stay safe.
This budget makes good on one of our core values: that everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care. After DC Republicans enacted the biggest ever cuts to your health care, this budget protects the over 2 million Michiganders who get their insurance through Medicaid. Our budget will protect $2.7 billion in federal funding for hospitals in underserved areas so people don’t have to travel far to get the care they need. The budget also invests tens of millions in specialized services grants which provide transit support for seniors and people with disabilities.
Finally, public safety. Everyone deserves to go to school, work, church, or home without fear. The budget builds on the more than $1.6 billion we’ve invested to fund first responders and protect public safety by helping local communities continue to hire and train police officers, firefighters, and EMS workers. We’re going to keep working together to keep people safe, save lives, and drive down crime.
I’m proud of this bipartisan budget and the work it does to help more people, families, and small businesses build a good life in Michigan. This budget is a statement of our values and our vision for Michigan as a place where everyone, no matter who they are, where they’re from, or how much money they have in their pocket, can thrive. Let’s build on this progress and keep getting things done.
