Democratic Lawmakers Say Federal Budget Cuts Will Hurt Michigan Efforts At Road Funding Plan

Michigan Advance

July 10, 2025

Democratic federal and state lawmakers are warning that Michigan is set to receive a dual financial hit from the recently enacted “big, beautiful” GOP tax and spending bill.

U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids) hosted an online press conference Wednesday along with fellow West Michigan Democrats, state Sen. Sean McCann of Kalamazoo and state Rep. Carol Glanville of Walker, to discuss the legislation signed last week by President Donald Trump.

“This bill is not fiscally responsible, and this is something that matters deeply to me at a time when American debt is crippling our economy,” Scholten said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill could add $3.4 trillion to deficits over the next 10 years, according to its most recent analysis. It will make permanent the 2017 tax cuts from Trump’s first term and provide billions to carry out his plans of mass deportations, an immigration crackdown and increased defense spending.

But it’s the downstream effects the legislation will have on Michigan’s budget that was most concerning to McCann and Glanville.

“The state of Michigan is going to have to deal with the fallout from this. Our health care system is going to have to see the fallout from this,” McCann said. “Rural health care especially is going to suffer.”

McCann pointed to the Michigan Hospital Association’s recent statement that the Medicaid cuts in the bill would be “disastrous” for health care in the state.

“That really sends a signal to me, when you hear those kinds of statements coming out of an organization that typically stays out of the partisan fray of policymaking, but is weighing in heavily here with these warnings of the dire consequences of the situation,” McCann said.

Glanville said while the budget cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food assistance will have a devastating effect on the most vulnerable Michiganders, many other sectors of the state’s budget will also be impacted because of Republicans’ emphasis on favoring the wealthiest Americans.

“The cost of utilities, child care, you name it, everything in our state budget is intertwined, and so when we start making these tax breaks for the wealthy, we need to remember they are not free. The money has to come from somewhere,” Glanville said.

One particular piece of the state’s budget that will now be much harder to fully fund is crafting a long-term deal to finance road repairs.

When the GOP-led state House failed to produce a complete budget proposal prior to the July 1 statutory deadline, one of the key issues mentioned as a sticking point was a road repair plan. While the House passed a $3.1 billion road repair plan in March, the Democratic-controlled state Senate has declined to take up the proposal.

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) has held firm that any road repair plan must be part of completing an overall state budget.

McCann on Wednesday indicated that the money available for a road plan will now be much harder to find as lawmakers face the depletion of federal funds for critical social programs.

“What this legislation from Washington does is it just really injects more uncertainty and chaos into our long-term outlook, and so it may certainly impact the dynamics and the considerations as we look at long-term sustainable road funding,” McCann said.

Glanville concurred, saying the lack of a budget proposal from the House, coupled with the certainty of federal budget cuts, makes a road funding plan much harder to focus on.

“When it comes to the road plan, it’s hard to say. We keep talking about the choices we have to make,” Glanville said. “At the same time we need to fund our roads, we need to fund education, we need to fund health care, we need to take care of our beautiful tourism industry, our agriculture, all of those things are things that we as a state have, historically, put forward as priorities.”

She said the choice they now face is to what extent they can find the money for those priorities, when the fact is the state relies on the federal government to provide a major share of funding for things like Medicaid.

According to the state budget office, Medicaid makes up 32% of Michigan’s fiscal year 2025 budget, with nearly three-quarters of that funding coming from the federal government.

“When that money disappears or is in question, that puts us in a position where it’s very difficult to determine how that funding is going to flow. We have the governor’s proposal, we have the Senate proposal, we have nothing from the House,” Glanville said.

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