Governor’s Response to COVID-19 Creates $2.6 Billion Hole in Budget – What Will She Cut?
LANSING, MI, May 15, 2020 – Michigan Freedom Fund Executive Director Tony Daunt today asked Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her budget team to show taxpayers the data, and offer their proposed cuts to state spending, following new budget forecasts that show the state facing an astronomical $2.6 billion deficit during the current budget year.
The deficit, and an estimated $3.3 billion in lost revenue in the upcoming fiscal year, come amidst the COVID-19 public health crisis and Whitmer’s decision to lock millions of workers off safe job sites, patients in desperate need of care out of doctors offices, health care workers out of empty hospitals, and more despite a month of increased testing and declining infection and mortality rates.
Whitmer’s continued statewide lockdown orders have positioned Michigan as a national outlier. States like Georgia, Colorado and others allowed workers back on job sites weeks ago with no spike in infection or death rates.
“Governor Whitmer’s abuse of emergency powers have needlessly destroyed millions of livelihoods, kept patients from accessing essential health care, and blown a $2.6 billion hole in the current year’s state budget,” said Daunt. “The Governor owes taxpayers an immediate explanation of the $2.6 billion in cuts she’ll be making to state services. The sooner she proposes her cuts, the sooner Michigan families can begin picking up the pieces and finding ways to fill the gaps her cuts will create.”
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