Dear Neighbor,

Welcome to my e-newsletter! I’m honored and humbled to serve as our community’s voice at the Capitol in Lansing. As we continue into the term, rest assured that the challenges families in our community and state are facing are at the top of my legislative priorities.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to my office by phone at (517) 373-0152 or email at AmosONeal@house.mi.gov if we can help.

Sincerely,

Amos O’Neal

State Representative

95th House District

In this Issue:

  •       Legislation

o   HB 6141 – Essential Local Public Health Services (ELPHS) Funding Increases

o   HB 4568 – GOP tax cut bill

o   MI Tax Rebate Right Now Plan

o   No fault votes

 

HB 6141 – ELPHS Funding Increase

Last week, I introduced House Bill 6141, which is a budget supplemental appropriation bill that would provide an additional $11 million for the Essential Local Public Health Services.

It meant so much that I introduced this bill because I have been working and pushing for an increase to this line item since I was elected into office. This increase is incredibly necessary because under current law, Section 2475 of the Public Health Code, it requires a 50/50 cost share reimbursement with the State and local public health departments. With this increased funding to the  ELPHS funding this is not occurring.

The state is only reimbursing our counties at 41%, as of right now. This is a massive increase over the last few years from when we were only supporting our counties by reimbursement rates around 22%. We would need an increase of $21.6 million to reach 50%.

This funding goes towards, infectious disease control, hearing and vision screenings, sexually transmitted disease control and prevention, food protection, ground water supply and much more. This $11 million in funding is a step in the right direction and one that our communities need now more than ever as they begin to reimplement all of their programming.

HB 4568 – GOP Tax Cut

The House recently voted out House Bill 4568, which is an irresponsible tax plan that would mostly benefit the wealthy. I voted against this bill and do believe it will not provide the immediate relief we need. This Republican tax plan overwhelmingly benefits the richest Michiganders — the people who need help the least. A permanent tax cut funded by a one-time budget surplus will only be paid for by devastating cuts to essential services. We need to invest in education, infrastructure and communities, not put them at risk to give the wealthiest Michiganders another tax cut.

MI Tax Rebate Right Now Plan

Gov. Whitmer has proposed the “MI Tax Rebate Right Now” plan which would give $500 to working families immediately. This would come from the state’s budget surplus from the one-time federal funding and help families as they face rising costs of food, gas and other everyday essential needs.

Enacting an ongoing tax cut would result in a drastic revenue reduction after this year. These changes to the income tax rate wouldn’t help taxpayers until next year at the earliest.  On top of this, It would likely have an impact on federal pandemic recovery, requiring us to send funding back to Washington. We need to support the governor’s plan now.