State Representatives John Kivela (D-Marquette) and Scott Dianda (D-Calumet) held a press conference today at the Peter White Library to announce Michigan’s Middle-Class Plan, the House Democrats’ plan for helping families, seniors and kids. The plan is based on the response Democrats received during their recent statewide, Real State of Our State Listening Tour. Dianda held a Listening Tour in Hancock on March 4 with Kivela and House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel (D-Auburn Hills).

“Our Listening Tour stop in Hancock, to some, is worlds away from the Capitol in Lansing,” said Kivela. “But the families and seniors up here in the U.P. reflected the same concerns and struggles as the ones down in Sterling Heights. The overarching theme is that what the majority is doing in Lansing is not working for them.”

The House Democrats’ Middle-Class Plan includes real solutions to problems facing Michigan’s families, seniors, kids and women. The plan calls for middle-class tax relief, restoring and protecting funds to public education, eliminating barriers to health care for women, and providing solutions for fixing our roads and bridges. Michigan’s Middle-Class Plan will:

  • Repeal the tax on seniors’ retirement income, restore the per-child tax deduction, restore the Earned Income Tax Credit to 11 percent and restore the Homestead Property Tax Credit.

  • Implement a fine for habitually overweight trucks, ensure existing transportation funds are used for road construction and refinance existing infrastructure bonds.

  • Make the School Aid Fund only available for use in funding K-12 education and increase per-pupil funding by $320.

  • Improve access to health care for women by removing barriers to health care centers and increasing access to family planning services.

“Rep. Kivela and I are new to Lansing, but that provides us with the greatest opportunity to make the biggest difference in how the people of the Upper Peninsula are being represented. We will make them a priority again,” said Dianda. “Change needs to start now, and not after two more years of harmful Republican policies.”

For more details, or to view the plan in its entirety, visit www.realstateofourstate.com