As the leader of the minority party in the Michigan Senate, I often have to write here about the harmful legislation I see moving through the Capitol and what we need to do to stop it. Today, however, I'm writing about legislation that I've been proud to work on over the past year and was excited to help reintroduce today, The Michigan 2020 Plan.
To put it simply, The Michigan 2020 Plan represents the single best investment Michigan can make in our economy, our students and our future. It would provide each and every Michigan high school graduate with the opportunity to attend one of our world class public universities or community colleges and have their tuition paid for in its entirety. It would send a message that our state is ready to truly compete for the jobs of tomorrow by creating the most highly educated workforce in the nation today, a move that economists and business leaders all agree is the single most important step we can take to bring job providers here to Michigan.
This plan will grow our economy, create new jobs and take away the economic barriers that prevent far too many of our kids from attaining their dream of a college education. Best of all? The Michigan 2020 Plan won't raise taxes one cent!
You can read more about how The Michigan 2020 Plan is paid for on our website, but the reality is it's quite simple. Michigan currently hands out nearly $35 billion each and every year in tax expenditures, loopholes that were often put on the books decades ago and have never been looked at since. Our plan would create a non-partisan commission of economists to review each of those tax expenditures and eliminate those that simply do nothing to help grow our economy or create jobs. Eliminating a mere 5% of those tax expenditures would give our state enough money to fund the Michigan 2020 Plan for generations to come.
My colleagues and I have spent the last year talking about this plan with people across the state and we are more convinced than ever that it's the right plan for Michigan. We reintroduced the legislation to enact The Michigan 2020 Plan in the Senate today and are making it our single highest priority to see it passed into law this year.
I hope you'll agree that education is the path to economic prosperity in Michigan and encourage your legislators to pass The Michigan 2020 Plan and send a message to the rest of the world that we are ready to invest in ourselves, our students and our future.
Gretchen Whitmer
Michigan Senate Democratic Leader
P.S. - If you know a High School Senior that could use $10,000 to go toward their college education this year, we are once again holding the #mi2020 Scholarship Competition that will give one winner the opportunity to experience the impact of the Michigan 2020 Plan right away. You can read more about this exciting opportunity on our
#mi2020 Scholarship Competition website.