Beware, Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer Coming To Preschool Your Four-Year-Olds!

What sort of monster helps parents and kids?

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gives her first post-pandemic State of the State speech live tonight (at 7 p.m. Eastern), and is expected to announce a plan to get all the state's four-year-olds into pre-kindergarten if parents want it, and why wouldn't they? (Because it'll teach about socialist ideas like "sharing" and "thinking about others' feelings," that's why.)

The plan will build on the state's existing Great Start Readiness Program, which is itself kind of modeled on the federal Head Start program but is available to more kids, because Head Start is limited to families with incomes at or below the federal poverty line, while Great Start is for kids whose parents make up to 250 percent of the poverty line. Once it's fully implemented over the next four years, Whitmer's plan for pre-K would make it available to all 110,000 4-year-olds in the state and would save families roughly $10,000 a year in childcare expenses, according to Whitmer's office.

In a statement to the AP, Whitmer said, "Every parent knows an early start is critical to their child’s future," which just goes to show how mad with power she's gone, acting like she knows what parents want. Well what about parents who want their children to not succeed, Mz Fancy Education Governor?

The AP noted that the announcement didn't provide an estimated cost for the program, but also pointed out that Michigan is projected to have a surplus of $9.2 billion by the fall, when the program begins rolling out, with "$4.1 billion in the school aid fund." And with Democrats controlling both houses of the Michigan Legislature following the 2022 midterm elections, it seems fairly unlikely they'll be giving multi-millionaires a tax cut.

Universal pre-K was one of the ideas in Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan that ended up being scrapped because Joe Manchin thought poor people should be reminded more forcefully that they're a burden, so it's good to see states implementing it. Might even make people in other states wonder why blue states have better opportunities for families with children.

 Other Democratic legislative priorities announced at the start of the legislative session are still being shaped in the Lege, like a state Senate bill that moved out of committee yesterday to increase the state's Earned Income Tax Credit. When enacted, the state EITC will go from a six percent to a 30 percent match of the federal credit. Even better, the increased credit will be retroactive to 2022 taxes. And here's a surprise:  

House Republicans also appear to be on board with the increased tax credit. State Rep. Bill G. Schuette of Midland said in a statement that he is “pleased” Senate Democrats amended the bill to be retroactive to the 2022 tax year.

Whitmer didn’t specifically address the Senate Democrat’s plan in her statement, but she said boosting the tax credit would “deliver an average combined refund of $3,000 to over 700,000 working families across Michigan.”

In addition, the Lege is also working on repealing a tax on retirees that was put in place by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, presumably under the presumption that retired folks owe it to corporations to pay for tax cuts.

The AP reports that at an event Tuesday in Lansing, Whitmer said there's still "a lot of discussion and negotiation" needed to repeal the retiree tax.

And just to make us get all emotional like we libs do, the story also notes that as Whitmer listened to Michigan residents talk about the ways inflation has affected them, "Salina Montes, a mother of a 1-year-old, broke down in tears as she described having to stay home because she can't afford daycare," and for Crom's sake maybe we should be doing better as a nation for people like Ms. Montes and her kids instead of the investor class, don't you think?

[ AP / Michigan Great Start ]

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