State Rep. Brian BeGole, of Antrim Township, today voted to advance a responsible, balanced House budget plan that gives Michigan residents the best value for their tax dollars and addresses their priorities.

The $78.5 billion overall budget proposal provides funding to support road repairs, tax cuts to help working families, a new Public Safety Trust Fund to help protect communities and record resources for students without raising taxes or nickel and diming workers and small business owners with hidden fees to support unsustainable government spending.

“People throughout our state have been clear: the spending they are seeing in state government is unsustainable,” BeGole said, noting government spending has increased over 40 percent since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer first took office. “Fraud, waste and abuse has run rampant in Lansing for years and has been ignored. It just gets rubber-stamped year after year. We have cut it within this budget plan and used tax dollars for priorities a majority of people in our state have like roads, schools and public safety. This is an effective and responsible spending plan for our state.”

Highlights of the budget plan include:

Eliminating wasteful government spending – The House budget cuts 4,300 “phantom” positions that state departments ask for within a budget process but don’t fill, freeing up $560 million for priorities a majority of Michigan residents share like roads and schools. The House budget also eliminates $1.27 billion in political giveaways that have been handed out year after year with no accountability and works to correct issues in administering SNAP food stamp benefits as Michigan suffers from one of the highest error rates in the nation. The errors lead to hundreds of millions of dollars being mismanaged when the state overpays on benefits. In total, House Republicans went line by line through the budget and eliminated more than $5 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse.

A landmark commitment to local infrastructure – The budget plan dedicates $3.4 billion in ongoing funding to fix local roads without raising taxes. For many local road agencies, this investment will mean communities finally have the resources to repair potholes and repave roads workers and families use every day. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s own Department of Transportation has said the roads plan could create more than 20,000 new, good-paying jobs in Michigan.

Prioritizing public safety – A new $115 million Public Safety and Violence Prevention Trust Fund will help every Michigan family feel safer in their neighborhoods and communities. The funding will go to embattled communities to help address violent crime and provide communities across the state with resources to upgrade equipment and vehicles, retain officers, and more.

Supporting federal efforts to cut taxes – The House budget supports federal tax cuts for Michigan families and seniors at the state level so that hardworking people aren’t punished for putting in extra hours or enjoying the retirement they’ve earned. State taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security income would be eliminated under the plan.

The budget comes after a previously passed House K-12 budget plan from June that allocates $21.9 billion to schools – more than the Senate or governor’s respective plans. The House’s K-12 plan increases per-pupil funding from the current $9,608 to $12,000 and moves away from Lansing’s one-size-fits-all mandates by loosening restrictions on how schools can use the funding. This flexibility will allow school districts to meet their unique needs and put additional resources into free school lunch for all students, better transportation options, new textbooks, before and after school programs, and more.

The budget plan now moves to the Senate for consideration.