In 2021 and 2023, parts of Southeast Michigan were inundated with rain. This led to storm and sewer water backing up into thousands of homes in Detroit, Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.

Those cities did provide some financial relief, but federal money was largely hard to come by.

Now, the Fix Our Flooded Basements Act seeks to provide federal disaster relief for basements. Currently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) doesn’t cover damage to basements or mold and mildew mitigation.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced the bill along with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Congresswoman Shontel Brown (D-OH).

“Water damage can ruin electrical systems, destroy heating and cooling systems, damage foundations and create long term health effects,” Tlaib said. “Especially the exposure of mold. It’s the biggest concern for many of us.”

The bill would also allow people to purchase flood insurance that would cover basement backups.

“The bill will also expand eligibility for FEMA group flood insurance policy,” Tlaib said. “It’s super important to ensure that FEMA would cover mold, mildew and moisture damage in basements.”

Donna Givens Davidson is the president and CEO of the Eastside Community Network.

Aging infrastructure on Detroit’s East side has led to basement flooding even from smaller storms, especially in the areas around the canals in the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood. Givens Davidson says passing this bill would be a measure of justice to Detroiters.

“This bill brings us closer to addressing the cumulative impacts of racist public policy over the years in places like the east side of Detroit,” Givens Davidson said. “It’s where senior citizens, where low-income people, are already living in homes they cannot afford to repair.”

Candace Aaron lives in the Franklin Park neighborhood. She remembers the nightmare of helping her father after the flooding.

“There was a lot of water damage, mold damage to the windows, damage to some of the foundation on the house, the roof,” Aaron said. “So I went and applied for FEMA to see what services my father would be able to receive.”

It turns out the nightmare of the flooding turned into one of bureaucracy.

Aaron’s father was denied mitigation services, but eventually received limited help.

“It wasn’t enough to cover the damage,” Aaron said. “It was very extensive in the basement and on the outside of the home. So I think that this bill would do better.”

As for the chances of the bill’s passage in a sharply divided Congress, Rep. Tlaib doesn’t see an issue.

“I don’t see any controversy or any opposition to this,” Tlaib said. “I mean, obviously some of my colleagues who want to eliminate FEMA will not probably support this, because it expands more FEMA coverage, but many of the people that I know I’ve spoken to on both sides of the aisle shake their head immediately and say, ‘Oh, this is a good bill’.”

Hundreds of nurses, lab techs and other workers are on strike at McLaren Macomb Hospital in Mount Clemens after contract negotiations have hit a roadblock.

A key sticking point is safe staffing levels, with nurses saying they’re getting burned out and there aren’t enough of them to maintain an adequate level of patient care.

Dina Carlisle, a registered nurse and president of OPEIU Local 40, says many of the support staff do not make a living wage.

“Many of them make poverty wages. They can apply for Medicaid and SNAP benefits,” she said. “No one should be working three jobs to make ends meet, and that’s what their fight is about.”

In a statement, a McLaren spokesperson says that staffing levels meet federal guidelines and the hospital group is planning to file charges of unfair labor practices against the union.

“The union’s narrative that we are unsafe and have horrible working conditions is an outright misrepresentation of the reality of the quality care provided at the hospital,” part of the statement read.  

Both sides have accused the other of bargaining in bad faith.

Carlisle said the union has offered to give up retention bonuses in return for the hospital hiring more workers.

“Pure and simple, we want safe staffing for our service group,” she said. “They’re the folks who are phlebotomists. They draw your blood, the sitters who sit with you when you’re not safe to be alone, the people who register you in the ER, we want them to have a living wage.”

McLaren brought in temporary workers to cover during the three-day strike — and because of that — the nurses will be locked out on Thursday and Friday, and back to work Saturday morning.

By AP’s Kevin Freking, Lisa Mascaro, with additional reporting from WDET’s Russ McNamara

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans muscled President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cut bill through the House on Thursday, the final step necessary to get the bill to his desk by the GOP’s self-imposed deadline of July 4.

At nearly 900 pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations.

Democrats united against the legislation, but were powerless to stop it as long as Republicans stayed united. The Senate passed the bill, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. The House passed an earlier iteration of the bill in May with just one vote to spare. It passed the final version 218-214.

Here’s the latest on what’s in the bill.

Tax cuts are the priority

Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump’s first term expire. The legislation contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill, solidifying the tax cuts approved in Trump’s first term.

It temporarily would add new tax deductions on tip, overtime and auto loans. There’s also a $6,000 deduction for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year, a nod to his pledge to end taxes on Social Security benefits.

“It delivers on promises made to hardworking families and businesses in Michigan: no tax on tips or overtime, permanent tax relief, an expanded Child Tax Credit, and more,” said Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI), who voted in favor of the bill.

It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200. Millions of families at lower income levels would not get the full credit.

A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It’s a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years.

There are scores of business-related tax cuts, including allowing businesses to immediately write off 100% of the cost of equipment and research. Proponents say this will boost economic growth.

The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, and the bill would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, mainly due to reductions in Medicaid and food aid, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House’s version.

Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome

The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump’s border and national security agenda, including for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year.

Barrett praised the provision, calling it “the largest border security investment in American history,” and highlighting its funding for “701 miles of wall” and “next-generation surveillance technology.”

To help pay for it, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections.

For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security.

How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs

To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back on Medicaid and food assistance for people below the poverty line.

Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.

The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program’s work requirements.

There’s also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services.

More than 71 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) called the bill “an act of violence against our communities,” warning that it would kick “over 450,000 people in Michigan” off health care coverage and result in “over 50,000 people” dying unnecessarily each year.

Republicans are looking to have states pick up some of the cost for SNAP benefits. Currently, the federal government funds all benefit costs. Under the bill, states beginning in 2028 will be required to contribute a set percentage of those costs if their payment error rate exceeds 6%. Payment errors include both underpayments and overpayments.

But the Senate bill temporarily delays the start date of that cost-sharing for states with the highest SNAP error rates. Alaska has the highest error rate in the nation at nearly 25%, according to Department of Agriculture data. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, had fought for the exception. She was a decisive vote in getting the bill through the Senate.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) echoed those concerns of Tlaib, saying, “Hospitals are going to close. Children, people with disabilities, seniors, veterans — all are going to lose their health care. It’s going to make premiums and deductibles and co-pays increase for millions.”

A ‘death sentence’ for clean energy?

Republicans are proposing to dramatically roll back tax breaks designed to boost clean energy projects fueled by renewable sources such as energy and wind. The tax breaks were a central component of President Joe Biden’s 2022 landmark bill focused on addressing climate change and lowering health care costs.

Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden went so far as to call the GOP provisions a “death sentence for America’s wind and solar industries and an inevitable hike in utility bills.”

A tax break for people who buy new or used electric vehicles would expire on Sept. 30 of this year, instead of at the end of 2032 under current law.

Dingell, whose district includes major auto industry hubs, warned the change would damage the state’s economy. “They have eliminated the EV tax credit effective in September. That’s going to hurt the domestic auto industry,” she said.

Meanwhile, a tax credit for the production of critical materials will be expanded to include metallurgical coal used in steelmaking.

Trump savings accounts and so, so much more

A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities.

The bill creates a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury.

The Senate provided $40 million to establish Trump’s long-sought “National Garden of American Heroes.”

There’s a new excise tax on university endowments and a new tax on remittances, or transfers of money that people in the U.S. send abroad. The tax is equal to 1% of the transfer.

A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated.

One provision bars for one year Medicaid payments to family planning providers that provide abortions, namely Planned Parenthood.

Another section expands the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a hard-fought provision from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, for those impacted by nuclear development and testing.

Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for the exploration of Mars, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee.

Additionally, a provision would increase the nation’s debt limit, by $5 trillion, to allow continued borrowing to pay already accrued bills.

Last-minute changes

The Senate overwhelmingly revolted against a proposal meant to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence. Republican governors across the country asked for the moratorium to be removed and the Senate voted to do so with a resounding 99-1 vote.

A provision was thrown in at the final hours that will provide $10 billion annually to rural hospitals for five years, or $50 billion in total. The Senate bill had originally provided $25 billion for the program, but that number was upped to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that reduced Medicaid provider taxes would hurt rural hospitals.

The amended bill also stripped out a new tax on wind and solar projects that use a certain percentage of components from China.

What’s the final cost?

Altogether, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would increase federal deficits over the next 10 years by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034.

Or not, depending on how one does the math.

Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already “current policy.” Republican senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach.

Under the alternative Senate GOP view, the bill would reduce deficits by almost half a trillion dollars over the coming decade, the CBO said.

Democrats say this is “magic math” that obscures the true costs of the tax breaks. Some nonpartisan groups worried about the country’s fiscal trajectory are siding with Democrats in that regard. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Senate Republicans were employing an “accounting gimmick that would make Enron executives blush.”

Tlaib described the approach as “a gift to Trump’s billionaire donors” and said, “Every member who voted to pass this disastrous budget betrayed the people they represent to serve the rich and powerful.”

We are less than two months away from the August primary in the race for Detroit Mayor.

The top two vote getters will move on to the general election in November. The top four candidates, as decided by polling, participated in a debate here at Wayne State University on Monday that led to this spicy moment with former Detroit City Council President Saunteel Jenkins calling out the other people on stage — former police chief James Craig, pastor Solomon Kinloch and current City Council President Mary Sheffield.

“More guns in schools, locking up our kids — Craig is your guy. If you want a part-time mayor who is working two full-time jobs, Kinloch is ready,” Jenkins said. “If you want a mayor who shows up on Instagram but doesn’t show up for meetings, then follow Mary.”

Not on stage and not taking any of those shots was Detroit Councilman and mayoral candidate Fred Durhal III. However, he did take the time to release a comprehensive economic strategy — something that no other candidate has done.

Durhal joined WDET’s All Things Considered – Detroit on Wednesday to talk about the motivation behind his economic platform and his reaction to Monday’s debate.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Russ McNamara, WDET News: First off, you weren’t at the debate; I want your thoughts on the shots fired there by Saunteel Jenkins.

Fred Durhal, Detroit City Councilmember and mayoral candidate: Well, you know, sometimes shots get fired.If they hit you, they hit you. My grandmother had an old saying that “if you throw a rock in a pack of wolves, the first one that cries is the first one that got hit,’ So, you know, the base tend to get a little bit punchy, but, I think folks want to hear comprehensive plans when it comes to debates.

RM: Moving on to your plan — big bold letters, right at the top: “An equitable tax strategy.” Where is the inequity right now?

FD: Well, the inequity is really what homeowners pay as opposed to folks who speculate on land or folks who are contributors to blight here in the city of Detroit. I’ll give you an example — we have a lot of underdeveloped land here in the city of Detroit; a lot of the land that may be just flat surface parking lots that during the Tigers game or the Lions game, and — per year — generate over $2-$3 million per year, but pay just a little over $10,000 in property taxes, while the average homeowner is paying that or more in property taxes. So the equity is not there.

We want to make sure that we are charging folks more who are not paying their fair share, and put more money back into the pockets of the residents who are paying their property taxes.

RM: Now, what about those properties that exist, but the homes are still a bit run down?

FD: So if there are properties that exist and the homes are run down — if they’re not owner occupied — we are going to focus on creating a blight tax here in the city of Detroit. And again, this is not for owner occupied homes or structures. We’re targeting folks who are speculators, who come into neighborhoods and buy 10 to 15 properties, sit on those properties, don’t provide any upgrades to those properties; They’re contributors to blight here in the city of Detroit, and then neighbors are stuck with blight in their neighborhood. So we’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to introduce a blight tax and charge 25 times with the property tax millage is.

RM: Now the current mayor, Mike Duggan, tried to institute some taxes and kind of raise the property taxes on speculators — people who are leaving the land vacant — by going through the state Legislature. How close does your plan come to the one that Duggan tried and failed to get done?

FD: I think what’s important to realize is, when you talk about property tax reform in any manner, it’s going to take passage from the state Legislature — anything that is of substance. So when we compare our plan to his plan, there are similarities, but again, we’re going to be very aggressive on lowering the operating mills about 19.5 mills. Additionally, you heard about the implementation of that blight tax, which is going to charge 25 times what the property millage rate is, for folks who are contributors to blight. And we’re very confident, due to the relationships that we’ve had in the state Legislature — being a former member of the Michigan Legislature and in leadership — that we’ll be able to get our plan across the finish line.

RM: What makes you think that you can get it done when a completely democratically-controlled state Legislature, with a Democratic governor,  weren’t able to get it done?

FD: They didn’t even take a vote on it. And I think for me, having those relationships are going to be important. And I think at the time from the conversation with some legislators, they did not feel it was aggressive enough, and some folks needed to see the benefit that it would bring to their community — not just the city of Detroit. So we’ve already started to have those discussions with legislators now about how this would affect their communities. But again, the components that we’re adding, such as a blight tax, is something that’ll be beneficial across the entire state when we talk about getting aggressive.

RM: The people who own the parking lots, the people who own the buildings in downtown Detroit, those are some rich folks who wield a considerable amount of power. I’m just wondering how you expected to get that done and have it go over well?

FD: Again, that’s relationships, and that’s coalition building. You have to be able to get into the door to talk to some of the heads of industry, as well as have a great pulse in the community. And I think we have that, and we have the ability to bridge that gap. And what we’re saying is we’re not trying to penalize folks, but we’re trying to incentivize development here in the city of Detroit. We’re trying to incentivize folks not to be contributors to blight here in the city. And as we look at some of that underdeveloped land, and we start to see that land become developed, we solve a couple problems. One, we have the ability to create new streams of revenue that we can generate so we can put back into the neighborhoods and continue to grow our city. But the second thing that you’ll see is creating walkable areas and neighborhoods.

Let’s say we take a flat lot surface and it gets developed into a huge parking structure. We know parking is starting to become a big issue here in the city of Detroit — and I’m just using that as an example of how we can solve some of these problems and find productive uses for the land that we have.

“I’ve said it throughout this entire campaign, I want to cut more red tape so we can cut more red ribbons, and that is going to be my focus.”

–Detroit City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Fred Durhal III

RM: There’s been a push both at the state level and local level to start cutting some red tape. How do you do that effectively in the city?

FD: I’ve said it throughout this entire campaign, I want to cut more red tape so we can cut more red ribbons, and that is going to be my focus. And we’ll do that by focusing on and streamlining processes here in the city of Detroit. We want a one-stop permitting process that develops a level of predictability that when you want to come do business here in the city of Detroit, you don’t have to go through over 80 steps to get your business started here, no matter if it’s a restaurant, whether it’s retail or whatever the case may be. And then after that, even as we talk about development, we want to create a one-stop inspection process so you don’t have to wait two, three months at a time per inspector, which slows down your process, and slows down the progress of your development, making it more expensive.

We want to make it easier to do business here, we want to be more efficient, and we want to foster an environment where everyone wants to come here and do business and develop in the city.

RM: What’s the one thing you want Detroiters to know about
you?

FD: The one thing I want Detroiters to know about us, even if they didn’t get an opportunity to see us in this past debate, is that we are a very serious candidate, and the most experienced candidate in this race. We’re the only candidate that can say that we served on the state level as well as the city level; we have delivered time and time again, and as the mayor of the city of Detroit, we will continue to develop because we’ll utilize that experience to get comprehensive property tax relief across Lansing and bring home the dollars here for residents in the city of Detroit.