State Rep. Carrie Rheingans holds coffee hour, decries “authoritarianism,“ calls on people to “march”
State Representative Carrie Rheingans spoke with Manchester-area residents on Saturday, April 12, 2025, at a Coffee Hour in the City of Manchester. Photo credit: Fritz Swanson.
by Fritz Swanson
State Representative Carrie Rheingans held a coffee hour with Manchester-area residents this past Saturday, April 12, from 10am until almost noon. Rheingans, a Democrat, represents the 47th district, which runs from Summit Township in the west to Scio Township in the east, and includes Manchester, Sharon, and Freedom townships. The event was held in the back of Millie’s Coffeehouse on Main Street in the City of Manchester. About 20 local residents participated.
Representative Rheingans asked everyone to introduce themselves and give a brief summary of what concerns they would like to discuss. Most were concerned about the situation in Washington. Many were specifically concerned that Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid would be shut down, and what that would mean both for the state of Michigan’s budget and for their own budgets.
One city resident summed up the feeling of the room by saying, “My concerns are pretty much everything: education, health care, Social Security — which I am on and depend on — Medicare, Medicaid, you know, you name it.” She paused and drew in a breath, adding, “Democracy, the rest of the world …”
To which Representative Rheingans smiled wryly and replied, “Minor topics, yes?” Which drew a chuckle from some attendees.
Representative Rheingans talked through local issues and worked her way to issues of national concern. Two local issues discussed were local control as it relates to energy infrastructure and the current state of Manchester Community Schools.
A Freedom Township resident specifically expressed thanks to the representative for her work to adjust state legislation such that some amount of local control was maintained over the deployment of commercial solar arrays in rural areas. She also called on the representative to do more in helping the Pleasant Lake Homeowners’ Association deal with the dense network of gas pipelines in Freedom Township, as well as the proposed co-bio digester, which aims to produce methane gas.
Once the topic turned to education, however, the local issues became national. While the conversation started with the current state of Manchester Community Schools — which a Sharon Township resident described as “dying on the vine” — the representative reminded everyone that school funding ultimately comes from the state, and that much of state funding comes from the federal government.
“Just for reference,” Representative Rheingans said, “42% of Michigan’s $83 billion budget comes from federal sources. Our rainy day fund cannot backfill 42% of our state budget. So, depending on how many cuts come from the federal government, we will not be able to have federal funding for education at the K-12 level.”
As the topic shifted to higher education, attendees expressed concern about international students having their visas revoked without notice.
The Representative offered an observation about the implications of mass visa revocation on the cost of higher education. As she noted, it used to be that Michigan colleges were largely funded by Michigan tax dollars, which kept tuition low. But, over the last 50 years, the amount of state money going to colleges and universities has declined as a percentage of the budget of those schools. In 1970, for example, 64% of the budget of the University of Michigan was covered by state funding, while tuition only covered 26%. Today, state funding covers 13% and tuition covers 75%, a complete inversion. “So the cost of attending university has been pushed more and more to students and families,” the representative noted. As state funding declines, she argued, tuition has gone up. “I am frustrated that we’ve disinvested for years, and that is causing the cost to go up.”
She added that this pressure on tuition for revenue “causes the need for international student enrollment, because international students pay tuition that helps offset the tuition costs of Michiganders and American students.” Because international students pay the highest tuition rate, they effectively subsidize the tuition of in-state students who pay the lowest rate. For reference, the in-state tuition for one year at the University of Michigan is $17,736, while out-of-state tuition for one year is three times higher at $60,946. International students alone make up 14% of students at the University of Michigan.
Rheingans expressed frustration at how driving international students away will cost Michigan students more over time but also dismay over the morality of revoking visas in what she described as a “chaotic” process that is driven by political speech. “Those student visas are being revoked for political purposes, not because those students have committed crimes,” Rheingans observed, to which she added, “Anybody who is living in this country is protected by the Constitution. You don’t have to just be a citizen to be protected by this constitution.”
She urged everyone to know their rights when dealing with immigration officials, stating, “Because there is a lack of due process that has been noted in national press about people who are being picked up — like physically picked up — and put in vans, there is no process for deciding whether they’re a citizen, have legal status or anything before they are maybe even flown to El Salvador.” Rheingans stressed that because there was no court process by which people were being deported, American citizens could just as easily be swept up as not. From there, the discussion shifted into what Rheingans viewed as our responsibilities as a community.
Rheingans expressed concern about the federal budget bill recently passed in the U.S. House but not yet voted on in the Senate. She stated that if passed, it would cut deeply into that 42% of state budget dollars that come from the federal government.
“It would come entirely from Medicaid,” Rheingans said of where the cut money would come from. According to the representative, 70% of Michigan Medicaid money comes from the federal government, and if all of that money were lost, Medicaid would be deeply impacted. She listed some statistics: “Of all the people currently living in a nursing home in Michigan or a skilled nursing facility, 60% of those people are covered by Medicaid. Of the births in Michigan, 40% are covered by Medicaid.”
She continued, “Substance-use-disorder residential treatment, largely covered by Medicaid; special needs … services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, like group homes and services that help people live their daily lives. It covers people with severe mental illnesses, treatments and therapies that they might need. Youth with severe emotional disturbance and people with substance use disorder can receive services covered by Medicaid,” adding, “These cuts will devastate our state. Rural hospitals, especially, and community health centers across the state heavily rely on Medicaid funds, so this will close community health centers, especially in rural parts of our state, and it will close rural hospitals, which are already closing rapidly.”
In the face of all these potential cuts, Rheingans noted that Republicans who control the state House have prepared a bill that cuts 92% of the state budget. This included completely eliminating the Department of Health and Human Services in Michigan, which oversees things like Medicaid. Cuts also include eliminating the offices of the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, as well as many other state departments.
“Yeah, so I just, I’m very worried about this, and I think part of the design of all of this is to have chaos and have us not know what’s happening, so we can’t respond, and we can’t coordinate the response adequately,” Rheingans said.
She called on residents who were concerned to organize locally, to speak with others about the issues they care about, and she called on residents to take action together. “We need people to march,” she said. “We do need people to post on social media. We need people to talk to your family and friends. We need people to take to the streets when you’re called. We need people to strike. But you’ll notice that it takes all five fingers to make a fist to punch back.”
She then said, “How is this going to end? I do think that there will be a conflict point where there will be either U.S. National Guard or active duty perpetrating violence on American citizens in a direct way, and that’s when we have our National Guard looking at the crowds.” She then looked around the room, which was almost entirely filled with elderly people, mostly gray-haired women, and said, “If they see a bunch of people who look like anarchists out there, it’ll be easier for them to take that action than if they see a bunch of people who can be their grandparents.”
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