SUTTONS BAY — State Senator John Damoose and Representative Betsie Coffia discussed early childhood issues and the need for more kindness and cooperation in politics at an event in Leelanau County.
The Leelanau County League of Women Voters convened a panel focused on early child childcare and family support that included the local legislators who discussed RxKids and how they are bucking the trend of contentious politics.
RxKids is the nation’s first community-wide prenatal and infant cash prescription program and the legislators said Leelanau County would be a great area to roll out the program.
The deadline has already passed to sign up for this year and require a local partner to match funds to state contributions.
Damoose (R-Harbor Springs), who serves the 37th District, said that the program had, to an extent, become partisan “because everything in this ridiculous modern world has become partisan, and it’s totally unnecessary.”
The program should be unifying, he said, “there’s a million reasons to do it,” but that political parties are currently vilifying each other.
“That’s what we’ve got to get beyond because you can’t even get to addressing real policies when you’re stuck at step one of not even being able to look at one another,” Damoose said. “That’s the call of our day right now, more than any of these issues, is we’ve got to fix that.”
And Coffia (D-Traverse City), who serves the 103rd District, said that working together on projects, like promoting the RxKids programs, was an important way to buck the trend.
The program is founded and led by Michigan State University in partnership with GiveDirectly, the national and global leader in delivering secure, efficient, and transparent cash programs.
It rolled out in 2024 and is expanding across the state to provide $1,500 to mothers during pregnancy and children receive $500 a month for a designated length of time that varies between six to 12 months.
This is a critical financial time for many families.
“There’s a lot of research to show that families can hit a real economic pinch and possibly be put into either poverty or greater poverty during a pregnancy and childbirth. It’s extremely expensive to have a baby, and then extremely expensive to care for that baby,” Coffia said.
Damoose said the program is “beautiful in its simplicity,” has almost no overhead and “meets people where they are” during a particularly hard time in a family’s life.
The program is open to everyone and there are no conditions applied to how the money is spent. There are no means testing because “every family could use a little bit of extra when you are going through a pregnancy and having a baby,” Coffia said.
One of the pilot programs took place in rural eastern Upper Peninsula, in Damoose’s district, in partnership with the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians and other benefactors. He said he got calls from everyone on the political spectrum thanking them for this program.
People tended to be pretty responsible and a lot of money was spent on diapers, prenatal care, gas for driving to appointments and food, Damoose said. But it was the little things that moved him the most, he said. A young mother told him that the money allowed the father, who was an hourly worker, to take a few days off of work to adjust to having a new baby at home.
“That is so unbelievable. I mean, I remember that when my kids were born, that I had that time… those first few days are extremely important in bonding with the baby. Especially for men too, because it’s brand new for all of us,” he said.
And by making it available to everyone, it removes the stigma associated with needing help, similar to how universal free meals at school help make students in-need not “feel like second-class citizens anymore,” Damoose said.
Both legislators voted for the bipartisan budget last year that put another $270 million into the RxKids program.
Coffia said it’s a smart investment with some research showing that for every dollar given to a family through the program, nearly $2 of benefit is generated in the local economy.
Damoose said that when he first heard about the program, he thought, “Are they serious? I’m a Republican and they’re talking about a cash giveaway with no strings attached. This is the type of thing that often gets people like me unelected.”
But he said his mind turned to a reproduction of the Homeless Jesus sculpture by Timothy Schmalz on his desk and Matthew 25:40, “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“We do have a responsibility to care for the poor. So that made me stop and listen,” Damoose said.
Coffia said that the government plays an important role in taking care of the needy.
“Who is the government? We are. It’s supposed to be of and for the people. And so I think about it as a village. The village is there to take care of every child. There’s no such thing as somebody else’s child. We are all responsible,” she said.
Coffia said that she and Damoose were doing the work to fix the “unbelievably toxic” nature of politics by working together on projects like this and respecting one another, despite their political differences
“I do not doubt the patriotism of the man standing next to me. He loves his country, I love my country. We care about our communities,” she said.
“We talk all the time. You know, we collaborate wherever we can,” she said and they both discussed recently testified on behalf of a childcare bill. Coffia said that Damoose joked that they may not agree on guns and abortion, but all the stuff in the middle, child care, mental health, housing, and more, they can work together on.
“And so to me, I can’t think of anything more powerful for us to do than visibly work together the way we are,” Coffia said. “If you have suggestions for more we can do, we’re open. But I don’t know, walking the walk seems like the way.”
Damoose added that social media and biased news sources have added to the hateful rhetoric but everyone can have an impact on the political climate.
“I think we need to reject it as a culture and not tolerate it, ‘I will not vote for you if you’re going to treat other people like this’ and that’s what’s going to make the change,” he said.