How do I set mdButton text to lowercase?

Write your own class using css text-transform such as,

.tolowercase {
    text-transform: lowercase;
}

.tocapitalize {
    text-transform: capitalize;
}

And apply it to the input/button.

If you want htis behaviour throughout the system override the .md-button class in your css,

 .md-button {    
    text-transform: capitalize !important;/*For Lower case use lowercase*/
}

Remove the text-transform from md-button in CSS:

.md-button {
  text-transform: none
}