James M. Hohman

Some 867,500 jobs have disappeared from the Great Lakes State since our 2000 employment peak of 4,690,300 jobs. … more

Gongwer News Service reports that Gov. Jennifer Granholm is unhappy that a new economic forecast estimates that Michigan will start adding jobs next year. But crediting those programs for improving the job estimates is an injudicious use of the forecasts since the economic estimates cited have been optimistic. … more

Mark Adler, a lobbyist for the Michigan Production Alliance, and Carrie Jones, the director of the Michigan Film Office, defended the state's film subsidy program in a Senate Finance Committee meeting today. To do so they employed a long-recognized economic fallacy, the "Broken Window" theory, which only considers economic activity that is "seen" while ignoring unseen economic costs. … more

The fiscal 2011 budget appears done. It contains no systemic reforms or program reductions. Meanwhile, with the end of federal stimulus subsidies, revenue projections for the following fiscal year fall off a cliff. … more

A government entity that received $14.6 million of taxpayer money in the current state budget organized a publicity stunt to lobby for more government spending, called the "First Ever Sandbox Party Convention" in East Lansing. … more

Last week's state-by-state employment release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that Michigan led the nation in job growth from June to July. The state gained an estimated 27,800 jobs in the month. … more

In a recent radio interview with Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative Director Michael LaFaive, radio host Tony Conley stated that we should be looking at what Texas and North Carolina are doing to foster economic development. Any benchmarking attempt should first start with the right states, but North Carolina isn't one of them. … more

Special interest groups whose members' compensation comes from tax dollars are afraid that Michigan's economic crisis will impact their paychecks. They're right to be concerned since there is less private money left to pay generous public-sector salaries and benefits. … more

A new report by the Michigan League for Human Services bemoans the lack of tax money going to higher education. But the authors give a skewed view of appropriations, get some facts wrong, and completely miss the 800-pound gorilla of higher education: that increasing costs drive tuition increases. … more

Oklahoma's state affiliate of the National Education Association only has 23,451 members, but has nevertheless launched a revenue-grabbing initiative, SQ 744, that will be on the ballot in November. … more