Ms. Kathy Hoekstra

Apparently in terms of federal stimulus money and thousands of new jobs allegedly created, the luckiest place in Michigan to live is in the 48933 zip code. According to the U.S. Postal Service website, 48933 is none other than Lansing, our state capital.

My colleagues at Watchdog.org and its state-level affiliates were the first in the nation to break the story that the $787 billion federal stimulus package "has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to Recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist."

$6,876,303.90, to be exact. That's what the Michigan Department of State Police is charging for more than two million pages of documentation I requested via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding the state's handling of federal homeland security grant money from 2002 to present. This is definitely a record for Mackinac Center FOIA requests. In fact, this may be a record for any FOIA request.

A news report from Detroit TV station WDIV seems to indicate that a $146 million film production studio has instead become a boondoggle for the city of Allen Park.

Michelle Malkin said it best when she said, "The Culture of Corruption has never hit so close to home." The prominent author, blogger and commentator was referring in a recent blog post to a shady scheme to shanghai Michigan's home day care providers into a newly-formed, dues-paying labor union. Last month, the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation exposed this scheme in its first lawsuit, Loar v. DHS.

Hundreds and maybe even thousands of young people in Detroit apparently had to stand in lines and in the rain for up to four hours to receive paychecks for their summer jobs.  Others did not know where to find their checks. Still others didn't get their paychecks at all. And on several occasions, police were called in for crowd control. The payday mayhem is just one of the many findings of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

While some in the Michigan Film Office, film industry and state government are quick to boast about the ever-increasing number of movie productions that have come to Michigan as a result of film tax subsidies, there have been some unforeseen and hard-learned lessons for some Michigan businesses, schools and organizations.

ABC News is reporting today that a couple of labor unions are a little miffed that Michael Moore used non-union labor during work on his newest release, "Capitalism: A Love Story", which opens in theaters nationwide tomorrow.

It’s apparently not a love story between filmmaker Michael Moore and Michigan’s generous refundable tax subsidy for the movie industry. In his quote about the program in a Sept. 29, 2009, blog post on the Michigan Messenger Web site, Moore is clearly not even enamored with it: “If it’s not good for Michigan,” he said, “Michigan shouldn’t do it.”

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has been critical of the Michigan Film Incentive since its inception in 2008. At first, the criticisms were focused on the pure principle of the thing: state government has no business trying to pick corporate winners from losers in the marketplace. This time, the perceived “winner” would be moviemakers who could get cash refunds of up to 42 percent of money spent in Michigan. This also became the most generous film incentive in the country.