This article was originally published by The Detroit News May 5, 2026.
Ben Sasse is dying. The former Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December. The cancer has metastasized. Without a miracle, it will kill him.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News November 10, 2024.
Children are our hope for a bright, beautiful future. Tragically, far too many see their future dimmed by the trauma of abuse and neglect. When a child’s home becomes unsafe, the state must step in as a temporary guardian while helping the child find a permanent, safe, stable home. Sometimes, finding a suitable new family means crossing state lines.
By Molly Macek
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News May 7, 2026.
Michigan’s largest teachers union has named Gov. Whitmer the “Champion of Education,” despite her record of significant declines in student achievement and record-high school spending.
The Michigan Education Association created a new award to honor the governor’s impact on education during her time in office: a time marked by the rapid-fire repeal of critical reforms that had been put in place to improve student achievement, school accountability and educator quality.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 28 2026.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” said Nobel-prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, but Michigan policymakers sure are trying to prove him wrong.
Michigan's 2026 school aid budget allocates $248.1 million to provide breakfast and lunch to all of the public school students, regardless of family income. Students from needy families already qualify for the federal free and reduced meal program, so the state’s program feeds kids from well-off families. Private school students are also eligible for free school meals, as long as their school participates in the federal program.
Michigan’s Transportation Asset Management Council expects roads to be repaired as fast as they fall apart, according to its latest report on the conditions of Michigan’s roads and bridges. That’s an improvement from the previous year.
This chart shows the projections made about the percentage of roads in good or fair conditions from reports in 2011, 2018, 2024 and the most recent year, 2025.
Traverse City Light & Power, a government-owned entity that provides electricity and internet service, is raising its electricity rates by 5%. This increase was approved by the City Commission of Traverse City at its May meeting.
TCL&P Chief Financial Officer Karla Myers-Beman said the rate increase was necessary because of “decommissioning of coal plants, surging electricity demand from data centers, and an accelerating transition to new energy resources.” She added that the increase “would not fully close the utility’s current operating deficit, but is part of a longer-range plan that anticipates incremental rate adjustments in future years.”
“I think the future for America is very bright,” says Dave Hebert, senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. “I think the future for the American manufacturing sector is very bright, provided, of course, government stays out of the way.”
Michigan’s tourism economy depends on giving visitors places to stay. Hotels, bed–and–breakfasts, cottages, cabins and homes all play a role. In Michigan, many communities are built around tourism, and in others the economy is changing — for the better — as travel helps revitablize our towns.
By Cami Pendell
As a think tank, we spend a lot of time discussing what free markets and limited government require to function well: property rights, the rule of law, sound fiscal policy, and regulatory restraint. These are the visible structures that support a society built on individual freedom and responsibility.
Complaints about high housing costs are widespread. Economists have one simple answer to bring prices down: Build more houses. Increasing the supply of housing to lower the price of owning or renting is not only theoretically sound, but it’s backed by strong empirical evidence.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 7, 2026.
There’s a fight in Grand Rapids. The city’s financial watchdog raised concerns about spending at city hall. The response? The officials, whose spending he reviews, gutted his office.
Grand Rapids Comptroller Max Frantz is now suing to protect his office’s independence, staff and budget. This case, no matter the outcome, will influence how cities across Michigan manage their finances.
Workers for Opportunity is joining a broad coalition to oppose the Faster Labor Contracts Act. This legislation would remove democracy from the workplace and empower government bureaucrats to mandate arbitration for initial contracts between unions and businesses.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 21, 2026.
In Michigan, you need a license to cut hair, roof a house or operate a polygraph machine. But you need no training at all to write the laws that govern those professions.
Elected officials make important decisions for their constituents, appropriating billions of dollars of taxpayer money and designing state programs that affect millions of people. Lawmakers would do well to learn and remember basic economics.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News September 25, 2025.
Data centers are facilities that house computing and telecommunications infrastructure. They have been around for a long time, but demand is skyrocketing thanks to the rise of the internet, crypto currency, artificial intelligence and cloud data storage. More data centers are being built around the country.
Michigan received a $125 million federal grant that it will share with school districts to cover the cost of buying 322 electric powered buses and 54 propane powered buses. The grant was designed to replace older diesel fueled buses with lower emission vehicles. With the grant ending, school districts will need to make their own purchase decisions about which vehicles are best.
As Michigan lawmakers consider cutting and limiting property taxes, it’s worth checking out some facts and trends about Michigan’s property tax.
State and local governments collected $21.6 billion from property taxes in 2025, up from $20.3 billion in 2024, a 3% increase above the rate of inflation.
I wrote an op-ed for Bridge Michigan about a year ago that explained the benefits of direct cash subsidies compared to conventional government welfare programs. I highlighted Rx Kids as an example, but not as a blanket endorsement of the program. Rx Kids is a promising alternative to the state’s welfare programs, but it is too early to tell if it is a good use of taxpayer money.
New reports from the state’s actuaries show that Michigan is $3.6 billion closer to paying off its pension debts than the previous report showed. Unfunded liabilities for the state-managed school pension system decreased from $28.0 billion in 2024 to $25.1 billion in 2025, and unfunded liabilities for the state employee pension fund decreased from $4.7 billion to $4.1 billion. Both changes represent an improvement on a problem that the state should never have had to begin with.
This is a transcript of the interview with Dr. Alexander Tokarev for Mackinac Center’s “Chasing the American Dream” series in celebration of the 250th anniversary of freedom in the U.S.
I’m Alexander Tokarev. I am a professor of economics and classical liberal philosophy at Northwood University here in Midland, Michigan. I grew up in Bulgaria under socialism.
Michigan has a fertility gap, Warren Anderson says, and regulations on childcare facilities may be making it worse.
Anderson, a professor of economics at University of Michigan Dearborn and member of the Mackinac Center’s board of scholars, joins the Overton Window Podcast to discuss how easing up on regulations could make it easier for moms and dads to have children.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News March 5, 2026.
What can you say about a representational public body that silences dissent and conceals information from the public? That question lurks in the background of two lawsuits against public school boards in Michigan.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation should be put out of its — and our — misery. The state’s jobs agency is mired in a misuse-of-funds scandal, has presided over costly development failures, and has little to show for decades of promises about growth.
This article originally appeared in The Washington Times February 23, 2026.
President Trump is trying to make homeownership more affordable for families. If he wants to make lasting progress, then he should take an example from my home state of Michigan, where lawmakers unveiled a bipartisan package this month to lower the costs of building and buying homes. The plan rests on the time-tested principle that government simply needs to get out of the way.
“Local control” sounds like a conservative principle. But it is not a conservative principle unless it protects liberty. And the groups fighting for the power of cities don’t seek to protect liberty. Typically, they fight for more government control over our lives, at least at the local level.
Workers for Opportunity, a project of the Mackinac Center, celebrated a big win May 19 when Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF 472 into law. The measure strengthens a requirement that unions periodically gain their members’ trust to continue serving as bargaining agents.
