Politics rewards drama. Progress often looks like stalemate.
So it may surprise you to hear me say this: 2025 was one of the most productive years I’ve seen in Lansing.
Not because lawmakers passed a lot of legislation. They did not (and that’s a poor measure of productivity anyway unless bigger government is the goal). Divided government — a Republican House and a Democratic Senate and governor — ensured lots of legislation went nowhere.
But when lawmakers did agree, they agreed on some big things — and remarkably, those things aligned pretty well with longstanding recommendations of Mackinac Center analysts.
I wouldn’t have predicted progress a year ago, but it wasn’t an accident, either.
Our policy experts study how government actually works, identifying where good intentions go wrong, and explaining — patiently, repeatedly, and backed by research — how better policy can expand liberty, prosperity, and opportunity without expanding government.
They brought to mind four examples of our research in action:
First, lawmakers averted a disaster for employers and workers alike.
A Michigan Supreme Court ruling meant that costly and unwieldy paid leave and minimum wage mandates would take effect in February. They would have especially harmed small businesses and nonprofits, reduced flexibility for workers, and worsened the affordability of everything we buy.
House Republicans offered better alternatives — exactly the kind of reforms we had recommended — and, crucially, secured Democrats’ buy-in before the worst provisions took effect. The result wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than letting the original mandates proceed on autopilot. The compromise was an incremental, realistic reform.
Second, Michigan adopted a road funding plan that reflects basic fiscal responsibility.
We’ve argued for years that Michiganders shouldn’t have to pay higher taxes overall just to get decent roads. Lawmakers should better prioritize the money they already collect. This year, they did.
They eliminated the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve fund — a corporate subsidy slush fund — and redirected that money to fix the roads. A decade ago, I suggested that very idea from a stage on Mackinac Island before a few hundred business and political leaders. I could hear murmurs and exclamations of shock, but now it’s policy.
Lawmakers also replaced the sales tax on road fuels, which was diverted to schools, with an excise tax that actually goes to fixing roads.
The political reality was that Democrats wanted a tax increase as the price of a deal. The compromise was an increase in marijuana taxes, not broad-based hikes on all families and workers. Is it ideal? Far from it. But roads will be repaired faster than they fall apart, largely without reaching deeper into taxpayers’ pockets. And the Legislature prioritized roads over corporate welfare. That’s progress.
Third, lawmakers took meaningful steps to rein in earmarks.
In each of the past three years, legislators authorized $1 billion or more in earmarks (special tax-funded grants that typically target a few politically chosen recipients). This year, earmark spending dropped by two-thirds. Just as important, they followed the
Michigan Constitution’s requirement for a two-thirds vote and used a more transparent process that allows public scrutiny before projects are approved.
Most earmarks still fail to demonstrate broad public benefit. But transparency and constitutional compliance matter. And the fact that lawmakers plan to keep using this process going forward matters even more.
Finally — this would have seemed unthinkable not long ago — lawmakers eliminated the state’s largest corporate subsidy program and approved no new business subsidies at all.
The SOAR program allowed politicians to give enormous sums of taxpayer money to favored companies with little accountability. Since its creation, lawmakers authorized $1.45 billion to supposedly create 14,800 jobs. So far, they’ve spent $720 million and produced exactly zero jobs.
This year, they shut it down. And for the first time since we began tracking it in 2000, lawmakers went a year without authorizing any new corporate welfare. After averaging $890 million a year in new subsidies for decades, that is no small thing.
There are still clear opportunities for bipartisan reform — on transparency, housing, occupational licensing, and more. And there is always the risk that old habits will return.
But perspective matters.
Lawmakers didn’t agree on much in 2025, as often happens in divided government. But when they did agree, they agreed with us.
That’s not just luck. It happens because good ideas, consistently advanced, eventually change the debate. It happens because policy analysts do the hard work of research and explanation. Our supporters make it possible for free-market ideas to stay in the fight long enough to win.
There are no permanent victories. But there are years when the inches gained add up. Thomas Jefferson said, “The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches.”
