This article originally appeared in the Lansing State Journal February 16, 2026.
As winter tightens its grip on Michigan and temperatures plunge below zero, electricity isn’t a luxury - it’s a lifeline. Keeping houses warm and the lights on during brutal winter weather depends on reliable, affordable power. Yet just as residents need electricity the most, Michigan’s energy policies are driving up electricity rates while pushing nuclear and other dependable power plants off the grid.
At a Mackinac Center event on how states can improve healthcare coverage and reduce costs, a panelist mentioned using dental therapists to expand access to dental care and make it more affordable. These midlevel providers practice under the supervision of a dentist but provide more services than a dental hygienist. Michigan law lets them practice, but the required regulatory changes are being implemented at the speed of bureaucracy.
Michigan, long an oasis of decent homes at attractive prices, is feeling the national housing squeeze. Costs are skyrocketing, and the supply of units is not growing fast enough to meet that demand.
Alex Cartwright, a Mackinac Center Board of Scholars member and former economics professor at Ferris State University, has a plan. As principal at HotelShift, Cartwright converts former hotels into multifamily housing. The business substantially boosts the number of homes in an area, but many zoning bureaucracies, local politicians, and community activists resist expansion of the real estate market. Cartwright joins The Overton Window Podcast to discuss the promise of new housing, the prospects for a hotel shift in Grand Rapids, and the challenges posed by NIMBY opposition.
You only have one shopping day left until Michigan Manufacturing Day. Michigan lawmakers in 2004 designated the Friday of the second full week in May as a time to encourage manufacturers “to open their plants and facilities to young people, teachers, and parents and encourages visits to manufacturing plants and facilities.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced a package of bills that would help increase the supply of homes by making it easier to build. This, in turn, would lower housing costs.
But the legislation is meeting opposition from local governments, because part of the package sets limits on local regulation of home construction. The argument from local officials leaves out some important information. Municipalities should realize that by limiting new construction, they are curtailing the property taxes that are their largest revenue source.
Homes in Detroit now sell for prices seen elsewhere in the state, a big change from where property values were during the Great Recession of 2007-09. That’s a sign of the city’s recovery. But a law meant to protect taxpayers has unintentionally penalized people who move to the city, and it treats some property owners unfairly. This can be an issue throughout Michigan. But with the recent trend in Detroit’s property values and tax rates that are the highest in the nation, it’s more of a problem in Detroit.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News February 19, 2026.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new executive budget combines a worthwhile goal with bad economics. The governor says she wants to lower costs for Michigan families, but her plan to create targeted tax breaks and subsidies for certain goods and services or certain groups of people will produce few savings even for its beneficiaries. And the costs of several new tax hikes also included in the plan swamp whatever small benefits the subsidies might produce.
This article originally appeared in Crain’s Detroit Business February 4, 2026.
For the first time in decades, Michigan’s lawmakers finished a year without authorizing more selective business subsidies. That’s excellent. The subsidies are ineffective at creating jobs, unfair to taxpayers and competing businesses, and expensive to the state budget.
This article originally appeared in Crain’s Detroit Business March 13, 2026.
Housing costs have spiked in Michigan. Rental and mortgage rates are higher than they were just a few years ago. A key reason for this increase in costs is that there isn’t enough supply to meet demand – builders aren’t able to build enough to keep up with what customers want.
This article originally appeared in The Washington Times March 29, 2026.
The knives are out for Arizona’s universal school choice program.
A recent media report is making waves in the Grand Canyon State. It claims that 20% of spending from Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which parents are supposed to use for their children’s education, went to unauthorized items such as dirt bikes and luxury hotels.
By Naomi Lopez
This article originally appeared in The Hill April 2, 2026.
On drug pricing, few things are more dangerous than bipartisanship.
Democratic former President Joe Biden and Republican President Trump have both tried to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Yet Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Trump’s Most Favored Nation scheme both amount to de facto price caps. They inevitably stifle the future medical breakthroughs that Americans need by preventing pharmaceutical makers from getting a return on their multi-billion dollar investments.
The city of Detroit grew to near its peak population and was one of the wealthiest cities in the world prior to adopting a municipal zoning code. During that time period, many of the city’s historic homes and neighborhoods were also built.
The city was able to add the housing people wanted because it had loose land use policies. After Detroit put in place its first municipal zoning ordinance around 1940, that trend came to a halt and even reversed.
Michael Clark has learned a lot through trial and error in 15 years of teaching, and he wants to bring that learning method to the rest of us.
“My whole philosophy is that feedback matters a great deal,” Clark, an associate professor of economics at Hillsdale College, tells the Overton Window Podcast. “It does in research. In terms of learning, if you give a wrong answer and you let it go for a week, your brain thinks that’s the right answer. Even if you weren’t sure about whether or not it was the right answer. Well, if I tell you right away and explain it to you and then we have a little mini-conversation and you repeat it back, that’s another chance for me to help you learn.”
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 14, 2026.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is celebrating government transparency this month, and she has a proclamation to prove it. Whitmer designated April as “Government Records and Information Management Month.” The proclamation encourages Michigan agencies to review their information management practices and follow laws governing public records.
The Michigan House of Representatives created a robust Oversight Committee last year, with various subcommittees focused on specific public policy areas. It’s been a long time since there was this kind of dedication to reviewing state government operations.
This article originally appeared in The Washington Examiner February 2, 2026.
It’s Groundhog Day, and just like in the eponymous 1993 movie, presidents are singing the same tune on trade, over and over.
“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” President Donald Trump said last year.
By Molly Macek
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News January 14, 2026.
As Michigan schools enter a new year, state leaders often talk about fresh starts and renewed commitment to student success. But one set of numbers should give parents and policymakers pause: During the 2024-2025 school year, districts rated 98% of public-school teachers “effective,” even though 60% of Michigan students failed the state reading test.
In her State of the State speech, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer listed increased use of wind and solar power as one of her accomplishments. Wind power grew to provide 10% of electricity generated in Michigan, and solar’s share grew to 3%. But is this something to brag about? Michigan and its four neighboring states — Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin — all added wind and solar power since 2019, and all saw electricity prices rise, according to the Energy Information Agency Electric Power Monthly.
Union Township in Isabella County received a “four-star” community rating for growth earlier this year from a program at the University of Michigan, but the honor is less significant than appears. In fact, the township is by some measures below average in fostering entrepreneur-driven growth. This should concern township leaders and residents.
Michigan’s unemployment insurance taxes generated $1.14 billion in 2025, more than half of what the state government raises through the corporate income tax. The unemployment insurance tax is, by definition, a tax on employing workers, so it’s vitally important that policymakers get the tax’s design right and reduce burdens on the people of Michigan.
California electric bills double under mandates
Residential electicity costs in California have doubled over the last ten years, as decarbonization mandates introduced in 2015 limit supply and create perverse incentives for energy providers. “These mandates force utility providers to overhaul their energy generation, storage, and transmission systems, all of which are costly endeavors at the scale required,” writes California Policy Center’s Sahil Shah. “PG&E plans to invest $73 billion in capital expenditures through 2030 to re-engineer its systems and bring them into compliance with state mandates.”
Congresspeople are going to decide whether they want to stick it to big financial firms that they claim are pushing up the cost of living by buying up all the houses. Or so they say.
The truth about institutional investment in the housing market is far more complicated, and the effects aren’t all bad. But politicians would prefer you not look at the issue too hard. They would like you to pretend this is a simple story with a villain you can punch.
Persuasion is more than just showing the other person you’re right, Joshua Bandoch says.
“When I try to win against you, it's usually at a cost to you,” Bandoch, a policy analyst, TedX speaker and author of “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion,” tells this week’s Overton Window Podcast. “I do think most people are like, ‘I wanna win. And if that means you lose, hey, you know, whatever.’ That just makes you a loser, which stinks.”
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of IMPACT magazine.
A battle in Lansing over affordable housing is morphing into a debate over the wrong question. Unless lawmakers understand what the argument is really about, we may lose a rare opportunity to get ahead of a problem with bipartisan cooperation. Liberty, not locality, is the question.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News March 10, 2026.
President Donald Trump and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer don’t agree on much. But when courts limited their emergency powers, they responded identically — they looked for another statute and kept going.
