This article originally appeared in The Detroit News December 31 2024.
Is there a state agency with a worse track record than the Michigan Economic Development Corp.?
The MEDC tries to promote economic growth in Michigan by giving billions of dollars of taxpayer money to hand-picked corporations. Sometimes the MEDC brings a new company to the state; sometimes it bargains to keep a company from leaving. New research shows that decision makers at the MEDC are failing, creating only one job for every 11 promised.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News December 10, 2024.
The loneliness problem in America is a perplexing one. The U.S. Surgeon General warned last year that the country faces an “epidemic” of loneliness, with serious health issues that accompany isolation. The surgeon general’s recommendations for fixing loneliness are massive, costly and uncertain, as you may have read in my column last week. However, I have found that one strategy could be used by most people: good old-fashioned work.
Americans are responding to the wildfires that destroyed large parts of greater Los Angeles this month with courage and generosity. Evacuees are finding shelter with friends, family and strangers. Street vendors are working together outside Santa Anita Park to feed those who have fled their homes.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News December 3, 2024.
Americans have a loneliness problem.
New research shows that many adults in the United States experience loneliness, and rates are even higher among young adults. The problem is serious enough that local governments across the country are addressing it. Can we reverse this troubling trend?
Bryan DeHenau is a roofer in Clinton Township. He’s a working-class guy who voted for Barack Obama and then Donald Trump. And he’s got some ideas about how to make housing in Michigan more affordable.
DeHenau “spends his days fixing other people’s roofs, yet he can’t afford to buy a home of his own,” The Washington Post observes. He started roofing in the early 2000s and has seen the ebbs and flows of the housing market.
Michigan's economy continued to grow in 2024, but the growth rate should have elected officials concerned. The state is not performing up to national averages, and Michigan is already behind many of the average levels of prosperity.
Job growth slowed in 2024. The state has been at roughly 4.5 million jobs since April 2024 and ranks 10th-worst among the states in jobs growth over that period. Jobs had been up 4% in 2021 and 2022 and 2% in 2023. It’s a sign of stagnancy.
Two unwieldy laws regarding sick leave and the minimum wage are set to go into effect at the end of February. They are written so poorly that the effects on Michigan workers, businesses and consumers could be massive. Together, they should be referred to as the “jobless bills.”
Who looks out for the taxpayer when politicians give money from the public treasury to select private businesses? Jon Riches, Vice President for Litigation and General Counsel at the Goldwater Institute, joins the Overton Window podcast to describe how his organization draws on state constitutions to hold government accountable for gift clause violations.
For two decades, Democratic commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission have been trying to regulate the internet, using a doctrine known as “net neutrality.” But their attempts to impose their regulatory authority on the internet ended on Jan. 2 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously struck down the FCC’s net neutrality regulations, which would have reclassified internet service providers as common carriers subject to public-utility-style regulation.
Michigan’s “economic development” agency last March announced its plan to give $50 million in taxpayer money to a Canadian company that might build a copper mine in the Upper Peninsula. The subsidy to Toronto-based Highland Copper came with promises of $425 million in capital investment and 380 "high-wage, family-sustaining jobs in the Western Upper Peninsula," but the Copperwood Mine deal has lost much of its luster recently.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News December 24, 2024.
Some years, no one gets what they want for Christmas. That is certainly true for policymakers in Lansing in the closing days of December.
Michigan’s lame-duck legislative session ground to a halt last week. “Lame duck” is that period after a November election, before the new legislature begins in January — a last chance for unfinished business. Lawmaking can be chaotic, and that is especially true of lame-duck sessions, which feature long nights and short tempers. Lansing insiders are quick to compare lame duck to a dumpster fire.
Democrats have a reputation for being supported by public sector unions. And given unions’ love of conventional pensions, voters may think that Democratic lawmakers would work hard to protect public sector pensions. Michigan’s Democratic majority legislators haven’t, however. Their term ended with government workers and taxpayers being more exposed to increased pension risk.
This article originally appeared November 26, 2024.
Last year, I saw Larry and Sue at my father’s funeral.
My parents had been friends with them for decades. Their children were some of my best friends growing up. It had been 20 years since we had seen each other.
Union membership has been declining for decades, but organized labor in Michigan has a new tool to keep dues money flowing from some of the state’s most vulnerable workers: homecare providers.
With the enactment of Senate bills 790 and 791 in October, Michigan homecare providers are classified as public employees. These are individuals, many of whom care for elderly or disabled family members, who receive a stipend from government programs for their work and sacrifice. The state law sets up homecare workers to be pressured into union membership and made to pay dues to the Service Employees International Union.
After the 2022 election, labor unions pushed Michigan Democrats to repeal the state’s right-to-work law. They succeeded, and the Legislature voted in March 2023 to scrap the 10-year-old law. The Mackinac Center attempted to testify before a legislative committee in opposition but was not permitted to do so.
Addiction treatment in America has long been shaped by a narrow focus that stigmatizes drug users. On the Overton Window podcast, Layal Bou Harfouch, drug policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, seeks to challenge this perspective.
Historically, addiction treatment authorities in the U.S. have measured progress only by the person’s completely abstaining from controlled substances. Bou Harfouch points out that this “all-or-nothing” mentality overlooks the significance of incremental changes in recovery.
The winding down of 2024 brought another effort to distribute state taxpayer money on yet another Detroit-specific building project. This one involves the famed Renaissance Center and its owner, General Motors, as well as Bedrock, a real estate firm owned by local business executive Dan Gilbert. But the state should not offer a dime of taxpayer support. Subsidies such as this one are expensive, unfair and ineffective.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News November 12, 2024.
Many professional pollsters and television pundits made poor predictions just before last week’s election, but I am willing to make a prediction about an election four years from now:
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News November 18, 2024.
A few weeks ago, I sent my wife a self-deprecating meme: “If I tell you I’ll do something, that means I’ll do it. You don’t have to remind me every six months.” The whiteboard in our kitchen with its list of unfinished projects condemns me.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News November 5, 2024.
Years ago, I learned an important lesson while litigating a public records case in Washington state.
Christine Gregoire, then-governor of Washington, claimed “executive privilege” when rejecting requests for records in her office. Unlike Michigan, this state has a public records law that applies to the governor.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News October 30, 2024.
“This event is a whirlwind of innovation and imagination,” said Desi, “like being in a sci-fi novel.”
Desi appeared to be in her early 20s. She had bangs and long hair, half of it dyed platinum blonde and the other half purple. She wore a "Vampire Diaries" T-shirt and a purple skirt.
By Derk Wilcox
Eight states across the country just passed measures to limit property taxes. Georgia and Florida capped the rates at which property taxes could go up. Michigan already has such a limitation, but its protections have been gradually eroded with the acquiescence of the courts.
A federal law requires manufacturers to sell drugs to nonprofit hospitals at a steep discount. The theory is that hospitals will then sell the drugs at a lower cost to the low-income people they serve. But there’s no requirement that they pass along those savings, so in reality, hospitals pocket the profits.
A new Michigan Supreme Court decision means that controversial pandemic-era emergency policies may never face a proper judicial review, and that government officials who issued them will escape accountability.
The court on Nov. 1 dismissed two important cases about the government’s use of emergency powers in response to Covid-19. The majority on the court declared these cases moot because the mandates in question — making children wear masks at school and forcing restaurants to close — are no longer in effect.
Policy changes do not take place unless they are supported by persuasive presentation. Bob Ewing, an expert in transforming scholars into leaders, breaks down the best practices for effective communication on the Overton Window podcast.
Ewing, the founder and president of the Ewing School — a speaking, listening and leading consultancy — believes in the power of speech. He defines a good speech as “a speech that resonates and connects with the audience,” emphasizing that the goal of public speaking is not just to deliver information, but to forge a connection with listeners.
