Michigan lawmakers took another step toward reducing unnecessary occupational licensing barriers, a key reform supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
House bills 4103 and 4104, which passed the House on a nearly unanimous basis, would have enter Michigan into multistate compacts for occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants and physician assistants and make some related changes to state law. This would allow workers licensed in those fields to easily work in all the states that entered into the compact. The bills still need to pass the Senate and be signed by the governor to take effect.
What would be better: Reduce the number of students in a classroom by one or give the teacher a $10,000 raise? That type of trade-off is the reality of school budgets.
But as Michigan debates new statewide regulations on class sizes, few are talking about the trade-offs involved. Smaller class sizes require more teachers and more spending. Michigan already has one teacher for every 14 students, according to Mischooldata.org. Ten years ago, there were 16 students per teacher.
Can a president unilaterally impose tariffs on nearly every imported good, bypassing Congress?
That’s the question at the heart of a discussion with Jeffrey Schwab, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, on the Overton Window Podcast.
“We filed a lawsuit called VOS Selections v. Trump. Our firm, the Liberty Justice Center, is representing five individual small businesses free of charge,” Schwab says.
This article originally appeared in Real Clear Markets April 30, 2025.
The Biden and Trump administrations agree: It’s time to use antitrust laws to break up the largest American technology companies. On April 14, the FTC began a trial against Meta, in a case originally brought in the first Trump administration and continued during Biden years. Yet the case will be difficult for the government to win because it’s built on a shaky legal foundation.
President Trump’s global tariffs have been justified by a simple story. The rest of the world is taking advantage of us. Americans buy tons of stuff from abroad, and this has decimated domestic industry. Foreign competitors are eating our lunch, and we can’t keep up.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 22, 2025.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called out the plight of young men in society in her recent State of the State address. Single women, she said, are three times more likely to buy a house today than single men. Whitmer also decried a gender gap in the Michigan Reconnect program, where female college enrollment outpaces male enrollment two-to-one.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 16 2025.
MIDLAND — A young woman dressed in a professional business outfit shook my hand and introduced herself.
“Hello, I’m Claire, your first affirmative speaker.”
“I’m Ethan, the second affirmative speaker,” said her partner, with a firm handshake.
Michigan’s roads will continue to fall apart faster than the state will repair them, according to the latest projections. The Transportation Asset Management Council’s annual Roads and Bridges report includes a forecast for pavement quality, which the report says will decline over the next decade. While 68% of roads are in good or fair condition now, the report expects that number to drop to 54%.
America leads the world in pharmaceutical innovation, developing cutting-edge treatments that improve and save lives. The U.S. does a better job balancing the trade-offs of costs and innovation than most other nations. But that is under threat from state and federal policies.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 29, 2025.
How do people respond when the world around them falls apart? I gained some insights during a brief trip up north last week.
The first came on a quiet evening in Petoskey, where bestselling author Leif Enger gave a talk on his latest novel, “I Cheerfully Refuse.”
By Molly Macek
Some education advocates and lawmakers claim smaller class sizes are the way to improve student performance in Michigan. But reducing the student-to-teacher ratio will do little beyond increasing costs for taxpayers. Other initiatives, notably those known to enhance teacher quality, will go further to improve student outcomes.
Trade between two countries isn’t a zero-sum game, with one winning and the other losing. It’s beneficial when countries specialize in producing certain goods and then trade them with others. Trade is especially true for places like Michigan, where a global supply chain fuels industries, creates jobs and supports families. But protectionist policies, including tariffs, put all that at risk.
Elon Musk’s DOGE team has been pausing and canceling billions of dollars in federal grants. Special interests have noticed, giving rise to hundreds of news stories complaining about the cuts. But these complainers are missing something important: The deeply leveraged federal government is not the only place to ask for money. If these interests are truly serving the public, they should ask states for help.
Is the American-Canadian friendship caput? Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that America can no longer be trusted, and he wants to disentangle the Canadian economy from the United States. President Donald Trump is subjecting Canada to massive tariffs and says he wants the country to dissolve into the American union. This is all a bad sign for Michigan.
West Virginia is making it easier for professionals to get to work — no matter where they’re coming from.
Jessi Troyan, Director of Policy and Research at the Cardinal Institute, unpacked the significance of a new universal licensing recognition law passed in West Virginia on The Overton Window Podcast.
By Derk Wilcox
Lawyers in most states have to be members of a mandatory “integrated” bar association before they can practice law. These associations charge annual dues in the hundreds of dollars. Failure to pay means an attorney can’t practice law.
State bar associations perform oversight for the legal profession, usually at the direction of the states’ supreme courts, policing ethics violations, admitting lawyers, and maintaining education standards. But these associations also frequently embrace political positions.
Michigan lawmakers resolved a financial problem that still threatens other states. Thanks to a long-term effort, they have set aside money to pay for the health insurance costs of retired public school employees, according to a recent actuarial valuation.
Corporate welfare policies that Michigan now takes for granted were extremely unpopular during the debate on the state's current Constitution, which still retains explicit bans on giving taxpayer money to politically favored corporations.
Gov. Whitmer signed $4.7 billion in subsidies to select businesses in 2024, and all but ten lawmakers voted for at least $1.5 million, according to the Mackinac Center’s Business Subsidy Scorecard.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 8, 2025.
“That fresh breeze you feel is the wide open Overton Window,” Elon Musk wrote on X March 20.
Musk isn’t the only one talking about the Overton Window. People on the left and the right use this concept to explain public policy. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wrote that voter apathy about taxes “marks a profound shift of the so-called Overton Window.” New York Times writer Paul Krugman sprinkled Overton Window references in his columns. Vice President JD Vance mentioned the Overton Window when explaining President Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine. Several years ago, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow devoted a segment of her show to the concept.
This article originally appeared in City Journal March 24, 2025.
The Department of Government Efficiency is providing a public service—though not only in the way its supporters intend. In its push to streamline the bureaucracy, DOGE has sent federal unions into a frenzy of opposition, underscoring the need for a long-overdue reform: ending collective bargaining for federal employees.
Few industries have received more protection from the federal government than the steel industry, with U.S. Steel being a major corporate beneficiary. But the favors didn’t help the company grow or become competitive. It has been declining and open to being bought out by another company.
By Molly Macek
Mississippi outperformed Michigan and most other states on the most recent national fourth grade reading test. When factoring in socioeconomic status, its students surpassed Michigan's even more. Mississippi’s achievement gains come after the state adopted reforms that target literacy and school accountability. Michigan lawmakers repealed similar policies in 2023.
Right to Work laws and the state of American higher education remain two of the most hotly debated issues in public policy, touching on questions of individual freedom, institutional power, and economic opportunity. George Leef, director of external relations at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, has spent years studying both. He recently joined the Overton Window Podcast to share his insights on how these systems have evolved—and where they’ve gone off course.
By Molly Macek
The Educational Choice for Children Act, which was introduced earlier this year in the U.S. House and Senate, could bring more educational opportunity to Michigan students. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, defenders of the public school status quo have brought out their long knives in an effort to undermine a policy that has the potential to help families across the state.
Politicians in the state of Washington are proposing a 66% increase in the cigarette excise tax as well as an outright ban on menthol cigarettes and other flavored nicotine products. More than a third of cigarettes currently consumed in Washington have been smuggled into the state. Imposing stricter, more costly laws is likely to increase that alarming figure.
