Debates over Medicaid policy are intensifying across the country, with rhetoric often running far ahead of reality. In Michigan, that’s playing out in real time — with alarming claims and overblown numbers drowning out thoughtful discussion.
Rather than give in to fear-based talking points, we need to get back to basics: Medicaid is meant to be a safety net, not a substitute for self-sufficiency. Work and community engagement requirements for able-bodied adults are one tool to keep that promise.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News June 24, 2025.
Michigan sports fans pay close attention to the rankings for college football and basketball, looking to see how the University of Michigan and Michigan State compare to other schools.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked for digital service taxes and House Bill 4142 would create those taxes. It would charge companies such as Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook, Instagram) for their sales of digital advertisements, adding a tax of 2.5% to 10% to the price of each ad. The rate levied would depend upon the taxpayer’s global sales, which raises important legal questions. HB 4142 could also create an unfair penalty for one kind of advertiser and not others. Because this kind of preference is prohibited by a federal law, similar taxes imposed by other states are being challenged in court.
The American experiment has now lasted 249 years. Congratulations to all of us. The country has faced many challenges along the way. More will be coming. It will be easier for us all to face future problems if we try to bolster a great American virtue: civility.
My family would occasionally help an elderly neighbor named Timmy. His finances were no better than his failing health. He left no heirs when he died. What little property he owned was in hock to the bank, and the insatiable tax man threatened the remaining residue.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News June 17, 2025.
A movie fan walking into a theater 70 years ago had no idea how easy it would be to watch a movie in 2025. Back in the day, if you wanted to watch a movie, you had to call the movie theater, ask for show times and then drive there to watch.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News June 10, 2025.
A new coalition wants a massive tax hike for public schools. Invest in MI Kids proposes a constitutional amendment that would raise $1.7 billion from high-income individuals and couples. This coalition is part of a growing chorus of calls for more school funding, even though school spending in Michigan has never been higher.
Members of the Michigan House toyed with a better policy to fund universities but backed off. Their proposal would have replaced roughly half of the state’s payments to universities with student scholarships. Doing this would have made the state’s higher education funding fairer and less arbitrary.
A rural community in west Michigan is essentially banning short-term rentals in most areas of the township. Park Township would join many other towns that have completely banned short-term rentals — like Airbnb and VRBO — or disallowed them in residential neighborhoods. New York City essentially destroyed its own short-term rental market, a move that, along with limits on the building of new hotels, has driven up hotel rates and harmed the Big Apple's tourism industry.
Only 16% of cigarettes consumed in Michigan came about through tax evasion in 2023. This is the lowest rate we have recorded since we first published state-by-state cigarette smuggling rates in 2008. Seventeen states have higher inbound smuggling rates than Michigan. We expect Michigan’s inbound smuggling rate to drop again in the coming years due to a large tax increase in Indiana.
Do politicians truly have our best interests at heart when they approve millions of dollars to renovate baseball parks?
Patrick Wright, vice president for legal affairs at the Mackinac Center, sat down with colleague James Hohman on the Overton Window Podcast to discuss the organization's latest legal effort: a lawsuit challenging Michigan’s growing use of special district projects, often referred to as “pork projects” or “earmarks.”
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News June 4, 2025.
The swamp of Washington, D.C., has defeated many crusaders, and it appears Elon Musk will join the ranks of the vanquished. In his role with the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk made a riveting figure. Day after day he highlighted waste, even wielding a chainsaw during one public appearance.
In 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear facility suffered a meltdown. The crisis caused no injuries, and other parts of the plant continued to function for decades, but the event effectively killed growth in nuclear energy in the United States. And the chief impediment to American nuclear development has been an organization ostensibly created to foster its growth: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Since the commission was created in 1975, it has functioned almost entirely to prevent or delay the building of new nuclear capacity. France, Canada, South Korea, China and other governments have forged ahead to build gigawatts of new nuclear energy, leaving America in the dust
In 2024, a slew of housing bills was introduced in the Michigan Legislature. The so-called Renters Bill of Rights package would have significantly increased regulations on housing providers. This would have meant fewer landlords, fewer options for people seeking housing and higher prices for renters.
By Molly Macek
The school aid budget passed by the House last week offers a different approach to funding Michigan’s public schools. Unlike the budgets proposed by the Senate and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, it would give school leaders a greater say in how to spend increases in state funding.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News May 28, 2025.
To the class of 2025, congratulations. Whether you attend college or start a career, you are entering adulthood at the most hopeful and prosperous time in history.
People will tell you to worry about the future, and perhaps you do. People worry about many challenges — economic uncertainty, political turmoil, environmental concerns, the cost of living, artificial intelligence, the fragility of physical and mental health. Every generation hears that civilization is on the brink. But here’s a test: Would you trade today for living in 1970 or 1800 or the year 253? Probably not.
Look beyond the partisanship of the No Kings rallies, and you’ll see they’ve got an interesting point that ought to appeal to Americans across the political spectrum. Citizens shouldn’t want a monarch who gets to do whatever he wants by royal fiat. And that’s not what America has. America has a president who can exercise only the powers granted by the Constitution. Last weekend’s protesters could make a good case that executives around the country act beyond their limited authority and thus behave like monarchs.
When the American founders declared their break with Great Britain by penning the Declaration of Independence, they justified their action by appealing to human rights. Each year, we rightly celebrate their courage through Independence Day activities, including parades and firework displays. Preceding July 4, though, is another milestone in American history. On Juneteenth, we remember the end of slavery in this country and what it meant to bring to life the promises of the declaration. Freedom, if it means nothing else, means the end of slavery, or the condition of being owned by another.
Sheetz, a Pennsylvania-based company that sells gasoline and made-to-order food, wants to expand its footprint in Michigan. The chain, which offers a wide selection of decent meals at a low cost, has plans to add dozens of new stations in metro Detroit.
The energy transition to wind, solar, and utility-scale batteries is simply unworkable.
“Shattered Green Dreams: The Environmental Costs of Wind and Solar” is a new report by Sarah Montalbano and the Center of the American Experiment. In it, Montalbano explains how the environmental, material, and technological flaws and limits of so-called renewables are systematically ignored by policymakers. As the Mackinac Center’s Seven Principles of Sound Energy Policy make clear, all energy sources, including politically favored ones, have an environmental impact.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which distributes billions in select tax credits and corporate subsidies, says its new slogan, “Make It In Michigan,” is working. It uses a few anecdotes in an attempt to prove the point.
The slogan was launched in 2023. Since then, the MEDC spent $720 on million a program that has yet to create a single job. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the MEDC and some lawmakers are fighting to keep a program to allocate billions to select business subsidies rather than to spend that money on roads, schools or cutting taxes.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Wednesday his agency’s proposal to repeal burdensome and costly power plant regulations implemented during the Biden-Harris administration. On the chopping block is the so-called Clean Power Plan 2.0 as well as the 2024 amendments to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. This action will remove a significant regulatory burden from the backs of American energy producers. Consumers and companies will save as much as $1.3 billion each year and enjoy more reliable energy supplies.
Michigan’s Republican majority House and Democratic majority Senate have not agreed on a lot this year. One of the things they will have to agree upon, however, is the state budget. An approaching deadline is making clear what each is fighting for.
The Senate passed a budget that increases state spending by $2.3 billion, 4.87% more than last year’s budget. It’s also more than the 3.64% recommended by the Mackinac Center’s Sustainable Michigan Budget, where we ask lawmakers to increase the budget by no more than the rate of inflation plus the rate of the state’s population growth.
One woman went from being a parent reluctant to homeschool to a beacon for school choice in her community. Bernita Bradley is the founder of Engaged Detroit, which brings together homeschooling parents, education providers, coaches and others.
Her work in education started when her daughter asked if she could be homeschooled. Bradley had not seen many homeschoolers and was skeptical of the idea. “All these misconceptions people have about homeschool, I had a lot of those,” Bradley says.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News May 29, 2025.
Is Michigan in for a tax hike in 2025? It will be if state Democrats get their way.
Michigan Democratic lawmakers are trying to figure out what tax they should raise in order to fund roads. They’ve proposed hiking Corporate Income Taxes, marijuana taxes and trash taxes. They also have recommended new taxes on digital services and nicotine vaporizers.
