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.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News March 31, 2026.
The ideal election policy is easy to state and hard to achieve. Elections should be well-run and secure while remaining accessible to every eligible voter. Votes should be counted accurately, and the process should inspire confidence. Even if your candidate didn’t win, you should know the election was conducted fairly.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News March 17, 2026.
Michigan’s lockdown architects are lining up to tell us it was a mistake.
The latest comes from Robert Gordon and Nicholas Bagley. Gordon was director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services until January 2021. Bagley served as legal counsel to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News March 24, 2026.
Lawmakers in Washington State just created a new “millionaire tax” — the first income tax in state history. Hours after the bill passed, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that he and his wife had left Seattle after living there 44 years. While Schultz said the move gets them closer to their children, the timing was notable. Schultz follows other high earners leaving inhospitable states, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.
By Cami Pendell
In a time of sharp divisions and fiery rhetoric, civility can seem like a remnant of a quieter past. But for those committed to advancing free markets and limited government, civility is essential to progress. It is the foundation on which durable ideas are built, tested and ultimately adopted.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News March 3, 2026.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration is not over, but her final State of the State address last week marks the beginning of the end. A governor’s first State of the State is about the agenda. The fourth address is the case for continuity and reelection. The eighth is about legacy, accomplishments and unfinished business.
Michigan’s budget process has been sharply improved by new statutes that require legislators to file public requests when they seek grants for projects of their choice. It used to be that these grants, sometimes called earmarks or pork projects, popped into the budget at the last minute with no public warning. Now legislators have to describe the projects they want and what the money will be used for. The process gives legislators a chance to show that that their requests benefit all Michigan residents, not just the direct beneficiaries.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is stretching the limits of her emergency powers, just as she did during the COVID-19 panic. She declared a state emergency on April 2, suspending some state rules about what kind of gasoline may be sold, because prices reached $3.89 per gallon. State law gives governors the authority to unilaterally suspend rules or laws, among other actions, in case of an energy shortage. But Whitmer’s justification is based on high gas prices rather than a threat to Michigan’s energy supply.
Food trucks in Michigan have been banned, overly regulated and even, occasionally, subsidized. None of that has been good public policy, and state lawmakers are doing something about it. A proposed package of bills would set up a new framework.
House bills 5450 and 5451 are sponsored by Rep. Timothy Beson, R-Bangor Township. They would, according to Michigan Votes, “revise Michigan’s Food Law to create a more uniform statewide regulatory framework for mobile food establishments by prohibiting local fees and taxes on mobile vendors, while also strengthening safety and transparency through mandatory annual and post-modification fire inspections, public access to inspection records, and standardized compliance and reporting requirements.”
Special economic zones have brought prosperity to places like Hong Kong and Singapore, but they have never been tried in the United States. Michigan developer Rod Lockwood wants to change that by turning Detroit’s Belle Isle into a separate polity that would avoid the Motor City’s crushing taxes and regulations. In a new version of his 2013 novel “Belle Isle: Detroit’s Game Changer,” Lockwood demonstrates how a special economic zone on the island, which now serves as a park, could turn around the fortunes of Detroit as well as Windsor, Ont., and the entire Midwest.
Even the biggest opponents of a bill to make zoning less burdensome agree that local zoning rules prevent the housing people want from getting built. In response to a bill to preempt local governments rules that prohibit most types of housing to be built, local government advocates introduced their own legislation to subsidize local governments that loosen building rules.
