(Editor’s note: Portions of this essay originally appeared in The Freeman, June 2012.)
This weekend marks the 85th Academy Awards, which for some cinephiles is the highlight of our current journey around the sun. The event also grants an opportunity for public policy pundits to bemoan the overall statist bent of the entertainment churned out each year by Hollywood studios. Even Jonah Goldberg joined the club this week with an essay on why he believes conservatives should leave the talkies to the liberals.
Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive tells The Detroit News today that the city of Detroit’s economic problems and population loss shouldn’t come as a surprise.
"Detroiters aren’t sheep lining up to be sheared,” he said. “When the tax burdens got too high, many fled to safer climes. Detroit has such a crushing property tax burden, it’s no coincidence the land value is so low."
Reuters reports that some charter public schools in Ohio, Illinois, California and Pennsylvania use application processes to screen incoming students.
According to Reuters, an Ohio school used an entrance exam to screen out a third grader. In another case (now under investigation) an Illinois charter public school actually required parents to invest in the company that built the school.
One of the main misunderstandings by those who want the state to subsidize college degrees is the assumption that this will directly lead to more wealth.
But this is an example of “the cart pulling the horse” — that is, people who graduate from college are already capable of great wealth before they actually get a degree.
The recent financial struggles of Michigan “green energy” manufacturers A123 Systems and LG Chem left both state and federal taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars. The failed promises of both companies prompted justifiable outrage against the misuse of federal funds and state tax breaks for such enterprises.
An online database of school superintendent salaries released today by the Mackinac Center is already generating media interest, drawing mentions on WIN FM98.5 in Battle Creek, TV7&4 in Traverse City, WHTC AM1450 in Holland, FOX2 in Detroit and WTVB AM1590 in Coldwater, and in the Holland Sentinel, The Kalamazoo Gazette, The Jackson Citizen Patriot, The Flint Journal, The Oakland Press, The Grand Rapids Press, Detroit Free Press, Royal Oak Daily Tribune, AnnArbor.com, Macomb Daily and MLive.
The Mackinac Center just expanded its Michigan School Databases project by adding superintendent compensation and contracts to the mix. Also contained therein are copies of union contracts, detailed fiscal data and high school achievement information.
In response to my article last week on why state government shouldn’t subsidize higher education, several proponents of more state funding for universities disputed the claims but presented no actual evidence to counter the points.
As I wrote:
Economist Richard Vedder notes: “Nationwide, from 1980 to 2000, the 10 states with the most rapid economic growth expanded their spending on higher education on average at a modest pace, from 1.31 percent to 1.44 percent of personal income. In the 10 slowest growing states, higher education spending grew rapidly on average, from 1.80 percent to 2.21 percent of personal income.”
Two school districts in the area represented by Rep. Woodrow Stanley, D-Flint, have among the worst absentee rates for conventional schools in Michigan, yet Rep. Stanley has chosen to introduce a bill that would require homeschool parents to report attendance of their children to the state.
Jon Telford, the interim superintendent at Detroit Public Schools, claims in The Detroit News that in 1999 DPS’s “[standardized test] scores were then at the state midpoint.” This proves completely false based on data available from the Michigan Department of Education.
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For more detailed information on the events listed above, including links to essays, commentaries, studies and Op-Eds, please see this timeline.
The union representing faculty members at Wayne State University is trying to circumvent Michigan’s new right-to-work law by signing a new contract before the law takes effect in late March, a labor policy expert told The Detroit News. Extending the contract before March 28 would deny members the ability to decide whether or not they want to belong to the union.
In her Feb. 15 MLive guest column, Jennifer Goulet presents specious claims for the relationship between our state’s largesse for arts programs, economic realities and an uptick in sectors of Michigan’s economic vitality.
The director and CEO of Wixom’s ArtServe, Goulet writes that Michigan’s arts community recognized significant growth in employment and revenues during the bleakest years of the state’s decade-long retraction: “From 2010 to 2011, arts-related jobs increased 11 percent, while arts-related businesses grew 16 percent,” she writes, adding that jobs increased 15 percent between 2006 and 2011 and “an impressive 65-percent gain to 28,072 arts-related businesses.”
Teachers unions are hurriedly attempting to renegotiate contracts in an attempt to skirt Michigan’s new right-to-work law, Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek told The Detroit News.
The new law takes effect March 27, but contracts in place before then are exempt.\
When choosing between more money for roads — which has become a Lansing priority — or subsidies for out-of-state filmmakers, some Michigan Republicans pick the latter.
MIRS News reported on negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, and Gov. Rick Snyder on funding for the film incentive program. The governor, who would like to end the program, has a plan that lowers the program from $50 million this year to $25 million to eventually zero. Sen. Richardville wants to increase the subsidy to $100 million.
The Detroit News reports that though Gov. Rick Snyder is proposing an overall 2 percent increase in funding for schools, some school districts could see a slight funding decrease.
Under Gov. Snyder's plan, the minimum state foundation allowance per pupil would rise from $6,966 to $7,000. However, the state's "best practices" grant would decline from $52 to $16 per pupil. For some districts, the combination of changes would result in a $2-per-student funding decrease.
Gov. Rick Snyder has said we need to do something about the condition of our roads. But nowhere in the debate is any talk about what has gotten us into this deferred maintenance quagmire — a 30-year experiment with escalating dependence on road salt and the magnitude of damage it brings.
Dr. William T. Wilson, a senior policy adviser with the Center, was a guest on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR AM760 this morning. Wilson was fired from his job as a vice president at Comerica Bank after testifying before a Michigan Senate committee in 1999 about the benefits of a right-to-work law.
The Genesee County Land Bank is considering offering properties rehabbed with federal taxpayer dollars to police officers, firefighters and soldiers at a discount. The land bank's favored buyers would pay 30 percent less.
The Genesee land bank isn't the first Michigan land bank to consider subsidizing housing for government workers. The Detroit Land Bank will pay the down payment for city employees, police officers or firefighters who purchase one of its properties. According to the city, 20 government employees have already closed on homes using this program. More than 200 others are in the process and looking to buy a subsidized home.
In an MLive article titled, “Michigan education funding: Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed 2 percent increased is ‘absolutely not enough,’ say critics,” politicians, administrators, union heads and special interest groups insist that the state needs to increase funding much more than the proposal.
In an interview with the Detroit Metro Times, United Auto Workers President Bob King suggests that the forced unionization of home-based caregivers is more important than Michigan's becoming a right-to-work state.
“[T]here was a whole series of legislation that [Snyder] said was not on his agenda that he signed,” King told the Metro Times. "There were [university] research assistants being denied collective bargaining rights. There were home health care workers, who were given some really strong assurances that collective bargaining rights would not be taken away from them.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 89, Vehicle trade-in “sales tax on the difference” only: Passed 34 to 2 in the Senate
To exempt from sales tax the value of a trade-in when buying a new motor vehicle, titled watercraft or recreational vehicle. The buyer would only pay sales tax on the difference between the agreed value of the trade-in and the purchase price of the new vehicle. The tax break would be phased in gradually through 2021, when its value would reach $226 million annually.
The average teacher salary in Michigan is over $60,000 a year, according to The Daily Caller. That is second highest in the nation when adjusted for cost of living.
Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek told the news site that state Superintendent Michael Flanagan’s suggestion that all teachers in Michigan be paid $100,000 annually would cost taxpayers about $4 billion.
Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek writes in the Port Huron Times-Herald that teachers and school districts should be cautious about unions that want to extend contracts in order to circumvent Michigan’s new right-to-work law.
