Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing today, talking about the Obamacare decision and what can be done to fix the health care system. McHugh appeared on the show again Friday to continue the discussion.
As noted in my previous reviews here and here, Jonah Goldberg’s “Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas” provides a quick, enjoyable, highly readable analysis of the memes employed by progressive argumentation. Repeated often enough, these clichés seemingly have a ring of what faux conservative comic Stephen Colbert would call “truthiness.”
While you may have missed the Michigan Firework Safety Act passed late last year, you may have noticed more fireworks tents than usual popping up this summer. With the Fourth of July upon us, more and more retailers are taking advantage of Michigan’s new law permitting the sale of previously illegal fireworks.
Author and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, who will appear at “An Evening with the Mackinac Center” Friday night in Traverse City, was a guest on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR AM760 this morning. Goldberg discussed Friday’s event, to be held at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa, and his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.”
After reading Rep. Chuck Moss's rebuttal to a spot-on editorial recently published in The Detroit News, a reader might conclude that the only problem with the school employee pension system is that it's underfunded. The $22.4 billion gap between the system's assets and liabilities is a symptom that exposes the real problem: politicians can't be trusted to properly fund a defined benefit pension system.
Jarrett Skorup, content manager for Michigan Capitol Confidential, writes in a Detroit News Op-Ed today about the costs and paperwork associated with the state’s job licensing procedures. Skorup has written on this issue in the past, which you can read here and here.
Recommendations for changing Michigan’s alcohol control policies would exempt craft brewers from signing exclusive agreements with wholesalers, Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive told the Detroit Free Press.
LaFaive and other Center analysts have written extensively about the monopoly beer and wine distributors enjoy and how the state can revamp its liquor laws to benefit consumers. LaFaive examined the nature of that monopoly in an Op-Ed recently in the Downriver Sunday Times.
The real question before the Supreme Court in the "Patient Protection Act" challenge was: Does a Constitution restricting government to limited and enumerated powers actually mean anything, or are we now subject to the whims of temporary majorities elected to Congress?
According to Casey Sumner of the Toledo Blade, Gov. Snyder said, “The role of government isn't to create jobs. Our role is to enable job creation to happen,” during a town hall meeting on Monday. However, the new budget of the State of Michigan includes $100 million for “business attraction and economic gardening” and $50 million for a film incentive program. Rather than cripple the job creation he desires, Gov. Snyder could best increase Michigan employment rates by abandoning such taxing initiatives and allowing free enterprise to thrive.
A new report issued by the Heritage Foundation quantifies the impact by state and congressional district of the widely-heralded “Taxmageddon.” Absent any change in the law, it will deliver the full body slam of a $494 billion tax hike to the U.S. economy on Jan. 1, 2013.
Two more Michigan school districts have earned praise for implementing merit-based teacher pay.
Blissfield Schools and the St. Clair intermediate school district join Oscoda and Suttons Bay in transitioning away from an industrial-era assembly line worker type compensation system to one that recognizes and rewards teachers as motivated professionals. There are reasons to think this may be the start of a trend.
Op-Eds in the Tallahassee Democrat and Orlando Sentinel about public-sector pension reform in Florida both reference a Mackinac Center study from 2011 that shows closing the state employees’ defined-benefit retirement fund to new hires in 1997 has saved Michigan taxpayers up to $4.3 billion in unfunded liabilities.
The Michigan Legislature has entered a summer recess. Many bills were passed in the legislative sessions just before the break.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 1129, Authorize local “pension obligation bonds”: Passed 25 to 11 in the Senate
To allow local governments to borrow money to cover unfunded employee pension liabilities if the local has closed its traditional “defined benefit” pension system to new employees. Unlike other local government borrowing (usually called “bonding” or “selling bonds”), no vote of the people would be required.
There's a lot of criticism being voiced about plans to "charterize" the fiscally and educationally bankrupt Muskegon Heights and Highland Park school districts. Government employee unions are making the most noise, but they've been joined recently by the Detroit Free Press, Michigan Public Radio’s Jack Lessenberry, and a state school board member.
New data from the state (available in this online database) show that despite constant calls from school officials and government employee union bosses for more funding, public schools in Michigan received more money in 2011 than ever before — about $13,405 per pupil. Total school spending, however, did drop from its all-time high in 2010 — by less than 1 percent. Schools spent $12,778 per pupil last year overall, with $11,561 of that spent on day-to-day operating expenses.
Senior Economist David Littmann in a Detroit Free Press Op-Ed Sunday details Detroit’s consent agreement with the state and the roadblocks the city faces as it tries to regain financial stability. He also discussed the same issues on WDET, Detroit's public radio station.
Millions of dollars in “dues” will continue to be skimmed by the SEIU from the subsidy checks home health care workers receive, many of whom are family members caring for loved ones, after a federal judge issued an injunction against a new state law. Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, discussed the issue on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR AM760. Wright also told The Detroit News that the SEIU is taking about $500,000 a month away from the home health aides.
Allen Park’s foray into the state’s film subsidy industry has put the city into debt and put it on the verge of needing an emergency financial manager, according to an Op-Ed by two Mackinac Center analysts in the Port Huron Times-Herald.
Director of Fiscal Policy Michael LaFaive and Senior Editor Thomas Shull write that the state’s “ill-conceived” film subsidy program led Allen Park officials to believe the city could profit by building a movie studio. The authors then explain the state’s legal history of prohibiting the use of public money for private ventures.
School districts sometimes are referred to as a "local educational agency," but recently the one in Fruitport seemed more concerned with being a "local employment agency."
MLive.com reports that the school board voted against saving $240,000 by contracting out for custodial services — money that could be redirected toward educating students. The president of the janitor’s local union said board members, "felt that people shouldn't lose their jobs right now" and, according to MLive.com, specifically praised those on the board who have "ties to labor."
An increase in tobacco taxes in Illinois has led to concerns about cigarette smuggling and related crimes, according to the Chicago Examiner.
The news site cites Mackinac Center research on the issue, including this 2008 study.
Although the health care field has taken over the top spot in Michigan’s economy, one Mackinac Center analyst warns it will not return the state to prosperity because it lacks productivity.
Senior Economist David Littmann told The Detroit News that manufacturing jobs have more of an “economic wallop.”
Vincent Chin died 30 years ago today after being beaten with a baseball bat by laid-off autoworkers. He is memorialized by Tom Watkins in an excellent piece in The Detroit News today. Chin, a Chinese-American was celebrating his impending nuptials when he crossed the path of two xenophobes apparently bent on venting their frustrations on a man they mistook for Japanese.
Unions in Michigan are pushing for a radical constitutional amendment that would benefit the 3 percent of state residents who are unionized at the state, local and school levels at the expense of everyone else, according to a commentary by Labor Policy Director Vincent Vernuccio in The American Spectator.
The Michigan House has advanced legislation to gradually roll back the state’s personal income tax rate to 3.9 percent from its current 4.35 percent. That would be a good start, but a slight blip upwards in the state unemployment rate reported last week suggests this is no time for being timid or complacent.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
House Bill 5699, Cut state income tax: Passed 31 to 7 in the Senate
To move forward to Oct. 1 2013 an income tax cut from 4.35 percent to 4.25 percent that under current law will happen on Jan, 1, 2013.
