Analysis by Mark Perry, chairman of the economics department at the University of Michigan-Flint and a member of the Mackinac Center’s board of scholars, is highlighted in a recent Washington Examiner editorial.
Perry analyzed data from the Federal Reserve and found that 56 percent of those in 2001 who were among the lowest income earners had moved up to a higher quintile by 2007, while 66 percent of those among the highest earners had dropped at least one quintile during the same time frame.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor loosened union financial disclosure rules, making it easier for union officials to hide questionable practices. The DOL during the George W. Bush administration had improved reports called for under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, but is now backtracking from these standards.
Articles written by Mackinac Center experts in the last few weeks have been picked up by four nationally known and highly read blogs and news aggregators.
A Michigan Capitol Confidential story by Tom Gantert that detailed gym teachers in certain Michigan school districts making more money than science teachers was picked up by Instapundit.com, Fox Nation and the Heritage Foundation’s The Foundry.
Gov. Rick Snyder yesterday in a speech at the Michigan Rail Summit proposed a vision for making Detroit the hub for a rail system serving North America as reported by the MIRS Capitol Capsule (subscription required). He envisions a rail freight and passenger system that would connect Montreal to Detroit to Chicago to St. Louis.
(Permission to rebroadcast in whole or in part is hereby granted. A courtesy super or CG crediting the Mackinac Center would be appreciated.)
In his special address on education in April, Gov. Rick Snyder called for a new learning model for Michigan schools in which students could learn "any time, any place, any way, any pace." In a study published last year, the Mackinac Center detailed Michigan programs that have embraced this model through online learning and digital technology. More recently, we've hosted public forums on the topic, and heard from school teachers and administrators as they share how they are accomodating the range of student needs with digital learning tools.
A particularly innovative learning program in Michigan is the Widening Advancement for Youths Program, or WAY. WAY is operating in more than 100 school districts in Michigan and is reengaging students that dropped out of school, lost interest, or just didn't fit in the frequent one-size-fits-all, standardized brick-and-mortar classroom. Glen Taylor, one of WAY's founders, will be speaking at our upcoming online learning forum on November 16 in Birmingham.
WEYI-TV25 in Saginaw reported Monday night, based on a story that first appeared in Michigan Capitol Confidential, that Grand Blanc Community Schools has added nine teachers for the 2011-2012 school year. Grand Blanc is home to Rep. Paul Scott, the Republican chairman of the House Education Committee who faces a recall election on Nov. 8.
As described here last week, the latest tack of Republican Obamacare “exchange” proponents is to characterize their “MIHealth Marketplace” as a positive good rather than a least-bad option among several bad choices. They are even using labels like “conservative” and “free-market” to describe the entity whose main role will be to administer the billions of dollars of insurance subsidies the federal Patient Protection Act distributes.
Senior Environmental Policy Analyst Russ Harding in the Detroit Free Press and Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh in The Holland Sentinel this weekend both take on the failure of corporate welfare and central planning, explaining that such subsidies have failed to create jobs and negatively impact the economy.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week.
Senate Bill 619, Passed restrictions on public "cyber schools:" Passed 20 to 18 in the Senate
To eliminate a cap of two on the number of online public “cyber schools,” and also eliminate a cap of 1,000 on the total number of students that can be enrolled in all state cyber schools. Reportedly, there is now a waiting list of 4,500 students who want to get in but are not allowed. The bill would also reduce restrictions on entities contracted to run a cyber school, repeal a mandate that every cyber school operate all grades from K to 12, and more. Republican Senators Casperson, Kahn, Nofs, Caswell and Rocca joined all Democrats in voting "no."
Last week, Vice President Joe Biden tried to use the crime situation in Flint to bolster the case for something that the Obama administration insists upon calling a jobs bill. In the process, the VP mangled sex crime statistics and generally came off very much like the understandably agitated young man in the "Bed Intruder" video that went viral last year, singing, “Hide your kids, hide your wife.” Vice President Biden and the administration, however, have no such excuse for their histrionics over crime and their blithe disregard for economic realities in Flint.
According to a report in the Midland Daily News, the now defunct Evergreen Solar plant in Midland is set to go on the bankruptcy auction block. Scott Walker, a local economic development official, told the Daily News that he hopes the facility can be put to use again in a new way.
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, was a guest on WMKT AM1270 this morning, where he discussed a legislative proposal known as “right-to-work for teachers,” as well as the economic benefits of right-to-work laws.
This week, I listened to a Republican state senator try to convince a Tea Party audience that the Obamacare “exchange” legislation Gov. Rick Snyder has recommended is really a positive good and a “conservative” idea. The presentation didn't seem very coherent, and neither does a set of talking points currently being circulated by GOP exchange proponents. These are chock-full of buzzwords like “conservative” and “free market,” along with claims that the exchange will “lower costs” and “ensure choice, fiscal prudence and competition.”
The Legislature is currently debating a package of bills (Senate Bills 566 to 568) that would expand the discretion of political appointees on the board of the Michigan Strategic Fund to hand out cash subsidies up to $10 million to particular companies they select. While lawmakers are quibbling over deck-chair details, these pickers of winners-and-losers would have extremely broad latitude to give the dough to almost anyone they want.
By Jack McHugh
The Boston Herald reports that in 2009, between 46,000 and 49,000 Massachusetts residents were fined under that state's Romneycare law for not having health insurance, or for having a policy that did not include all the mandated coverages imposed by that law. The federal Obamacare care law is modeled on Romneycare, including its “individual mandate" that every person must have or purchase a health insurance policy meeting its requirements.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week.
Senate Bill 410, Newsworthy Committee action — Authorize new Detroit River bridge: Failed in the Senate Economic Development Committee, 2-3
To authorize a controversial Detroit River bridge (the “New International Trade Crossing,” a.k.a. the “Detroit River International Crossing”). According to news reports, Republicans voting “no” objected to details of Democratic Senators' demand for a bundle of patronage-like “community benefits” the proposed bridge authority would have to deliver to nearby residents, businesses and community organizations. Further attempts are likely to advance this project favored by Gov. Rick Snyder.
Michelle Minton, director of insurance studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, expands on a recent commentary she wrote about “present day Prohibition” for the Mackinac Center in this CEI blog post.
The Obama administration is handing out green energy subsidies faster than the Federal Reserve can print new money. A generous government handout in the form of a $529 million loan has been award to a company called Fisker for the purpose of producing high-end electric sports cars — in Finland.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, a group of American companies that make solar panels has called on the federal government to raise tariffs on their Chinese rivals for “dumping their products on the U.S. market.”
Executives of SolarWorld AG, a German-based company that makes solar panels in Oregon, led the group at a news conference here, flanked by both U.S. senators from Oregon.
(Editor’s note: The following is written testimony submitted to the North Dakota Legislature by Todd M. Nesbit, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics at the College of Charleston and an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center.)
We thank you for the invitation to submit this testimony regarding tax-induced cigarette smuggling. I have studied the cross-border economic phenomena and the secondary and unintended effects of various excise taxes over the course of my career and have specifically examined over the past four years the extent of cigarette smuggling resulting from cigarette taxation. Cigarette smuggling takes on two forms: commercial and casual. Commercial smuggling involves organized criminals who counterfeit and distribute state tax-paid stamps, the physical cigarettes and packaging, or both. Casual smuggling occurs when the ultimate consumer drives across state, international or other legal boundaries in an effort to avoid paying higher taxes (and therefore higher prices).
Research by Mackinac Center scholars on right-to-work laws was cited recently in Bloomberg Businessweek.
The article also cites a University of Oregon professor who has been critical of the Center’s research. His claims are refuted here and here.
Charles S. Owens, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, told the Michigan House Health Policy Committee Thursday, “I wouldn’t be in any rush to create a state exchange.”
Owens cited similar evidence for taking an unhurried approach as the arguments presented by the Mackinac Center here. His testimony outlined the following concerns:
At the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council in New Orleans last week, the organization’s Health and Human Services Task Force voted to adopt the “no Obamacare exchange” resolution posted here as model legislation for state legislatures. The key statement of the resolution says this: “(I)t is not in the best interest of the state for any state official to participate in planning or establishing health insurance exchanges as provided for in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
The movement to occupy Detroit has attracted about 50 hardy souls to Grand Circus Park, where they have pitched tents and are awaiting … something. What exactly is supposed to change in Detroit is entirely unclear. The occupiers of Wall Street have this much going for them — things have been done in the banks and stock markets that progressives object to. What exactly has Detroit done except implement the progressive vision as far as it practically could?
Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst, was a guest on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR 760AM Tuesday, discussing why Michigan legislators should not be in a hurry to pass an Obamacare state exchange. McHugh also wrote about the issue Sunday in the Detroit Free Press.
