Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman is cited in the current issue of Dome Magazine in a profile of Doug Rothwell, president and CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan.
Rothwell in the 1990s was president of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Gov. Rick Snyder, then an Ann Arbor businessman, was the MEDC’s volunteer chairman. The article notes it is “ironic” that Rothwell is now working closely with Gov. Snyder on economic development policies that are far different than what they championed more than a decade ago.
The state’s flagship corporate welfare scheme — the Michigan Economic Growth Authority — will end Jan. 1, according to The Flint Journal.
“It created job announcements but no jobs,” Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told The Journal. “That’s the only way to facilitate ribbon-cutting ceremonies.
Note: There will be no weekly roll call report during Christmas week.
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.
Where I live outside of Lansing, there are new bike paths sporting shiny asphalt, but the roads are crumbling. Motorists might be surprised to learn that of the 18.4 cents per gallon of federal gas tax they pay at the pump, only about 11 cents goes to maintain highways and bridges.
A long-time Mackinac Center idea made major strides last night when the Michigan House voted to (gradually) eliminate the arbitrary cap on university-authorized charter public schools. The Mackinac Center has been supporting the rights of parents to choose charter schools since 1988.
Today marks the 220th “birthday” of the Bill of Rights. You might enjoy taking a few moments to read this commentary from 2007 written by Mackinac Center President Emeritus Lawrence W. Reed.
Unexpectedly, sanity has finally prevailed and the plug pulled on a wild-eyed scheme to spend hundreds of millions on a Detroit “light rail” project along Woodward Avenue. The Detroit Free Press reports that instead, the city will explore “a system of rapid-transit buses operating in dedicated lanes on routes from downtown to and through the suburbs along Gratiot, Woodward and Michigan avenues and along M-59.”
Maybe something good has come out of Detroit’s impending bankruptcy. The Detroit Free Press reports that the feds have pulled the plug on the city’s proposed light-rail project, which would run along Woodward Avenue between downtown and 8 Mile Road.
Taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief that their hard-earned tax dollars will not be wasted on a decision that was bound to be another financial drain on the city. Such projects all around the country have a history of being money losers in all but the densest urban corridors along the East Coast.
A recent commentary by Jarrett Skorup titled “The Rich Are Getting Richer; So Are the Poor” appears today in the online version of Crisis Magazine.
Hundreds of graduate students at the University of Michigan who object to being forced into a union won’t be able to argue their case before an administrative law judge after the Michigan Employment Relations Commission ruled against them, according to the Detroit Free Press and Michigan Radio. AnnArbor.com also covered the results, as did MIRS and Gongwer. Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, discussed the case on WJR AM760's "The Frank Beckmann Show."
The Detroit News this morning published a story about the possibility of reforming the Michigan Liquor Control Code and its related rules. The author correctly notes that some groups and residents in Michigan are “on edge” over what the reforms may bring.
It has been suggested that school districts should not collect dues or agency fees for teacher unions. The reasoning behind this is similar to that behind the PAC bills that passed the House last week; teachers unions themselves are at bottom political institutions, and government agencies should not spend taxpayer dollars to assist political organizations in collecting their money.
According to a USA TODAY analysis, electricity rates across the country have skyrocketed during the last five years. The average household paid $1,419 for electricity in 2010 — the fifth yearly increase in a row. Electricity costs now consume a greater portion of Americans’ after- tax income, the most since 1996.
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman in a Detroit Free Press Op-Ed today addresses the issue of recall elections for legislators.
Lehman points out that a measure recently introduced in the state House aims to change the Michigan Constitution and would severely limit voters' ability to recall lawmakers.
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.
House Bill 4701, Transition state employees to defined contribution retirement health benefit: Passed 23 to 13 in the Senate
To eliminate the current “defined benefit” post-retirement health insurance system for new state employees, and instead offer a “defined contribution” Health Reimbursement Account (HRA), with the state matching an employee’s deposits up to 2 percent of salary, plus an annual lump sum contribution. Employees hired since 1997 could choose to switch to this system and get a lump-sum contribution of the value of benefits they had already earned. Also, to require state employees hired before 1997 to contribute 4 percent toward their traditional “defined benefit” pensions (replacing a 3 percent contribution required under a 2010 law), or else have their benefit levels “frozen” at the current level, with the state instead making contributions going forward into an employee’s 401(k) account. The Senate stripped out a House-passed provision excluding overtime pay from the basis on which the older employees' conventional pension benefits are calculated (potentially enabling some degree of "pension spiking").
The Michigan Legislature is poised to consider a two-bill package that would prohibit unions from using local government payroll systems to collect PAC funds. This is a step that is long overdue. House Bills 5085 and 5086 passed in the state House Thursday.
I have recently had the opportunity to attend various briefings given by key Michigan legislators and the governor. Although the topics being discussed where different, the mindset of the legislators was alarmingly similar.
The predominant mindset of the political class, regardless of party affiliation, is that they are smart enough to plan the future for Michigan residents on critical issues ranging from energy to health care. This attitude seems to get progressively worse the longer elected officials are in office. Perhaps this is a major reason most voters continue to support term limits despite the continual ranting from politicians that such limits destroy their ability to make government work.
As the Legislature debates lifting the arbitrary cap on the number of charter public schools that state universities can authorize, those who oppose expanding parental choice are arguing that charters do not perform well on average. Their arguments often focus on a small slice of cherry-picked research that runs counter to the much larger body of evidence showing good results from charters.
Michigan’s ability to provide Medicaid coverage is $28 million short over the last five years as that much money has been funneled to the SEIU in the form of “dues” taken from home health care aides who were forced into the union, according to The Washington Times.
One criticism lobbed against charter public schools is that they don’t serve enough special education students. While it’s true that historically charters have had relatively fewer students with disabilities compared to conventional public schools, this has begun to change and special education enrollments in charters are up dramatically.
Last week, former SEIU President Andy Stern revealed his preference for dictatorial governance in an article he wrote for The Wall Street Journal. Stern was once considered an innovative leader in the union firmament, which likes to portray itself as the model of democracy in action. For such an influential union advocate to embrace the Chinese methods of economic central planning and government is extremely revealing, and troubling to those who wish to maintain a free society in the United States.
America’s health care system is a dysfunctional mess for a fundamental reason: There is no real market in health care. It was wrecked by a combination of incentive-skewing federal tax policies, innovation-killing “fee for service” payment systems in the two federal programs that pay for practically half of all health care consumed (Medicare and Medicaid), restrictive state policies that create limited cartels of health care professionals and facilities (reducing supply and so increasing price), and more.
"As you know, every decision that impacts public school employees is made by an elected or appointed official. Because of this, it is very important that the members in your local association get involved and stay involved in the political process."
From the Michigan Education Association union pamphlet, “PAC Attack: Everything you need to know to create a PAC-tive local association!” This is part of a union “Building Full Capacity Locals” campaign.
Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive is cited in a CBS News story about the city of Detroit’s financial struggles. The report also cites a Detroit-specific issue of Michigan Privatization Report that contained several recommendations that could have helped the city.
A Detroit News editorial agrees with the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation that graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan should not be forced into a union and that the Michigan Employment Relations Commission should stick to its 1981 decision that the graduate students are not employees and therefore ineligible to be unionized.
