An Op-Ed by Communications Director Michael D. Jahr and Assistant Editor Hannah K. Mead was published in today's Midland Daily News.
The piece details how the state of Michigan, in the midst of a multi-billion overspending crisis and without a balanced budget for fiscal year 2010, can still find time to create Web sites giving people advice on everything from what to eat to what to wear.
(The following is a reply to an email that was sent from a reader of this morning's Current Comment. The entire text of the e-mail from the reader is reprinted underneath the reply. -- KB)
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Mr. G:
Please note that I did not advocate balancing the entire state budget on teacher salary cuts alone. Indeed, I was pointing out that the $218 per-pupil reduction being advocated for the School Aid Fund budget – a cut of just 3 percent – was reasonable. And to demonstrate this, I grabbed just one large metric related to that program – average teacher salaries – where our costs appear to be way out of line with what other states pay for this SAME service. This is why you lose me when you discuss what you believe you could earn in the private sector, because my comparison was merely to what PUBLIC school teachers are paid in a reasonably prosperous state that is paying just an AVERAGE salary for the same service – namely Washington public school teachers.
The Obama administration’s announcement this week that EPA is going to regulate CO2 emissions from industrial facilities and power plants for the first time by requiring those plants to obtain a permit under the Clean Air Act is bad news for Michigan. The EPA’s action amounts to a new tax on Michigan business and families, which will lead to the loss of more jobs in the state which already is suffering from a 15.2 percent unemployment rate — highest in the nation.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
The Republican Party hasn’t done a really good job of breaking through with useful health reform ideas, but they do a great job of pointing out the hypocrisy of President Obama’s assertion that compulsory insurance is not a tax. It’s in this short video.
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that state and local government tax burden increased from 2006 to 2007. Michigan workers pay on average $8,691 in property, sales, income and other taxes. This is a one-year increase of 5.9 percent.
Michigan state and local governments rank above average in tax burdens[i] by many measures.
ABC News is reporting today that a couple of labor unions are a little miffed that Michael Moore used non-union labor during work on his newest release, "Capitalism: A Love Story", which opens in theaters nationwide tomorrow.
I am reminded of the scene from Moore's 1989 film "Roger and Me" when Moore talks to factory workers through the windows of an auto plant in Flint, Mich. They were about to lose their jobs because, as Moore hammers again and again throughout the movie, that greedy General Motors was closing the plant's doors and taking its business elsewhere.
The Michigan Legislature avoided a state government shutdown last night by caving in to union demands that more of the "stimulus" money being reserved for next year - when the state really goes over a fiscal cliff - be used to avoid a 3 percent cut to school aid. The Mackinac Center's Jack McHugh explains in a Current Comment today that this dynamic impacts all of Michigan's troubles:
The Mackinac Center was cited today by World Magazine in a story about the Michigan Legislature's failure to balance the fiscal 2010 budget and its self-created $2.8 billion overspending crisis.
The magazine correctly points out that when the Legislature addressed its $1.4 billion overspending crisis in 2007 by passing a tax increase to balance the fiscal 2008 budget, Center analysts called the move "job-killing." Indeed, Michigan's unemployment has more than doubled since the tax hike was passed Oct. 1, 2007.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
Here’s a fun video that has been making the rounds, arguing that celebrities need a bigger voice in health care reform.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
The Manhattan Institute has published a study by Steve Parente and Tarren Bragdon that examines the potential for “market based” reforms for New York. An op-ed by Paul Howard summarizes the results. Mr. Howard writes that repealing New York’s current community rating and guaranteed issue laws “would lower premiums and help as many as 37 percent of the uninsured there to buy private, unsubsidized coverage. It would also help reserve scarce tax dollars for the poorest and sickest New Yorkers.”
Cross-posted from State House Call.
As time passes, the real foundations and intents of ObamaCare become glaringly apparent.
The latest ObamaCare revelation came from the supposed “bipartisan” health care bill of Democratic Senator Max Baucus. Those who choose not to buy a government-approved health care plan can be imprisoned up to one year and fined up to $25,000. It seems the heavy hand of government would be exercising some serious coercion and extortion on We the People.
As the last day of Fiscal Year 2009 draws to a close, legislators are struggling to enact a new Michigan state budget for FY 2010. This afternoon Gov. Jennifer Granholm sent out notices of impending layoffs should a deal not be reached.
After using one-time federal “stimulus” money, the state still needs around $1.3 billion in program reductions and/or new revenues (higher taxes, more fees) to close the budget gap.
The House of Representatives just attempted to approve the K-12 School Aid Fund budget with a $218 per-pupil cut. One of the most contentious of the budgets in the Dillon/Bishop "cuts only" plan, which was discussed on this page earlier today and last week. As noted in the post this morning, the Michigan Education Association was attempting to influence the votes of several GOP members.
Don't get me wrong - there are real cuts in these budgets working their way through the House and Senate this week, among them 11 percent off local government revenue sharing, and stiffing the bill from Medicaid doctors and hospitals another 4 percent, on top of 4 percent earlier this year. (And who do you think ends up paying higher doctor and insurance bills instead, hmmm?)
Lisa Snyder has watched (without compensation) a five-year old kindergartener for her widowed neighbor and a seven-year old boy for another neighbor for a short period of time as they wait for the school bus. The Michigan Department of Human Services (DHS) made national news by demanding that she become a licensed day care provider. But what has largely been overlooked is that if Ms. Snyder were to go through the licensing process, she would thereby become a member of a purported government employees’ union.
As I noted yesterday, there's speculation swirling about the capitol regarding whether the Republicans "have the guts" to vote for budget cuts. And as I referenced last week, one of those cuts is a $218 reduction to the K-12 budget. So it comes as little surprise that the MIRS Capitol Capsule now reports a "source" who claims that the Michigan Education Association is cranking up the heat on some of them to "back away" from the $218 reduction.
Choosing between budget cuts and tax hikes should not be the way the Michigan Legislature solves it's self-created $2.8 billion overspending crisis, Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh told the Livingston Daily today.
The Michigan Legislature has until midnight tonight to pass a balanced budget for fiscal 2010, but should consider things like government employee salary and benefits reform and other transformational change rather than just focusing on taxes and program cuts.
It's apparently not a love story between filmmaker Michael Moore and Michigan's generous refundable tax subsidy for the movie industry. In his quote about the program in a Sept. 29, 2009, blog post on the Michigan Messenger Web site, Moore is clearly not even enamored with it:
For public schools and their employees, "pupil count day" is one of the most important days on the school calendar. Judging by the actions of some large school districts throughout the state, count day trumps the first day of school, MEAP testing days and graduation day. Many schools go all out trying to corral as many students as possible to show up on this day-of-days.
This morning, a loyal reader of Michigan Capitol Confidential posed an important question about a Constitutional Convention that will doubtlessly come up a lot in the months to come. My reply is printed below -- KB.
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I read your bi-monthly newsletter, Michigan Capitol Confidential, all of the time. I love it because it gives me information about Michigan laws and lawmakers I normally would never get elsewhere. Anyway, I've been thinking about how we can impact state government. It turns out that we can demand a constitutional convention in 2010.
Poverty rate data released today shows that Michigan fell further in its economic status. The percentage of Michigan residents living in poverty increased from 14 percent to 14.4 percent in 2008, according to the Census Bureau release.
In 2005, Michigan had the 22nd highest poverty rate. Today's release has the state at the 16th highest.
By Jack McHugh
Updated on Oct. 1
Facing a Sept. 30 deadline to adopt a budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, the Legislature has been busy with more than just closing the desired-spending vs. expected-revenue gap (a.k.a. “the deficit”). In the 30 days preceding the deadline they introduced 304 bills.
The Michigan Education Association union is leading the education establishment's attacks on lawmakers' plan to pass a no-new-taxes budget that among other things reduces state spending on public schools. In a podcast posted yesterday, MEA President Iris K. Salters repeated a claim she made in an Aug. 26 Detroit News Op-Ed that school employees "probably have saved over $700 million" in health care costs. Salters does not disclose the source of this figure.
The saga of a Middleville woman investigated by the state Department of Human Services for the crime of keeping an eye on some neighbors’ kids as they waited for the school bus has gone national after having been all over the blogosphere for days.
Maybe the attention will shed some light on the false promise of “licensure” as a way of protecting the public. In fact, in almost every case licensing laws are promoted by the professionals who will be subject to them for the purpose of limiting competition. The Mackinac Center published an article on this a while back that explains.
Q. If it comes down to an all-cut budget, can House Republicans be counted on to supply the needed votes?
"If House Republicans can't be counted on to support an all-cut budget, what is the reason for the existence of House Republicans?" DiSano said. "That caucus is filled with hard-line conservatives who talk tough in GOP primaries. Now is their chance to shine and cut, cut and cut some more. The question is do they have the guts to go home and explain these cuts?"
