Dear Members of the Union Township Planning Commission:
Union Township’s population is shrinking, as I pointed out in my previous article, “Paying People Not to Leave.” The township’s community and economic director, Rodney Nanney, acknowledged a decline when he spoke at the Aug. 19 Planning Commission meeting but tried to minimize its extent. The U.S. Census Bureau, he said, miscounted and misreported the 2020 census and subsequent estimates. But this false statement should not distract local officials from the township’s unfavorable situation.
Many readers may be aware that Attorney General Dana Nessel said in June that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation was stonewalling her department’s investigation into a $20 million state grant. The corporation has a long history of such tactics: Stonewalling. Foot-dragging. Delay tactics. Non-response responses. The Mackinac Center has endured the MEDC’s lack of transparency and accountability for decades.
There’s a lot for local school administrators to like in the budget the Michigan House passed in August. But they don’t seem to want to see it.
The House budget increases education spending in Michigan more than does the budget passed by the state Senate or the budget proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. At the same time, it eliminates a host of categorical grants (or “special programs”) that fund outside priorities such as special education, infrastructure spending, smaller class sizes, mental health and other areas. By transferring some of this money to the general education grant, the House budget lets school district officials figure out how they want to spend this money.
Kansas property owners get tax break under ‘revenue neutral’ law
A growing number of Kansas municipalities are opting to avoid raising property tax rates, and the Kansas Policy Institute credits a 2021 law that prevents municipalities from increasing rates without a thorough public process.
In 2022, former President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of a Disinformation Governance Board. The Board was formed to counter misinformation that might threaten national security.
It didn’t take long for people to compare the new board to the propagandistic Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s dystopian classic, “1984.” Biden scrapped the idea a few months later.
By Molly Macek
More than 60% of Michigan third graders, and nearly 58% of fourth graders, failed the 2025 state reading test – a greater proportion than last year. And all tested grades performed worse than they did just before the pandemic-era lockdowns.
State education leaders say funding and class size are to blame. But poor policy implementation and lack of school accountability are the more likely culprits.
Michigan’s current budget expires on Sept. 30, and lawmakers are working to come to an agreement to avoid a shutdown. Each year, the governor, state House and state Senate all propose their budgets for Michigan. K-12 education is the largest area of spending, so lawmakers usually negotiate funding for K-12 schools and then for everything else.
Dave Hebert, senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, has seen a major shift in public opinion of the economics profession.
“Twelve years ago,” Hebert tells Michael Van Beek in this week’s Overton Window podcast, “the economist would walk into the room, and a chill would descend. It was not that we were truth-sayers or anything like that, but suddenly there was a sense that a serious contender for argumentation, for evidence, for logic has entered the scene. And we got some deference at some level. If you saw economists disagreeing about the outcomes, there was never really an impeachment of the person’s ideology or integrity.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News August 19, 2025.
Michigan taxpayers deserve to know how the state’s multibillion-dollar economic development enterprise is performing. Recent revelations about the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) paint an alarming picture. Attorney General Dana Nessel just suggested that the state pause the corporation’s funding. We should go further. The attorney general is investigating a $20 million grant the MEDC gave to a politically connected businesswoman, Fay Beydoun.
Michigan’s pork barrel spending is out of control. Lawmakers have directed billions of dollars in recent years to politically connected groups, promoting political development, not economic development.
The latest deal is a lousy housing investment that is unlikely to lead to any economic growth. As uncovered by The Detroit News, a $15 million legislative earmark is being directed to Invest UP, an Upper Peninsula economic development organization. The group has never had an annual budget of more than $1.5 million — one tenth of the earmark.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News August 12, 2025.
College freshmen will stream on to campus later this month, trailed by proud but teary-eyed parents. Ask a first-year student what they are looking forward to most, as I did this week, and they might say meeting other students or listening to a well-known professor’s lectures or joining a club.
What if lawmakers fixed a problem and no one noticed? We don’t have to speculate. The political debate is filled with problems that were solved decades ago but that people don’t seem to have noticed. It leads to pandering and a lot of bad policy.
Consider this progressive call “to ensure corporate polluters are held accountable for the damage they do.” The United States fixed this in the 1970s when federal laws made companies liable for environmental harms. Fear of lawsuits has drastically changed industrial practice, and environmental measures have drastically improved over the past fifty years.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which administers the state’s business subsidy programs, gets plenty of skepticism from policymakers these days. A House Oversight subcommittee on corporate subsidies and state investments has been hearing objections to the deals the state organization makes. Attorney General Dana Nessel is investigating the office over its involvement in a grant to a Democratic political supporter’s organization and has asked legislators to stop funding the group.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News August 4, 2025.
Three weeks ago, I offered seven questions people can ask to analyze policy ideas. Several readers told me the framework was helpful. Here are four more ideas for your policy analysis toolkit.
Michigan’s population has been stuck in the same spot for a generation, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants to change that. Her population committee delivered a report and her growth office is handing out grants to do something to attract and keep more people in the state. It’s been two years since Whitmer created her task force, and it’s time for state officials to reassess their strategy. They should start by looking at the places around the country that are growing and notice that they are not the ones you might expect.
How high do taxes have to climb before people simply stop paying them — legally, at least?
Economist Todd Nesbit of Ball State University and Mike LaFaive, senior director at the Mackinac Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative challenge this question on the Overton Window Podcast. Their conversation centers on their recent study examining the scale and impact of cigarette smuggling driven by varying state excise taxes.
By Jason Hayes
The Mackinac Center appreciates the opportunity to provide comments supporting the approval of the Line 5 Tunnel Project Proposal (Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy application number HQ3-8BYB-N9DT1). The project ensures energy security, economic stability, and environmental protection for Michigan and the Midwest.
President Trump issued his administration’s “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan in July. The White House announcement on artificial intelligence shows promise, but the effectiveness of the Trump plan will be moderated by the actions states, including Michigan, take in response to the rise of artificial intelligence.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News July 29, 2025.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer just appointed Shaquila Myers to the Michigan Public Service Commission, the agency that oversees electric and gas rates. Myers has an opportunity in her new role to examine what neighboring states are doing well. In particular, she and her fellow commissioners should review Ohio’s recent energy reforms.
By Jason Hayes
My name is Jason Hayes. I am the Director of Energy and Environmental Policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The Mackinac Center, based in Midland, Michigan, is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government. The Mackinac Center is a leading voice for free-market principles, limited government, and policies that prioritize individual liberty and economic opportunity. We strongly support energy policies that ensure an abundant, secure, and affordable supply of reliable energy to power prosperity for Michigan's families, businesses, and communities.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer offered a company billions of dollars, and her administrators signed a contract saying that they won’t tell anyone about it. After the company canceled its project, officials disclosed the name of company and what was offered. This is not how the state ought to conduct its business.
A majority of U.S. voters favor supplying the country’s energy needs with a mix that includes proven power generation such as oil, coal, and gas as well as politically popular sources like wind and solar. An “all-of-the-above strategy” appeals to 55% of voters, according to polling data from YouGov. Self-styled moderates including Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley are standard-bearers of the all-of-the-above movement.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration is pushing to make Michigan reliant on so-called green energy. In 2023, state lawmakers passed legislation requiring the state to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But Michigan leaders are not telling you the actual cost – and risks – of such an endeavor.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pressing soft drink manufacturers to shift away from high fructose corn syrup in producing their products. Though the movement away for corn syrup is a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, the Department of Health and Human Services has so far limited itself to making recommendations to food producers.
Richard Vedder has spent more than half a century in the classroom. A distinguished professor emeritus of economics at The Ohio State University and a former advisor to Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Vedder has seen firsthand how the American higher education system has changed — and what it has failed to change. On The Overton Window Podcast, he explains the ways he thinks the system needs fundamental reform.
