While every state has increased the number of college credits required to become a certified public accountant, the evidence suggests this has not led to better results overall. That’s the findings of a new report from the Cato Institute.
The legal requirements to become a CPA are similar in most states. A person needs a bachelor’s degree (and often other experience), pays nearly $1,000 in fees and passes four exams. In recent years, the number of college credit hours required to become licensed has risen from 120 to 150, raising the length of a college career from four years to five.
Editors Note: This piece first appeared in The Federalist. You can view the original piece here.
It’s a story often told that bears repeating: the Great Depression and World War II were the international crises that invigorated the statist impulse in the 1930s and 1940s. By the time Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election, the United States’ future was assumed to be one of unfettered liberalism. Until, that is, William F. Buckley launched his new periodical intended to stand athwart history, yelling “Stop!” and Dr. Russell Amos Kirk offered his doctoral thesis to the general public.
In Michigan it's not just the season for falling leaves, chilly winds, and warm cider and doughnuts. It's also a time for bold campaign promises to address significant challenges, including the state's dismal academic record.
Both Gretchen Whitmer and Bill Schuette want to preside over a state government that spends $13 billion a year on K-12 education and is slated to implement a law that could hold back thousands of third-graders who read poorly or not at all. State test results have stayed stubbornly low, prompting questions about the magnitude and the effectiveness of the remedies called for in state law.
There are ongoing squabbles between Detroit and the communities around it. When a business or sports team moves downtown, it’s big news, as it is when a company moves from downtown to elsewhere. But regions don’t grow by reshuffling the work locations between cities and suburbs. (And taxpayers should be skeptical when that shuffling happens with their money.) Instead, the regions that do the best grow together.
Perceptions of how energy can or should be used and generated are changing, and that change is making itself felt in Michigan. While this shift is typically viewed as a move toward clean and efficient energy, it also entails an increasing list of limits on how and when energy will be used. These changes are making the work of the Environmental Policy Initiative at the Mackinac Center ever-more important as a strong voice for balanced energy policy and free-market choices is needed, especially when so many would rather use forced restrictions on energy use and government-mandated efficiency measures.
By Kahryn Riley
Big changes are underway in Ottawa County’s criminal justice system. The county is poised to approve a pilot program that will test a new fee structure for jail inmates, and it is also about to launch a public defender office.
Like many counties in Michigan, Ottawa County bills inmates for their jail stays. State law limits these fees to $60 per night. The county charges inmates $25 per night, so inmates serving 90 days end up with a $2,250 bill from the jail – on top of whatever restitution, fines, and administrative fees they may have incurred in court. And like many counties with an inmate housing fee, Ottawa County collects only a tiny fraction of what it charges. In 2017, it billed inmates over $3 million but collected only about $100,000. Offenders are frequently indigent, meaning that attempting to collect revenue from inmates is rarely successful, and many leave jail facing the daunting challenge of paying off thousands of dollars in debt to the county.
In response to a question of whether there’s money in the budget to both cut the state income tax rate (from 4.25 percent to 3.9 percent) and devote more money to roads, state budget director Al Pscholka’s views were summarized like this: “It’s impossible to reduce the state budget by 10 percent – $1 billion – without making cuts to services.” Except the proposed reduction in taxes is affordable.
By Jack McHugh
House Bill 6064, Authorize new corporate subsidy program: Passed 81 to 25 in the House
To authorize a new program to give up to $50 million in state taxpayer subsidies to some private business owners through a device the bill would create called a “rural development fund.”
By Ben DeGrow
The Detroit News recently offered an extensive look at the size of Michigan public school classrooms. A reader could be excused for coming away from the article with the mistaken impression that class sizes have an enormous effect on student achievement.
By Jack McHugh
Senate Bill 919, Clarify that the operator is liable for drone crimes: Passed 36 to 0 in the Senate
To define unmanned aerial drones as “an extension of the person” for purposes of assigning responsibility for criminal misuse. Bills have been introduced to essentially add "it's also illegal if done with a drone" provisions to various criminal statutes, and this bill would make that presumption automatic.
Ideally, states should not be taxing or subsidizing businesses. If they do, every company should pay the same flat rate.
A review of the academic literature from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation finds that it is almost universally agreed that taxes affect growth. After looking at 26 studies going back to 1983, the foundation concluded, “Of those studies that distinguish between types of taxes, corporate income taxes are found to be most harmful, followed by personal income taxes, consumption taxes and property taxes.”
John Gallagher at the Detroit Free Press reports that United Shore, a mortgage wholesaling business, renovated a 600,000 square foot office building in Pontiac without government subsidies. The company was approved to receive funding from property tax revenues that would otherwise have gone to the local school district and local government, but decided to rescind the assistance. "It was disingenuous to take money that we were going to spend anyway," United Shore president and CEO Mat Ishbia said. "It wasn't our place to spend it."
By Jason Hayes
Editor’s Note: Jason Hayes, the director of environmental policy for the Mackinac Center, testified on Sept. 25, 2018 to a Department of Transportation/Environmental Protection Agency hearing on proposed updates (SAFE Vehicle Rule) to federal CAFE standards. Hayes gave an abridged version of this document as his three-minute testimony at the hearing.
By Ben DeGrow
A new legislative proposal could let officials at certain school districts use greater discretion to devise creative strategies for their students rather than wait for permission from state bureaucrats.
House bills 6314 and 6315, sponsored by Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Saginaw Township, would create the legal framework for a “public innovation district.” Any school district could apply to the state superintendent to obtain this status. The designation, good for five years at a time, would give district leaders more freedom to operate year-round or outside the traditional school setting and craft different ways to measure student learning. To get this freedom now, districts typically have to wait for the Michigan Department of Education to approve a waiver request.
After having gone through a one-state recession and then a prolonged national recession, Michigan’s economy went through a lot in the 2000s. The state has recovered since, but a comparison of the private and public sectors shows that the public sector’s recovery has been stronger.
Lyndon Township is a rural community of fewer than 3,000 people in Washtenaw County. Its municipal budget is around $500,000. Residents went to the polls last year and approved borrowing $7 million to build a new high-speed internet connection.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the completion date of the project has been delayed.
Now that Michigan has repealed its prevailing wage law, the big question is how much it will save, either for taxpayers or to be spent elsewhere. The law mandated using union contracts to set the pay of workers on public construction projects — those done primarily for schools, roads, universities, city halls, prisons, and so forth.
In a front page story, the Detroit Free Press reports that “Detroit schools are grinding out another ‘lost generation.’” The article goes on to lament that up to 40 percent of students leave or graduate without mastering “simple arithmetic,” their handwriting is “atrocious” and their spelling is “deplorable.”
By Jack McHugh
Did you ever watch the old movie “The Blob”? It’s where this tiny piece of goo keeps growing, gobbling up everyone in sight. The horror reaches a climax as the blob becomes so large that nothing can stop it. A young Steve McQueen eventually figures out that it doesn’t like the cold, so the town freezes it and transports it to the Arctic.
By Ben DeGrow
Some critics ignore or overlook the fact that Michigan's public charter schools exist to offer families a better option. These critics may not realize these options endure because most of those families prefer what they have found.
A recent Detroit Free Press article depicted the choice movement as represented by a few Detroit parents who decided to leave charter schools to re-enroll their child in the state's largest school district. Not surprisingly, such portrayals cry out for context.
Legislative Initiative Petition 3, Mandate employers provide paid leave: Passed 24 to 13 in the Senate
To mandate that all employers in the state (except federal agencies) grant employees one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a total of 40 hours annually for small businesses, and 72 hours annually for larger employers. The leave could be used for individual or family medical issues, domestic violence issues, school meetings and more. Employers would be required to keep relevant records for five years, and under procedures specified in the measure, a violation claim by an employee could potentially subject an employer to a legal presumption of having broken the law.
It’s frustrating and a hardship when your job moves, which is a prospect facing some state employees in one rural Michigan community. But this is no reason why the state government should spend tens of millions of dollars each year on unnecessary prisons.
The Michigan Senate may soon debate Senate Bills 703 through 707, which were introduced late last year. These bills would amend current law to increase government oversight of tourism agencies, having the practical effect of ensuring that government speech trumps individual free speech for lodging owners.
In analyzing the current political environment, a columnist says that socialism “once brought great benefits to Detroit.” In many ways, over the past few decades, Detroit has been the most “socialist” city in Michigan – but it’s hard to see the benefits.
