The Department of Government Efficiency is poring over the federal books to find government waste. The office taps into a populist impulse that says that the government is not on your side but on the side of some special interest. Waste is only one of the ways governments get captured for someone else’s benefit, however. There is a target-rich environment for policies that stick it to the little guy. Governments at all levels have them.
Michigan is raising its minimum wage gradually until it reaches $15 by 2027. What many people don’t know is how few workers earn the minimum wage. Nationally, roughly 55% of workers are paid hourly, and of those just 1.1% are paid at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Michigan’s minimum wage is $13.73 per hour. Increasing the minimum wage will disproportionately affect different groups, according to recent economic research.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit News February 11, 2025.
Last year, as the final moments of the Democratic trifecta in Michigan ticked away, one lawmaker became increasingly critical of her party’s leadership. Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, was completing her first term in the state House. She had just won reelection in a high-profile race.
Michigan lawmakers raised money from business taxes over the past two years only to hand it over to a few businesses. That’s not how state government is supposed to work.
Taxes are supposed to fund the government. One of those taxes, the corporate income tax, raises $1.6 billion annually. Over the past two years, however, lawmakers authorized $4.7 billion in business subsidies. They took $3.2 billion from thousands of Michigan businesses, then they gave that same amount plus another billion and a half dollars to a handful of businesses.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit News February 19 2025.
It’s fun to look ahead to the next big thing. On Feb. 9, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. The next day, sportsbooks had odds on who would win next year’s showdown. Likewise, with elections: Once the votes are counted it’s not long before people speculate about the next political cycle.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit News January 28, 2025.
A few years ago, I flew into the Detroit airport and took a shuttle bus to the long-term parking lot. The shuttle bus hit some rough road, bouncing luggage up in the air.
Our bus driver couldn’t resist. “She said she’d fix the damn roads,” she yelled. “But she ain’t fixed the damn roads!”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has talked the talk about occupational licensing, saying she wants to make Michigan’s regulatory structure better. It’s less clear whether the departments she oversees, and the Legislature, will walk the walk.
Michigan licenses hundreds of occupations, covering 20-25% of the state workforce. Many licensing requirements are arbitrary or overly restrictive. Others make no sense — as in, not at all.
Pharmacy benefit managers, commonly known as PBMs, are the unseen middlemen of the health care system. They were originally created to negotiate discounts and streamline drug benefits for insurers, employers and government insurance programs. PBMs have evolved into powerful entities with significant influence over how much we pay for medications.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit News February 25, 2025.
The Michigan Legislature just reformed the twin catastrophes of paid sick leave and minimum wage, blunting the effects of these job-destroying policies. Policymakers deserve credit for this welcome fix. Three observations:
The federal government created the 340B Drug Discount Program in 1992 to help safety-net hospitals and clinics serve low-income and uninsured patients. By requiring pharmaceutical companies to sell medications at steep discounts, the program aimed to expand access to care and lower drug costs for people who need it most.
The Michigan Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill that “prohibits drug manufacturers from restricting hospitals’ access to discounted drugs under the federal 340B Drug Pricing Program.” Currently, hospitals can force drug manufacturers to sell them products at a deep discount and then resell those drugs for a large gain.
Michigan lawmakers want to connect everyone to high-speed, broadband internet. And they have billions of dollars to do it. But their plan to do so isn’t a good one. In fact, it is almost guaranteed to spend too much money to connect very few people, and to take a long time doing so.
This article originally appeared at Reason on February 20, 2025.
Aside from their millions of customers, it seems everyone loves to hate dollar stores. Critics claim they are akin to a "disease" that reveals the worst of capitalism. Others say dollar stores hurt communities, are a blight to nature, peddle cheap products, and mislead customers into believing their prices are lower than other stores.
Hawaii is home to some of the rarest creatures and environments in the country. It also boasts some of the steepest housing costs. Dr. Keli‘i Akina, president and CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, discusses the institute’s work to improve the cost of living in Hawaii on The Overton Window podcast. Through collaboration and data-driven policymaking, he emphasizes the importance of working across political lines to create meaningful change.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit News February 4 2025.
Imagine this: You pick up your child from school and smell alcohol on her teacher’s breath.
You ask another parent for advice and learn that it’s not the first time, or the second time or the third.
The United States House of Representatives condemned the Department of Energy's restrictive and unnecessary ban on tankless natural gas water heaters in a Feb. 27 resolution. By passing H.J. Res. 20 with a vote of 221-198-2, the House used the Congressional Review Act to express its disapproval of the ban, which was rushed into place in the final days of the Biden Administration.
Michigan is finally accepting applications for its convoluted plan to spending the state's $1.5 billion share of federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funds. The Michigan High-Speed Internet Office opened the application process for projects to build internet infrastructure January 9. The application period will end April 9. After years of delays, the office now appears determined to rush the spending that Congress authorized in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The wind blows and the sun shines without costing anyone a dime. Compared to fossil fuels or nuclear energy, which require mining and drilling, powering society with these free renewable sources of energy must be the most efficient choice, right?
So the thinking goes. But unfortunately, the thinking often stops there, before policymakers consider the problems involved in harnessing the power of the wind and sun.
Michigan lawmakers face a critical decision: continue a pattern of overspending or embrace fiscal restraint to secure a stronger, more prosperous future. With a history of unsustainable spending and missed opportunities, legislators should choose a responsible approach to budgeting that protects taxpayers and ensures economic stability.
This article originally appeared at Reason November 8, 2024.
Industrial policy is having a moment. This is the idea that the government—state or federal—can provide a boost to "strategically important" industries. This is sometimes for national security reasons, but more often, it is done in the name of a country's economic future and competitiveness.
Interest groups have a strategy that gets them what they want whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge of the government. They get legislators to ignore their own self-interest in the policies they’re pitching and instead pretend that these favors are about expanding assistance programs or cutting taxes.
All Michigan employers — private, nonprofit and public — had to prepare for changes to minimum wages and paid sick leave rules that would have gone into effect on Feb. 21. Then legislators changed those rules at the last minute to mitigate their expected harms.
The federal government gives states money to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. And it also gives states money to do things they would do without federal support. This is bizarre when you think about it. It’s all money that comes from taxpayers.
Federal government transfers to state government are large and growing. Around 40% of Michigan’s budget comes from Washington, up from around 30% two decades ago. Michigan and other states depend more and more on federal money to support their budget. This gives Congress more power over policies in the states.
Businesses across the country are grappling with labor shortages, and unnecessary licensing requirements only make matters worse. Lee McGrath, former director of legislation, and Meagan Forbes, the current director of legislation at the Institute for Justice, discussed the Institute’s efforts to push the Overton Window toward reforming occupational licensing on The Overton Window Podcast.
