The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press on Thursday both reported on $50,000 bonuses and double-digit raises the top two administrators at the Detroit Institute of Arts received in 2012. That was the same year voters in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties approved a 10-year millage for the DIA worth $23 million. The DIA has also resisted suggestions that it sell just a single painting that would have provided enough cash to ensure the museum did not need $350 million of taxpayer money as part of Detroit’s so-called “grand bargain” bailout.
Economist Casey Mulligan has authored a new working paper for the Mercatus Center examining the impact of Obamacare’s “employer mandate” on various groups of workers. The mandate imposes financial penalties on larger employers who do not provide government-approved health insurance to employees who work more than 29 hours a week.
It is difficult to decide which is the more infuriating – those who persist in advancing a lie or those who stubbornly ignore the possible means of combating it.
The State of Michigan is spending more state tax dollars on K-12 education than the $6,884 per pupil it was spending the final budget year of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s administration. At the beginning of this year it was spending $7,545 per pupil. Beginning Oct. 1, that amount was increased again by $50 to $175 per pupil, with the lowest funded school districts receiving the largest boosts.
The latest edition of Michigan Education Digest is now available. Topics include teacher pay, charter public school performance and school funding.
A new survey of communities from the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan shows an uptick in the percent that say they are better able to meet their fiscal needs. This is good as it generally tracks with an improving state economy, but there are some warning signs ahead.
Maybe it’s something in the water. In recent weeks Lansing politicians have proposed laws mandating an official poem for Michigan and forcing taxpayers to buy a state flag for the survivors of current or former legislators when they die. Now comes yet another piece of institutional grandiosity: a bill to create an official state poet laureate.
A 2006 deal to privatize Indiana’s toll road for $3.8 billion that is in jeopardy now that the company has declared bankruptcy was designed to protect the state’s taxpayers, Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive told Fox News.
“The deal was designed to protect the state of Indiana,” LaFaive said. “If they go belly up, the state could get it back if it’s not sold to another group. The worst case scenario would be that creditors would get control.”
The Employee Rights Act, designed to protect workers from unions, could gain traction if Republicans win the U.S. Senate next month, according to Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio.
“(President) Obama will probably veto it,” he told The Washington Examiner. “However, the more the public hears about the common-sense reforms in the ERA, such as criminalizing union threats and violence, the more pressure will be brought on Democrats if the legislation is brought back under a Republic president.”
By Jack McHugh
House Bill 5785, Expand permissible criminal court cost levies: Passed 37 to 0 in the Senate
To expand the costs that can be imposed on an individual convicted in a criminal case. The bill would authorize imposing assessments covering a share of court employee salaries and benefits, of “goods and services” used in operating the court, and of court building “operation and maintenance" costs. In addition, it would establish that a court has no duty to provide a “calculation of the costs involved in a particular case.” The bill reverses a state Supreme Court case that limited charges to those specifically allowed in a particular statute; its provisions would expire in 36 months, presumably to allow the legislature to rationalize these impositions for all courts across the state.
The latest issue of Michigan Education Digest is now available online. Topics include overspending crises, student count day and the emergency manager law.
Members of the political class here and elsewhere have a reputation for always taking care of their own. Chasers of public office may wax eloquent about their selfless “public service,” but the truth is that no one checks their self-interest at the doors of the Capitol.
The Mackinac Center welcomes two new academics with strong Michigan ties to its Board of Scholars. Members of this board write for the Center, review its publications, and provide other consultation and guidance. The two new scholars are Michael J. Clark of Hillsdale College and Ross B. Emmett of Michigan State University's James Madison College.
Last spring, the Michigan House passed a bill to gut a 2011 reform establishing a rigorous, empirical teacher rating system based on how students in an educator’s classroom actually perform on state tests. Related 2011 reforms raised the stakes by basing teacher “tenure” and other school employment decisions on these ratings.
Mackinac Center scholars have long lamented the long-reach of government in matters great and small. Now comes another intrusion in the latter category, and this one rhymes: Legislation proposing an “Official State Poem” of Michigan.
From a description of the bill on MichiganVotes.org:
By Jack McHugh
Senate Bill 730, Mandate restaurant manager food allergy training: Passed 31 to 7 in the Senate
To mandate that restaurants must post a window sticker or notice on the menu that customers have an obligation to inform the server about any food allergies. The bill would also mandate that restaurants employ at least one manager who has received training or viewed an approved video on food allergies (in addition to current requirements for one manager to have a food safety certification).
Nathan Lehman, who worked as a labor policy intern at the Center this summer, and F. Vincent Vernuccio, labor policy director, write in a Detroit News op-ed today that a recent UAW dues hike was unnecessary and members could exercise their freedoms under right-to-work because of the union’s political agenda.
The latest version of Michigan Education Digest is now available. Items include anti-school choice legislation, teacher pensions and school district consolidation.
WILX-TV10 in Lansing is reporting on proposed legislation that would prevent unions from bullying members who choose to opt out. Michigan Capitol Confidential reported that the Operating Engineers Local 324 printed in its newsletter the names of 19 former members who left under Michigan’s right-to-work law, calling them “freeloaders.” Now, more than 500 members have opted out of the union.
With a good deal of validity it has been said that history is written by the victors. Keeping that in mind, it follows that if Gov. Rick Snyder loses the 2014 Michigan gubernatorial election, the defeat almost surely will be attributed to his support and enactment of right-to-work.
The ongoing PBS documentary "The Roosevelts" ignores several key facts about the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his so-called New Deal. For another view, please see "Great Myths of the Great Deperssion."
By Jack McHugh
House Bill 5785, Expand permissible criminal court cost levies: Passed 95 to 14 in the House
To expand the costs that can be imposed on an individual convicted in a criminal case. The bill would authorize imposing assessments covering a share of court employee salaries and benefits, of "goods and services” used in operating the court, and of court building “operation and maintenance" costs. In addition, it would establish that a court has no duty to provide a “calculation of the costs involved in a particular case.” The bill reverses a state Supreme Court case that limited charges to those specifically allowed in a particular statute; its provisions would expire in 27 months, presumably to allow the legislature to rationalize these impositions for all courts across the state.
For the second year in a row, the Michigan Senate has approved a resolution supporting Sept. 19 as “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.”
Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive wrote about this very issue last year, noting that such meaningless resolutions are the best evidence yet that Michigan should have a part-time Legislature.
In light of the historic “no” vote for Scottish independence Thursday, we revisit this essay by President Emeritus Lawrence W. Reed about a time when Scotland did win its independence from Britain.
[A review of “The End Is Near, and It’s Going To Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure” by Kevin Williamson; Broadside Books, 2013, $27.99 hardcover/$15.99 eBook; 198 pp.]
Back in the days of classic British humor, a comic impersonating an unctuous variety host proclaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen, Petula Clark sings!” To which another comic responds sotto voce, “Yes, we know that.” I was reminded of this bit while reading Kevin Williamson’s “The End Is Near, and It’s Going To Be Awesome.” Those familiar with Williamson’s prodigious output neither will be surprised by the title’s first clause nor the glib nature of the second. Simply put, ladies and gentlemen: Kevin Williamson is apocalyptically anarchistic. But most readers knew that already.
Today, Sept. 17, is Constitution Day, which the Mackinac Center commemorates in this piece by President Emeritus Lawrence W. Reed.
