James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, will participate in a panel discussion from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Friday as part of an event titled “Detroit Rising.” The two-day event, sponsored by the Manhattan Institute and State Budget Solutions, kicks off Thursday at 5 p.m. with a panel discussion titled “How the Motor City is Rebuilding and Returning to Greatness.” Friday’s session is titled “Learning from Detroit: Hope for Cities on the Brink.” Both panels will be streamed live.
A Wall Street Journal editorial bemoans gimmicks used to “pay for” a federal road funding bill without either raising taxes or cutting other spending, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday:
“Under smoothing, employers are given permission to delay contributions to pension plans, thereby increasing corporate taxable income. That pushes immediate money to the Treasury, but at the cost of piling up pension liabilities in the longer-term, hurting employees and potentially the taxpayers who might have to bail them out. Congress used the same imaginary revenue-raiser to fund the 2012 highway bill, and the Members know most of the media won't report the boring pension details.”
A recent Michigan Future report calls into question a common economic theory: increasing taxes tends to lead to less private-sector growth. Comparing Michigan’s economic performance over the last two decades to that of Minnesota’s, the report claims that “rais[ing] taxes on the wealthy and businesses to invest even more in public services” was the Gopher State’s key to success. While this anecdote convinced the Detroit Free Press, a large body of economic research does not support this view.
The newest edition of Michigan Education Digest is available here. Topics include the new National Education Association president calling value-added assessments for teachers the “mark of the devil,” why the University of Michigan has to pay a student group $14,000 to settle a lawsuit, and how privatizing noninstructional services could help Flint schools reduce its overspending crisis.
The staff of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy mourns the loss of Andrew Kaluza, a 2011 summer intern, who passed away after a car accident over the weekend. Kaluza, an engineering major at the University of Texas-San Antonio, founded that school’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter and was a member of the executive board of Students for Liberty.
The economic effects of state right-to-work laws are important, but these laws are significant for other reasons, too, namely the fact that employees cannot be forced to contribute money to a union they disagree with as a condition of their employment.
While the Legislature is adjourned for a primary election campaign break, the Roll Call Report is reviewing key votes of the 2013-2014 session.
Senate Bill 257, Expand “Business Improvement Zone” tax-and-spend entities: Passed 35 to 2 in the Senate on April 11, 2013.
Ron French has a great article in Bridge Magazine looking at "the crazy economics of Michigan's favorite pitted fruit." The piece describes some of the federal cherry regulations that are mostly left over from the New Deal of the 1930s:
Michigan tart cherry growers are shackled by those restrictions more than most. There are no restrictions on sweet cherries – the kind you buy in the fresh fruit section of Meijer. The restrictions don’t even apply to all tart cherries – there are no restrictions on tart cherries grown in Oregon or Pennsylvania, or on imported cherries.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio writes today at National Review about the failure of unions to overturn worker freedom reforms in the industrial Midwest — long a labor stronghold — and what reform-minded legislators in other states can learn from that lesson.
Two Mackinac Center experts were on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS-AM1320 in Lansing recently.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio discussed the MEA’s so-called “August window” and how teachers can opt out of the union, particularly those who the MEA has sent to collections agencies.
Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh writes in this month’s Greater Lansing Business Monthly that political free speech is in jeopardy due to the “weaponization” of campaign finance laws by politicians.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was quoted in a Detroit News commentary by Ingrid Jacques, deputy editorial page editor, about the importance of teachers knowing their worker freedom rights.
“It can be extremely confusing,” he said, referring to the Michigan Education Association’s insistence that its “August window” bylaw trumps state law.
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman is cited in an article about Gov. Rick Snyder in the upcoming issue of National Review.
The story, which calls Gov. Snyder “The Turnaround Governor,” highlights several of his administration, including eliminating the Michigan Business Tax and signing right-to-work legislation.
As we watch countless numbers of human beings struggle for freedom and liberty around the globe, it is good to reflect upon the blessings we enjoy in the land that we love — this United States of America.
This is my 67th Fourth of July celebration and my memories of the day are some of those very blessings…family time in many places. All were amazing…captivated by fireworks in small-town America…aboard a small boat on the Mississippi River and also a huge cruise liner in Alaska…on the Palace Green in Williamsburg, Va.…in several baseball parks…attending the Baltimore Symphony at Oregon Ridge…attending the Detroit Symphony at the Henry Ford…and zooming across the night sky on a flight to Europe. My blessings include travel to all 50 states and there is something of interest and beauty to be found in each. The US of A is one of my greatest blessings in life.
By Jack McHugh
While the Legislature is adjourned for a primary election campaign break, the Roll Call Report is reviewing key votes of the 2013-2014 session.
House Bill 4369, Codify "education achievement authority" for failed schools: Passed 57 to 53 in the House on March 21, 2013
An editorial today in The Detroit News declares the recent ruling by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission that graduate student research assistants cannot be forced into a union a “win” for the students.
MERC recently confirmed its 1981 decision that said GSRAs at public universities were students and not employees, and therefore could not be unionized. The editorial cited the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which represented about 370 GSRAs who objected to the unionization attempts.
Senior Attorney Derk Wilcox explains in The Detroit News how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Harris v. Quinn Monday has its roots in a legal battle the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation first drew attention to in 2011.
The Court’s ruling brings an end nationwide to the type of stealth unionization and dues skim that in Michigan took $34 million away from our state’s most vulnerable residents before it ended.
Executive Vice President Michael J. Reitz has a commentary online at The American Spectator about Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that put an end to the forced unionization scheme of home-based caregivers across the country.
Reitz noted the similarities of the case to a similar dues skim that occurred here in Michigan, and how Justice Alito, writing for the majority, echoed a point the Center made in amicus brief we filed in the case.
Patrick J. Wright, vice president for legal affairs, told The Detroit News that today’s Supreme Court ruling in Harris v. Quinn that outlaws the forced unionization of home-based caregivers in Illinois and several other states is “similar to what we went through in Michigan with the SEIU’s stealth unionization of caregivers and the ensuing dues skim.”
By Jack McHugh
The Manhattan Institute has just released an interactive map comparing on a county-by-county basis the least expensive individual health insurance policies available before and after the federal health care law went into effect.
To make the analysis more fair, the earlier rates are adjusted to reflect higher prices paid by individuals with pre-existing conditions (the methodology is explained here). These are then compared to the lowest rates currently available on the federal exchange.
While the Legislature is adjourned for a primary election campaign break, the Roll Call Report will review key votes of the 2013-2014 session.
Senate Bill 51, Expand forest property tax breaks: Passed 35 to 0 in the Senate February 12, 2013
To expand the eligibility for certain forest property tax breaks, increase their value, double the number of acres eligible for the tax breaks from 1.2 million to 2.4 million statewide, authorize a new 2 mill property tax on property in this program that would go to a proposed "Private Forestland Enhancement Fund" to subsidize private forestland management activities, and more. This and related bills are designed to facilitate use of a program granting property tax exemptions to owners of smaller "non-industrial" sized parcels of forestland.
The Michigan Education Association is a large critic of school boards hiring private companies to provide noninstructional services, such as custodial, food and transportation. But the union uses this often fiscally responsible practice itself, as the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has documented several times in the past.
Just a year ago, the Detroit Free Press had high praise for Thirkell, an elementary school in the conventional Detroit Public Schools district.
Reporter Lori Higgins wrote that Thirkell was "defying the odds by posting strong proficiency rates on the MEAP..." Editorial Page Editor Stephen Henderson characterized Thirkell in a column as having an environment of "focus and consistency," with a "dynamic and skilled" principal.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was a guest on “Capital City Recap” with host Michael Cohan on WILS-AM1320, discussing how teachers can opt out of the Michigan Education Association during the month of August.
Both Gongwer News Service and MIRS Capitol Capsule included stories about the Michigan Employment Relations Commission’s recent decision to uphold it’s 1981 ruling prohibiting the forced unionization of graduate student research assistants at public universities in Michigan.
