Who Voted "Yes" and Who Voted "No"
House Bill 4787, Increase CON health facility rationing fees: Passed 23 to 14 in the Senate
To increase from $1,500 to $3,000 the “base” fee for a hospital or other health care providers seeking government permission to open or expand a health care facility, or add certain capital-intensive equipment (like MRIs), under an existing state “Certificate of Need” rationing regime. The bill would also authorize additional fees of $12,000 for large projects, $3,000 for “complex” projects, $500 for “letter of intent” reviews, and more.
Published reports indicate that the state fairgrounds — once home to an iconic Michigan State Fair — may finally be sold to an investment team that includes former NBA star and Michigan native Magic Johnson.
The state, however, should have sold it to the highest bidder immediately when it had a chance.
In Bridge Magazine, author Ron French argues that teacher certification requirements should be increased to keep ineffective teachers out of classrooms.
Hasn't Bridge heard? Apparently Michigan's teaching pool is doing quite well. After all, 99.6 percent of Michigan teachers were rated effective or better in 2012. Some school districts claim they don't have a single teacher who isn't doing his or her job.
As part of the federal government's slowdown, the Library of Congress has been pulled offline. Users hoping to browse the Library's digital collections or search its online catalogue were greeted with the following message this week:
Due to the temporary shutdown of the federal government, the Library of Congress is closed to the public and researchers beginning October 1, 2013 until further notice.
Senate Bill 397, Expand a corporate/developer subsidy regime
To authorize creation of a sixth “Next Michigan Development Corporation,” which is a government agency that gives tax breaks and subsidies to particular corporations or developers selected by political appointees on the entity's board for projects meeting extremely broad "multi-modal commerce" criteria (basically, any form of goods-related commerce). The new entity would be in the Upper Peninsula.
Harry Hutchison, a law professor at George Mason University School of Law and a member of the Mackinac Center’s Board of Scholars, puts a new twist on the old argument of racial preferences being used in college admissions in a Detroit News Op-Ed today.
Michigan media reports are full of happy talk related to information released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on individual insurance rates available on the Obamacare “exchange.”
Specifically, the law’s cheerleaders are boasting that rates here will be “less than the national average.”
The legacy media is finally getting around to covering a story Michigan Capitol Confidential reported 15 months ago.
The Detroit Free Press and MLive, among others, are reporting that recipients of corporate welfare have come up short of expected job creation numbers and an audit found that the agencies doling out the money did not accurately keep tabs on the program.
The Michigan Coalition for Open Government blogs about the Center’s lawsuit filed Friday against the city of Westland over improper FOIA fees. A representative of the group participated in a recent town hall meeting hosted by the Center that focused on government transparency.
Senate Bill 276, Require community service work by welfare recipients: Passed 27 to 9 in the Senate
To require cash welfare recipients to perform community service if they are not already in a welfare-related work or training program.
Senior Attorney Derk Wilcox was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing this morning, discussing a lawsuit the Mackinac Center is filing today against the city of Westland over its FOIA fee structure.
You can read more about the Center’s Open Government Initiative here and here.
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has released its latest report on state funding for schools, and claims that Michigan is spending 9 percent less on schools than it was in 2008.
The report, however, ignores billions of dollars, a major flaw that Mackinac Center for Public Policy experts identified last year.
The Detroit News reported that the State Bureau of Elections began a formal investigation of the Service Employees International Union regarding its financing of a ballot proposal last year.
Proposal 4, which would have locked into the state constitution the skimming of millions of dollars each year from the caretakers of disabled people, was defeated by 14 percentage points.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio participated in a webinar Tuesday hosted by Watchdog Wire to discuss the rise of union front groups, known as “worker centers,” that Big Labor is using for political and intimidation reasons. You can learn more about the issue in this recent study authored by Vernuccio.
The Mackinac Center has been named one of six finalists for the 2013 Templeton Freedom Award, given annually by the Atlas Network at its Liberty Forum and Freedom Dinner in New York City each November.
“These finalists represent the best examples of free-market think tank excellence throughout the world,” according to the official announcement from the Atlas Network.
Research Associate Jarrett Skorup was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM-1320 in Lansing this morning, explaining how regulatory roadblocks harm the poor and how more economic freedom most benefits those struggling to move up the income ladder.
Senate Bill 351, Clarify fertilizer use restrictions: Passed 27 to 10 in the Senate
To clarify that use of fertilizers and other soil conditioners which follows “generally accepted” agricultural and management practices AT THE TIME OF USE does not constitute a “release” of hazardous substances in violation of state regulations.
Today’s Michigan Capitol Confidential has coverage of Thursday’s vote by the state House Judiciary Committee regarding access to public records and attempts by legislators to define who or what is or is not “the media.”
The Center’s Open Government Initiative has more information on the public’s access to government records.
Taxpayers are constantly told that film incentives are supposed to be a “temporary” subsidy to “plant and grow” an industry. But as Milton Friedman once observed, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
In North Carolina, the legislature has cut the state incentive program, once among the most generous in the nation, down to zero starting in 2014. While debating the budget, the Motion Picture Association of America, sent a letter to the state that read: “[W]ithout an extension of the production incentive program, North Carolina will no longer be considered for major feature films.”
An Indiana county judge has held that the Hoosier state's right-to-work law is unconstitutional based on an Indiana constitutional provision that originated in 1816 and was meant to limit slavery.
Lake County Judge John Sedia, however, delayed implementation of the ruling until it could be appealed. The decision is almost certain to be overturned.
It seems counterintuitive to some people, but government subsidies can harm the very people they are meant to help. So it is with the way Michigan funds higher education.
Consider that 12 percent of college graduates in 1970 came from the families in the bottom 25 percent of income earners, but today that number is 7 percent, according to Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
House Bill 4714, Final vote on federal health care law Medicaid expansion: Passed 75 to 32 in the House
To concur with minor changes the Senate made to the House-passed bill to expand Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which implements a key component of the federal health care law (called Obamacare by most people). This House vote sends the measure to the Governor for his signature.
Two people were arrested Thursday night as part of an anti-worker freedom protest at a policy forum in Vancouver, Wash., jointly sponsored by the Freedom Foundation and the Cascade Policy Institute. The Mackinac Center’s F. Vincent Vernuccio, labor policy director, was the keynote speaker at the event. You can read more about it here. Photos and video can be found here and here.
The Michigan Film Office announced recently that the producers of the next Superman-Batman movie would film in Michigan and collect $35 million in taxpayer cash for their efforts. The size and scope of the deal and film left me asking if one of these two superheroes might be kind enough to save taxpayers from another beating.
House Bill 4714, Accept federal health care law Medicaid expansion: Passed 20 to 18 in the Senate
To expand Medicaid eligibility to families and childless adults up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which implements a key component of the federal health care law, called Obamacare by most people. Under that law, the feds are supposed to pay 100 percent of the expansion’s cost during the first three years, with the state responsible for not more than 10 percent of the costs starting in 2020. The House must still vote on modest changes the Senate made to the bill.
