Perhaps the best thing state legislators could do for Michigan moms would be to allow more educational options for children — at least according to the latest poll from the Friedman Foundation.
Mothers polled supported all varieties of school choice, including providing students with resources to attend public, private or religious schools.
Gary Wolfram, a Hillsdale College economics professor and adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center, writes in the Lansing State Journal that Michigan’s auto insurance laws should allow the market to influence the level of coverage drivers prefer to purchase.
House Bill 4254, Exempt “electric carriages” from motor vehicle regulations: Passed 35 to 0 in the Senate
To exempt “electric carriages” from regulations and taxes authorized under the Michigan vehicle code. These are defined as “a horse-drawn carriage that has been retrofitted to be propelled by an electric motor instead of by a horse and that is used to provide taxi service.” The bill would benefit a Detroit operation called "Andre's Carriage Tours" by letting it operate statewide.
It’s a popular saying for many: "Tax cuts don’t create jobs." Google it, and there are more than 100,000 results for that specific claim.
At this point, it is a truism for liberal politicians and commentators that tax cuts are ineffective.
But if lower taxes and more money for businesses to spend do not create jobs, how can the left support these tax breaks and subsidies?
The Detroit News reports that 15,600 students in the Walled Lake School District didn't have school Wednesday because bus drivers called in sick.
The Walled Lake school board last week voted to contract out for busing to save money. Walled Lake Superintendent Kenneth Gutman told The News that contracting will save the district $1.4 million a year.
By Jack McHugh
The Wall Street Journal reports that the part-time Florida Legislature has adjourned for the year without approving the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which Gov. Rick Scott famously flip-flopped into supporting earlier this year.
Here's how the Journal's editorial described the outcome:
The Mackinac Center and Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio are cited in a package of stories by Bridge Magazine about the financial difficulties of the Michigan Education Association and the dissatisfaction the union’s members have expressed recently.
MLive Monday cited a February Michigan Capitol Confidential story showing teachers in Michigan have the second-highest average pay in the country in a story about U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s visit to Michigan and his belief that teachers should be paid more.
The Michigan Capitol Confidential article about a leaked document from the Service Employees International Union on how the union hopes to continue its "dues skim" against home-based caregivers is interesting, but more significant is how the union explains the whole unionization scheme.
In response to government land banks side-stepping state law, a reform bill has been introduced by Rep. Ken Yonker, R-Caledonia, that would penalize land banks for acquiring property before tax auction.
It's no accident that this bill came from Rep. Yonker: Several people he represents were outraged at the actions of the Kent County Land Bank when it blocked the sale of more than 40 vacant properties last year.
Research Associate Jarrett Skorup was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on AM1320 in Lansing Thursday, discussing the latest incident in a long list of film subsidy failures in Michigan.
Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the story Wednesday of a movie company involved in the corporate welfare giveaway that left town owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent and back taxes.
House Bill 4118, Require drug testing of welfare applicants: Passed 77 to 33 in the House
To require drug testing of state welfare benefit recipients or applicants if an "empirical screening tool" indicates a reasonable suspicion, and prohibit benefits for six months if a person tests positive a second time (or refuses "treatment" the first time). This would begin as a one-year pilot program in three counties.
The Michigan House recently passed a $48.9 billion budget plan for Fiscal Year 2014, which is roughly $2 billion less than Gov. Rick Snyder wanted and is about the same spending level as the 2013 budget.
What the House passed is not the final version of what will come to be the state's 2014 budget, but it reflects the budget plan upon which House Republicans were able to agree. Think of it as the opening offer they have put on the table for the bartering, arguing and politicking process that eventually will lead to a final budget.
Research Associate Jarrett Skorup was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing, “The Lucy Ann Lance Show” on WLBY AM1290 in Ann Arbor and “The John McCulloch Show” on WDTK AM1400 in Detroit Tuesday discussing his recent article about Michigan’s craziest laws.
By Jack McHugh
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Goldwater Institute policy analyst Christina Corieri explains that if legislators in Michigan and other states decline Obamacare’s invitation to vastly increase Medicaid spending, they won’t be sending other states any dollars that Michigan might have received from some finite pot of money earmarked for this purpose.
As reported by Michigan Capitol Confidential and others, last week the Michigan House zeroed-out funding for an economically foolish state program that hands over tens of millions of state taxpayer dollars to “millionaire and billionaire” Hollywood film producers.
(Editor’s Note: An interview with Rodney Lockwood, Mackinac Center board member, about his plan to revitalize Detroit by privatizing Belle Isle is featured in The Freeman, a publication of the Foundation for Economic Education. The text of the interview is below.)
I admire Stephen Henderson, editorial page editor at the Detroit Free Press, because he is thoughtful in his commentary and has little patience for fiscal waste, but his recent column on Michigan's film incentive program should have applied this standard more strongly.
School boards are sometimes held as shining examples of democracy at its finest — where constituents’ and children’s best interests are truly represented.
This is in contrast to the simplistic narrative of what happens in Lansing and Washington, D.C., where rich lobbyists and power-hungry politicians rule the day. A recent story from a mid-sized Michigan school district, however, demonstrates that even at the local level, political self-interest can and does drive decision-making.
Senate Bill 182, Senate K-12 school aid budget: Passed 21 to 15 in the Senate
The Senate version of the K-12 school aid budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct 1, 2013. It would appropriate $13.225 billion for K-12 public schools, compared to $12.944 billion this year.
Michigan Radio recently criticized charter public schools for marketing to prospective families. The article suggested that some charter schools concentrate on appealing to parents by offering a high-quality learning program, while others simply use marketing to bring parents in the door.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was a guest on Fox Business with host Neil Cavuto Friday evening discussing a proposal by Microsoft chief Bill Gates that the government should spend $5 billion to put cameras in every classroom in order to monitor teachers.
Released on April 16, Steve Earle’s latest CD finds him once again supported by the stellar backup band, The Dukes (and the Duchesses). “The Low Highway” is quintessential Earle, harkening back to his classic debut “Guitar Town” from 1986 and 1997’s “El Corazon.”
A recent federal audit of the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of the Earned Income Tax Credit program found that between 21 and 25 percent of its payments were improper in 2012, costing taxpayers between $11.6 billion and $13.6 billion. This is a long-term problem, with this level of improper payments going back at least a decade.
House Republicans have passed a budget, part of which would end the Michigan film subsidy program and strip down some corporate welfare programs to devote that money toward road funding. This is good news for the state.
In the Legislature, typically the governor releases a proposal, the House and Senate pass their budgets, and members of the groups meet to hash out the differences. That’s where the process stands now.
