Half-truths contain elements of reality that complicate refutation. That's why a half-truth can be worse than a lie. In addition, the art of the half-truth is a longstanding technique of political rhetoric.
Perhaps the most recognizable form of this is when government officials suggest that if they don't get what they want, there will be dire consequences. The classic example is when local officials want voters to pass revenue “enhancements,” such as tax increases or bond proposals.
Earlier this month, Michigan news outlets heralded Flint-area Congressman Dan Kildee's first sponsored bill, which proposed using $1.9 billion to fund demolitions throughout the United States.
MLive ran with the official narrative about the Democrat's proposal, publishing an article claiming that the "First bill proposed by Congressman Dan Kildee would help Flint, other cities eliminate blight."
By Jack McHugh
According to the Chicago Tribune, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee and 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee, told the newspaper’s editorial board that states should not count on those increased federal Medicaid match-rates promised by Obamacare to lure states into expanding this program. Moreover, given federal budget realities, the promises are likely to be broken no matter which party is in charge.
A group of charter public school advocates, private-sector business people and state employees have been meeting to come up with ideas on how to provide better public education at a lower cost through technology and competition. The group hopes to provide a “value school” model costing about $5,000 per pupil, reports The Detroit News, which broke the story.
A new report from Education Trust-Midwest lays out an “education roadmap” for improving average standardized test scores in Michigan. Before describing the roadmap, however, the report goes to great lengths to criticize state policies that have enabled parents to enroll their children in public charter schools. But its case against charter schooling is weak, and the report ignores the best available evidence on the impact charter schools are having in Michigan.
Research and analysis by Mackinac Center experts dating back more than 15 years forms much of the basis for this Detroit News editorial calling on the Legislature to change Michigan’s alcohol control policies.
In particular, the editorial cites calculations by Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, showing that Michigan’s regulatory regime leads to a 37 percent mark-up on spirituous liquor compared to neighboring Indiana.
I recently spent 96 mesmerizing minutes viewing the latest film release of the story of Sir Nicholas Winton at the Detroit Film Theatre within the Detroit Institute of Arts complex. “Nicky’s Family” (http://www.menemshafilms.com/nickys-family) portrays the bold actions of a young British businessman who saved 669 Jewish children from almost certain death in the days before World War II broke out on Sept. 1, 1939.
Michigan Capital Confidential reported in October 2012 that concerns had been raised that Traverse City Area Public Schools possibly violated state law by using tax dollars to print and mail a brochure to voters urging them to “support the continuation of TCAPS’ long-term capital infrastructure improvement plan by authorizing a bond proposal on November 6, 2012.”
Michigan is unique among states in that it has both no-fault insurance and unlimited personal injury protection for automobile drivers. That results in car insurance rates among the highest in the nation.
However, that may soon change.
Gov. Rick Snyder has unveiled a proposal to reform the law. According to the Detroit Free Press, the plan would cap benefits from the state accident fund at $1 million and could save the average family $250 per year. Under the current law, insurers are reimbursed for all costs above $500,000 from the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association (MCCA), which is supported by an annual fee of $175 (soon to be $183) from drivers. The change would still leave Michigan with the nation's most generous auto medical coverage.
When the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, there was much cause for concern. From burning rivers and smog to the contaminated Lake Erie and trash-lined highways it seemed our environment was on the brink of complete devastation. At least it did to a young fifth grader who commemorated the inaugural Earth Day with his classmates by embedding nails to the bottoms of dowel rods to pick up litter throughout the small town where I grew up.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 35, Authorize criminal penalties for nonpayment of “administrative hearing bureau” fines: Passed 35 to 1 in the Senate
To authorize additional penalties for failing to pay fines imposed by “administrative hearing bureaus” that most cities are allowed to create for enforcing "blight violations" under a 2003 law. Under that law, cities already have the power to place a lien against the property. The bill would authorize additional fines of $500, 93 days in jail for a second offense, and up to a year for a third offense.
(Editor's Note: The Detroit News on April 18, 2013, ran an op-ed on Medicaid expansion in Michigan by the Manhattan Institute's Avik Roy, who was also the guest speaker at the Mackinac Center's Issues and Ideas forum on Obamacare and Medicaid held in Lansing the same day. The live video webcast is available at noon at www.mackinac.org/18414. Below is the text of The Detroit News piece.)
Welcome to the club, MLive.
The statewide, online media entity on Monday said it would run a weekly feature for its Saginaw News and Bay City Times readers on votes by mid-Michigan legislators using information supplied by MichiganVotes.org.
On Wednesday, MLive informed the Mackinac Center that it instead would be starting a statewide bill and vote tracking service of its own. To that we say "congratulations." The Mackinac Center has long been a proponent of transparency and open government, and the more organizations working to keep Michiganders informed of what the state Legislature does and how it spends your money is a welcome and positive development.
A new union was born recently in the Ann Arbor suburb of Dexter when several transportation employees in the Dexter Community Schools rallied together to form the West Washtenaw Bus Drivers and Monitors Association.
The new union is part of a growing type of labor organizing in Michigan, that of local-only unions. What makes many of these new unions special is that they are formed after workers rejected established larger unions.
Is Detroit Public Schools' Thirkell Elementary a remarkable success or an abysmal failure? It depends on who you ask.
Excellent Schools Detroit just named the DPS school one of the top Detroit-area schools. The organization reviewed more than 100 conventional, charter and private schools, and graded schools on test scores (both proficiency and growth), teacher and student surveys, and unannounced in-person observations.
Mackinac Center Editor Lindsey Dodge was a guest on “The Lucy Ann Lance Show” on WLBY AM1290 in Ann Arbor this morning, discussing proposed legislation meant to address an alleged gender pay gap. Dodge also addressed this issue in MLive recently and has written about it.
Let us begin with the admission your writer was into President Calvin Coolidge before the 30th president was rendered “cool.” But that hardly diminishes the accolades heaped upon Amity Shlaes’ latest tome, “Coolidge.”
Suffice to say it’s easy to praise a president who guarded the public fisc as prudently as he protected his own. The 1920s, after all, presented Silent Cal with a tremendous deficit as a result of World War I. But the public at large at the time was accustomed to a government that hadn’t yet grown to the Leviathan-like proportions that followed in subsequent administrations, and a majority actually supported financial restraint.
Avik Roy, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM 1320 in Lansing today. Roy will be the keynote speaker at a Mackinac Center Issues & Ideas forum at noon on April 18 in Lansing focusing on why Michigan should not expand Medicaid under Obamacare.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 257, Expand “Business Improvement Zone” tax-and-spend entities: Passed 35 to 2 in the Senate
To expand the items that a “Business Improvement Zone” can spend money on, reduce the number of property owners in the district able to impose a zone's tax and spending powers and increase the number needed to dissolve them, increase the duration of the zones' powers to 10 years, reduce certain notification requirements required to establish one of these zones, allow the entity to sell services to particular property owners in the district, increase penalties for not paying the "special assessments" it imposes, and make other changes. These zones may be created by owners of a majority of the property in a certain area (not the same as the majority of owners), and have the power to impose property taxes (special assessments) to pay the debt the zone incurs to pay for projects that are supposed to benefit property owners in the zone.
In a piece for Slate, the left-leaning business and economics writer Matthew Yglesias says increasing subsidies for college won’t bring down the price.
In an effort to explain, he cites an article from Bloomberg Businessweek that shows that the number of administrators at Purdue University has jumped 54 percent — nearly eight times the growth rate of tenured and tenure-track professors. Nationwide, the number of college and university administrators increased 10 times faster than tenured faculty.
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman wrote this commentary about Michigan’s experience in becoming a right-to-work state and how other states can do the same for “Compass,” the magazine of the Illinois Policy Institute.
An online version is available here.
In 2012, teachers in Roscommon Area Public Schools took a bold step. They decertified from the Michigan Education Association and formed their own independent union.
According to the president of the new union, Jim Perialas, teachers are saving $400 a year in dues and getting better representation for the money. Breaking away from the MEA took time and effort. In an interview, Perialas offered tips for teachers considering similar action:
The next wave of television viewing, ironically, may more closely resemble the days of yore when home antennas dotted landscapes both urban and rural. Except this next generation antenna is no larger than a thumb drive that plugs conveniently into a tablet, smartphone or desktop computer.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was a panelist at the Spring 2013 Griffin Policy Forum at Central Michigan University Monday night, discussing the topic “The Future of Labor Unions in Michigan.” You can watch a video of the event here.
An alleged “gender pay gap” doesn’t take into account all of the necessary data that explains why men earn more than women, Mackinac Center Editor Lindsey Dodge told MLive. The online news service’s article came about after some legislators in Lansing announced their wishes to further regulate people’s private lives.
