Michigan’s recently beefed-up "emergency manager" law gives broad powers to a state appointee if a local government or school district fails its citizens financially in one of 18 explicit ways.
Assuming a referendum passes a legal challenge and makes it to the ballot, citizens will vote in November on whether to keep or overturn this law.
The Washington-based Heritage Foundation has published a brief “Top 5 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare.” Here are its headlines, which are arranged in reverse order:
5. To stop adding to the U.S. deficit and debt.
4. To help stop Taxmageddon.
3. To preserve freedom, including religious freedom, for all Americans.
2. To keep health care decisions where they belong—with patients and their doctors.
1. To make way for real, patient-centered, market-based health care reform.
With boxes of signatures submitted to the Secretary of State over the last few days, it appears there could be as many as seven different proposals on the ballot this fall. Many of them would benefit narrow constituencies at the expense of taxpayers; perhaps the most egregious is a self-serving measure that would embed a one-sided government union scheme into the state constitution.
According to a report by Bloomberg News, the former head of structured finance at Standard and Poors says big investors no longer believe the credit judgments issued by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch because of the inflated ratings the agencies gave to sub-prime debt in the run-up to the 2008 financial meltdown:
A scheme by the Service Employees International Union to enshrine its dues skim from home-based caregivers in the Michigan Constitution has caught the attention of statewide media.
Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, told WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids that the ballot proposal does nothing to help the state’s most vulnerable residents find home care. MLive pointed out that the Center has explicitly shown that many of the people suffering from the forced unionization are simply family members caring for loved ones. The Detroit Free Press reported that the Center has exposed how the SEIU has skimmed more than $30 million in “dues” from the Medicaid checks meant to help developmentally disabled adults. MLive reported that the Center has "long criticized" the stealth unionization.
Jarrett Skorup, content manager for Michigan Capitol Confidential, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing this morning, talking about his recent article on reforming school employee pensions in Michigan. For more information on this topic, see here, here and here.
This 2008 study by Paul Kersey, former director of labor policy with the Mackinac Center, is cited in an exhaustive investigation by Fox Business News about the spending habits of powerful unions, often using mandatory dues money for lavish trips and high salaries instead of for collective bargaining.
The Michigan Legislature has entered a summer recess. Many bills were passed in the legislative sessions just before the break.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 1041: Subject legislator communications to FOIA
Introduced by Sen. Gretchen Whitmer (D), to expand government document disclosure requirements required under the Freedom of Information Act to include legislators and legislative offices. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
Syndicated columnist and author Jonah Goldberg will be featured at “An Evening with the Mackinac Center” tonight at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa. Goldberg will be discussing his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.” Registration is closed, but you can watch a simulcast of the event, beginning at 7 p.m., here.
Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing today, talking about the Obamacare decision and what can be done to fix the health care system. McHugh appeared on the show again Friday to continue the discussion.
As noted in my previous reviews here and here, Jonah Goldberg’s “Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas” provides a quick, enjoyable, highly readable analysis of the memes employed by progressive argumentation. Repeated often enough, these clichés seemingly have a ring of what faux conservative comic Stephen Colbert would call “truthiness.”
While you may have missed the Michigan Firework Safety Act passed late last year, you may have noticed more fireworks tents than usual popping up this summer. With the Fourth of July upon us, more and more retailers are taking advantage of Michigan’s new law permitting the sale of previously illegal fireworks.
Author and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, who will appear at “An Evening with the Mackinac Center” Friday night in Traverse City, was a guest on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR AM760 this morning. Goldberg discussed Friday’s event, to be held at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa, and his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.”
After reading Rep. Chuck Moss's rebuttal to a spot-on editorial recently published in The Detroit News, a reader might conclude that the only problem with the school employee pension system is that it's underfunded. The $22.4 billion gap between the system's assets and liabilities is a symptom that exposes the real problem: politicians can't be trusted to properly fund a defined benefit pension system.
Jarrett Skorup, content manager for Michigan Capitol Confidential, writes in a Detroit News Op-Ed today about the costs and paperwork associated with the state’s job licensing procedures. Skorup has written on this issue in the past, which you can read here and here.
Recommendations for changing Michigan’s alcohol control policies would exempt craft brewers from signing exclusive agreements with wholesalers, Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive told the Detroit Free Press.
LaFaive and other Center analysts have written extensively about the monopoly beer and wine distributors enjoy and how the state can revamp its liquor laws to benefit consumers. LaFaive examined the nature of that monopoly in an Op-Ed recently in the Downriver Sunday Times.
The real question before the Supreme Court in the "Patient Protection Act" challenge was: Does a Constitution restricting government to limited and enumerated powers actually mean anything, or are we now subject to the whims of temporary majorities elected to Congress?
According to Casey Sumner of the Toledo Blade, Gov. Snyder said, “The role of government isn't to create jobs. Our role is to enable job creation to happen,” during a town hall meeting on Monday. However, the new budget of the State of Michigan includes $100 million for “business attraction and economic gardening” and $50 million for a film incentive program. Rather than cripple the job creation he desires, Gov. Snyder could best increase Michigan employment rates by abandoning such taxing initiatives and allowing free enterprise to thrive.
A new report issued by the Heritage Foundation quantifies the impact by state and congressional district of the widely-heralded “Taxmageddon.” Absent any change in the law, it will deliver the full body slam of a $494 billion tax hike to the U.S. economy on Jan. 1, 2013.
Two more Michigan school districts have earned praise for implementing merit-based teacher pay.
Blissfield Schools and the St. Clair intermediate school district join Oscoda and Suttons Bay in transitioning away from an industrial-era assembly line worker type compensation system to one that recognizes and rewards teachers as motivated professionals. There are reasons to think this may be the start of a trend.
Op-Eds in the Tallahassee Democrat and Orlando Sentinel about public-sector pension reform in Florida both reference a Mackinac Center study from 2011 that shows closing the state employees’ defined-benefit retirement fund to new hires in 1997 has saved Michigan taxpayers up to $4.3 billion in unfunded liabilities.
The Michigan Legislature has entered a summer recess. Many bills were passed in the legislative sessions just before the break.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 1129, Authorize local “pension obligation bonds”: Passed 25 to 11 in the Senate
To allow local governments to borrow money to cover unfunded employee pension liabilities if the local has closed its traditional “defined benefit” pension system to new employees. Unlike other local government borrowing (usually called “bonding” or “selling bonds”), no vote of the people would be required.
There's a lot of criticism being voiced about plans to "charterize" the fiscally and educationally bankrupt Muskegon Heights and Highland Park school districts. Government employee unions are making the most noise, but they've been joined recently by the Detroit Free Press, Michigan Public Radio’s Jack Lessenberry, and a state school board member.
New data from the state (available in this online database) show that despite constant calls from school officials and government employee union bosses for more funding, public schools in Michigan received more money in 2011 than ever before — about $13,405 per pupil. Total school spending, however, did drop from its all-time high in 2010 — by less than 1 percent. Schools spent $12,778 per pupil last year overall, with $11,561 of that spent on day-to-day operating expenses.
Senior Economist David Littmann in a Detroit Free Press Op-Ed Sunday details Detroit’s consent agreement with the state and the roadblocks the city faces as it tries to regain financial stability. He also discussed the same issues on WDET, Detroit's public radio station.
