That’s the verdict of British writer James Delingpole, in a blog posted in the Daily Telegraph, about an article by Kevin Myers published in the Irish Independent online version, brought to our attention by a Paul Chesser Facebook post. (Got all that? Ain’t the Internet grand?)
Corporate welfare, business subsidies and other handouts will increase $20 million, to $195 million, in Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed 2013 budget, according to MLive.com, causing concern for one Mackinac Center analyst.
“I hope that the governor doesn’t scale these programs up year after year as we’ve seen happen in the past two administrations,” Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told MLive.com.
An Op-Ed about health insurance costs for public school districts written by two Mackinac Center analysts appeared Wednesday in Macomb County’s Advisor & Source. It also ran in the Antrim Review.
Written by Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek and Education Policy Analyst Kyle Jackson, the piece details how districts over time have shortchanged classroom spending as employee health benefits have taken up larger and larger chunks of money.
Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh was a guest this morning on "The Tony Conley Show" on WILS AM1320 in Lansing, where he discussed a legislative pack of bills that could force motorists in Michigan to pay the highest gas taxes in the nation.
In a new commercial for U.S. Senate candidate and former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, an actress portraying a youngish Chinese woman rides her bike up to the camera and thanks "Debbie Spend-It-Now" for putting America deeply into debt. The actress’s less-than-perfect syntax has drawn fire for playing on stereotypes. But the real problem is the half-baked economics that the ad promotes.
The “R” or “D” after a politician’s name often does little to help voters understand the governing philosophy of their elected representative. The way many of their bills read, one might just as well replace those letters with a generic “S” for Statist or “PC” for Political Careerist.
The economic evidence for the value of right-to-work laws, which allows individual workers to choose whether or not to join or otherwise support a union, continues to build. Last week the Cascade Policy Institute issued a report indicating that Oregon would have 233,000 additional jobs and wage income would be 13 percent higher if it had passed a right-to-work law in 1985, at about the time neighboring Idaho took that step.
Public school special interests groups uniformly lobby for the state to give more money to school districts. To sell this idea to policymakers and taxpayers, these groups often claim that schools need "adequate," "stable," and "equal" funding. These talking points give rise to some common myths about school funding in Michigan.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, was quoted in an Alpena News editorial over the weekend about the impact on Michigan now that Indiana has extended right-to-work protections to its workers.
“I worry that without a right-to-work law of our own, Indiana will grow at Michigan’s expense,” LaFaive said.
Nick Dranias at the Goldwater Institute has run the numbers on the costs and consequences of the decision a few decades ago to give state, school and local government employee unions the power to force public bodies to engage in collective bargaining. It’s not pretty. Here’s an excerpt:
Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, was a guest on “The Vic McCarty Show” Thursday on WMKT AM1270 in Traverse City. Wright discussed the plight of a group of graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan whose rights to due process have been denied by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, which ruled that students opposed to being unionized could not present their side during hearings on the matter.
Portage Public Schools had an odd reaction to some good financial news this week, telling a company that could save it $270,000 a year "no thanks." That offer came from Grand Rapids Building Services, a facilities cleaning contractor that proposed taking over the school district’s first shift custodial duties.
A Saginaw News article posted this afternoon asks in its story headline, “Is Fabiano Bros. a Monopoly?” The story covers a verifiable assertion I laid out in a commentary titled “Eight Ideas for Reforming Alcohol Control in Michigan.”
Unfortunately, the article is comprised largely of a collection of redirections on the part of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association, the Lansing-based trade group that represents state wholesalers. Fabiano Bros. is a beer and wine wholesaler headquartered in mid-Michigan.
An Op-Ed in the Orange County Register about public-sector pension reform in California cites a recent Mackinac Center study that found switching state employees hired after 1997 from a defined-benefit retirement system to a defined-contribution system has saved Michigan taxpayers as much as $4 billion in unfunded liabilities.
Just prior to noon Wednesday, the Indiana Senate passed House Bill 1001 on a 28-22 vote. Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the enrolled bill a few hours later. While the law does not change contracts currently in force, workers in Indiana will no longer have to pay union dues or agency fees as a term of employment when new union contracts are signed.
If there is a challenge in defending the right-to-work concept, it isn't researching or writing, it's boredom. Union officials continue to tell the same stories. After a while the material you have to read through and rebut gets repetitive.
For instance, here's retired AFL-CIO Program Manager John Kreucher in the The Jackson Citizen Patriot:
Jan. 29 through Feb. 5 is Catholic Schools Week 2012. To mark the occasion, you may like to read this 2005 commentary by Andrew J. Coulson, “Catholic Schools and the Common Good.”
Burt Folsom, senior fellow in economic education at the Mackinac Center, and his wife Anita have written a new book about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, according to the Midland Daily News.
The book, "FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America," is published by Simon & Schuster.
Note: There will be no roll call report next week. Any noteworthy votes next week will be included in the Feb. 10 roll call report.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 204, Eliminate county commissioner vacancy special election requirement: Passed 26 to 12 in the Senate
To eliminate a requirement that a special election must be held when a county commissioner vacancy occurs during an odd numbered year. Under current law, special elections already are not required if the vacancy occurs in an even-nubered year (a regular election year, that is).
A recent House Education Committee hearing on repealing an artificial limit on the number of students who can take advantage of online charter public schools featured a full display of the unfounded opposition to allowing parents this choice. The opposition is driven largely by beneficiaries of the public education status quo, and falls into three categories: Fear of competition for school money; lack of trust in parents and potential competitors, and something called the “burden of proof fallacy.”
Labor Policy Director Paul Kersey is cited in today’s Wall Street Journal in an article about the economic prosperity enjoyed by right-to-work states as compared to non-right-to-work states. Kersey found that the economies of right-to-work states between 2001 and 2006 grew an average of 3.4 percent, compared to 2.6 percent for states without such a law, and job growth in right-to-work states grew 1.2 percent, compared to 0.6 percent in non-right-to-work states. For more information about right-to-work laws, please see our resources page.
Legislation been introduced that reportedly would extract more than $1 billion from motorists through a new state fuel tax and a huge increase in the vehicle registration tax. The latter, paid each year on a car owner’s birthday, would increase 67 percent on average according to The Detroit News.
Congressman Dave Camp, R-Midland, told an audience at the Mackinac Center Thursday that 2012 is “critical given the presidential election plus the ongoing effort to grow the still struggling economy,” according to WSGW AM790. Rep. Camp said he favors simplifying individual and business tax codes, including the elimination of most exemptions. He said he believes doing so would create 1 million jobs in the first year.
Graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan have been denied by the Michigan Court of Appeals a chance to express their opposition to being unionized, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, representing the students opposed to the unionization, filed a motion with the CoA earlier this month. The Michigan Employment Relations Commission has assigned the matter to an administrative law judge for a hearing that begins Feb. 1. Only parties that favor unionization will be allowed to testify.
Today marks the 175th anniversary of Michigan’s statehood. To help celebrate, here are some commentaries that give a glimpse into the state’s early days.
Michigan: Privatization Pioneer
