The Michigan Legislature is primed to expand the state’s film incentive program, which has only been authorized to spend $25 million this year instead of the more than $100 million it had been spending. The idea of rewriting the law was to allow the film office flexibility to use these funds to get the best bang for the buck. While these programs are ultimately a harmful waste of taxpayer money, the current legislation strips the ability of the state to be flexible. Without this, legislators will be tempted to spend beyond their limits in pursuing their Hollywood dreams.
Digital learning in K-12 schools is growing at an impressive rate as more parents, teachers and schools are understanding the benefits of (in the words of Gov. Rick Snyder) "any time, any place, any way, any pace" learning models. The Mackinac Center released a report earlier this year on the topic and has been hosting public forums all around the state to help educate the public on the powerful potential of individually customized learning.
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, wrote in a Detroit Free Press Op-Ed Sunday that labor law needs a comprehensive overhaul to remove politics from the mix and provide “clear, permanent standards that empower workers” and make the process “less subject to the whims of whichever party happens to occupy the executive branch.”
The plight of a mother and father from Michigan who receive state aid to take care of their disabled adult daughter and son and are forced to pay dues to the SEIU under an illegal unionization scheme was detailed on Fox Business today. The story was broken by Michigan Capital Confidential Nov. 9.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week.
Senate Bill 693, Create state "Obamacare exchange:" Passed 25 to 12 in the Senate
To create as a state entity the "exchange" mandated by the federal "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," the primary purpose of which will be to administer the insurance subsidies provided by that law to households up to 400 percent of poverty level (around $80,000 for a family of four in Michigan). Called the "MIHealth Marketplace," this non-profit agency would create a website on which individuals can select an insurance policy that complies with PPACA mandates, and have eligibility determined for the law's subsidies.
The Obama administration decided the federal government should be in the Christmas tree business as reported on The Foundry.org. Every fresh Christmas tree in the nation would be taxed 15 cents in order to fund a Christmas Tree Promotion Board.
Federal officials claim that the charge is not a tax and would not yield revenue to the federal government. Regardless of the validity of the nontax claim, the image of the Christmas tree does not seem to be endangered or require a federal bailout.
The Washington Examiner today is reporting on a story that Michigan Capitol Confidential broke recently that outlines how parents who receive state subsidy checks to stay home and care for their disabled children are considered union members and see a portion of those checks siphoned off as dues money.
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, legal reformer Philip K. Howard highlighted strident examples of government employees defrauding their pension systems. Thankfully, Michigan’s state retirement benefit systems have been remarkably free of such problems. It’s a testament to appropriate policies and decent administration. Nevertheless, while the state is good at preventing outrageous abuses, it needs to fix a system that still imposes outrageous costs on taxpayers.
The Mackinac Center released today the full results of the 2011 school support services privatization survey. For the first time, more than half of the state’s public school districts contract out for food, custodial or transportation services. This survey contains a more detailed analysis of the results.
It’s a commonly accepted belief that public school teachers are underpaid. Last month in a visit to Ann Arbor, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan even called for schools to figure out how to double teacher salaries in order to attract and keep top-tier talent. But a report issued last week by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis questions the conventional wisdom and finds that, instead of being underpaid, people entering the teaching profession actually make one and a half times what they would have in other lines of work.
A group of graduate students at the University of Michigan object to an attempt to force them into a union, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed a motion on behalf of the 370 students, who point out that they are not employees of the university and thus not subject to unionization. The Michigan Employment Relations Commission in August upheld its 1981 decision on this exact same issue and rejected a petition by the Graduate Employees Organization to unionize graduate student research assistants at U-M.
Thousands of demonstrators marched around the White House this past weekend in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project, which would bring oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to Texan refineries. This is ironic. Environmental groups frequently enlist conservative support for alternative energy by claiming that imported oil from the Middle East is a national security concern, but the demonstrators’ attempt to convince President Obama to deny the necessary permits for this pipeline punctures any illusions that the environmental movement’s infatuation with alternative energy is motivated by a concern about national security.
By Jack McHugh
In addition to the lawsuit against Obamacare filed by Michigan and 25 other states, a separate case has been filed by The Goldwater Institute Center for Constitutional Law. Diane Cohen, a senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute, recently told legislators at an American Legislative Exchange Council meeting, "Saying 'no' to a state exchange is absolutely critical to the success of our lawsuit and those pending elsewhere around the country."
The typical unionized government employee pays more than $450 dollars annually in membership dues or agency fees. With that kind of money available, one would think that unions could afford to pay their own staff for the time that they spend on union business. But for some reason, they don’t. Instead, local taxpayers provide many local union officials with paid “release time” or “official time” for union activities. This is a misuse of taxpayer dollars that should be brought to an end.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week.
Senate Bill 569, Authorize cash film producer subsidies: Passed 34 to 4 in the Senate
To convert the state film incentive program into straightforward handouts, rather than indirect ones, with payments to film producers of up 32 percent of their Michigan payroll expense, plus some additional subsidies. Reportedly the bill’s sponsor wants to increase the subsidies from $25 million already appropriated in 2012 to $100 million annually.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is considered by many experts as “the nation’s report card,” and its latest results released yesterday offer little to celebrate in Michigan. Specifically, average scores here ranked 36th nationally in fourth grade reading, 42nd in fourth grade math, 28th in eighth grade reading and 36th in eighth grade math.
“No matter your thoughts about the Occupy Wall Street movement, the protesters are right in at least one respect: The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.”
Variations on this statement have been repeated in dozens of blogs, commentaries and even news reports over the past several weeks. The claim comes via a Congressional Budget Office analysis showing that incomes for the top 1 percent of Americans grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, while the lowest 20 percent saw their inflation-adjusted incomes grow by “only” 18 percent.
The Flint Journal today reports on an exclusive story in Michigan Capitol Confidential about the propensity of conventional media to report on teacher layoffs each spring, but then fail to report at the beginning of the school year how few, if any, teachers actually remain laid off.
It is a serious miscalculation for any governor, Republican or Democrat, to believe they can institute major change in the direction of a state agency by applying sound management principles. No matter how well tuned the governor’s management skills are, or those of the people he appoints, the deck is stacked against them. Executives with a successful private-sector track record often believe they can get the same positive results in government by applying the same management techniques that have served them well in the past.
Analysis by Mark Perry, chairman of the economics department at the University of Michigan-Flint and a member of the Mackinac Center’s board of scholars, is highlighted in a recent Washington Examiner editorial.
Perry analyzed data from the Federal Reserve and found that 56 percent of those in 2001 who were among the lowest income earners had moved up to a higher quintile by 2007, while 66 percent of those among the highest earners had dropped at least one quintile during the same time frame.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor loosened union financial disclosure rules, making it easier for union officials to hide questionable practices. The DOL during the George W. Bush administration had improved reports called for under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, but is now backtracking from these standards.
Articles written by Mackinac Center experts in the last few weeks have been picked up by four nationally known and highly read blogs and news aggregators.
A Michigan Capitol Confidential story by Tom Gantert that detailed gym teachers in certain Michigan school districts making more money than science teachers was picked up by Instapundit.com, Fox Nation and the Heritage Foundation’s The Foundry.
Gov. Rick Snyder yesterday in a speech at the Michigan Rail Summit proposed a vision for making Detroit the hub for a rail system serving North America as reported by the MIRS Capitol Capsule (subscription required). He envisions a rail freight and passenger system that would connect Montreal to Detroit to Chicago to St. Louis.
(Permission to rebroadcast in whole or in part is hereby granted. A courtesy super or CG crediting the Mackinac Center would be appreciated.)
In his special address on education in April, Gov. Rick Snyder called for a new learning model for Michigan schools in which students could learn "any time, any place, any way, any pace." In a study published last year, the Mackinac Center detailed Michigan programs that have embraced this model through online learning and digital technology. More recently, we've hosted public forums on the topic, and heard from school teachers and administrators as they share how they are accomodating the range of student needs with digital learning tools.
A particularly innovative learning program in Michigan is the Widening Advancement for Youths Program, or WAY. WAY is operating in more than 100 school districts in Michigan and is reengaging students that dropped out of school, lost interest, or just didn't fit in the frequent one-size-fits-all, standardized brick-and-mortar classroom. Glen Taylor, one of WAY's founders, will be speaking at our upcoming online learning forum on November 16 in Birmingham.
WEYI-TV25 in Saginaw reported Monday night, based on a story that first appeared in Michigan Capitol Confidential, that Grand Blanc Community Schools has added nine teachers for the 2011-2012 school year. Grand Blanc is home to Rep. Paul Scott, the Republican chairman of the House Education Committee who faces a recall election on Nov. 8.
