The first of three education reform panels focused on virtual learning and hosted by the Mackinac Center is scheduled for noon today at the Grand Traverse Resort, according to TV7&4 in Traverse City. Other forums are scheduled for Oct. 25 in Grand Rapids and Nov. 16 in Birmingham.
Michael Van Beek, the Center’s director of education policy, wrote an Op-Ed for the Detroit Free Press Sunday that lays out a comprehensive overview of school choice in Michigan and a reform package before the Legislature that would expand parental choice.
An editorial in Sunday’s Detroit News cites a commentary written a decade ago by Mackinac Center President Emeritus Lawrence W. Reed on why Michigan should not pursue an Internet sales tax.
Cato Institute health care policy expert Michael Cannon testified recently before the Missouri Senate’s Interim Committee on Health Insurance Exchanges on why that state should not create an Obamacare exchange. His arguments apply just as much to Michigan, including this excerpt describing how creating an exchange will help entrench Obamacare.
Bruce Edward Walker, former managing editor of the Center’s MichiganScience, writes today at the The Michigan View about a bipartisan collection of legislators wanting to institute an “Amazon tax” that would subject Internet purchases by state residents to the state’s 6 percent sales tax.
As the Michigan Legislature wrestles with Gov. Rick Snyder's call to create the architecture of a state Obamacare health insurance "exchange," Mackinac Center adjunct scholar John Graham observes in The Health Care Blog: "The likelihood of exchanges being up and running by January 2014 is vanishingly close to zero. Indeed, they may not exist at all except in very few states — whether or not President Obama wins re-election."
In The Washington Examiner Wednesday, Mark Flatten reports that in 2009 “unions representing federal workers used almost 3 million hours of official time, the equivalent of more than 1,400 full-time employees, at a cost of $129.1 million,” to conduct union business at taxpayer expense.
Michigan taxpayers also provide huge sums to pay union stewards to do union work on the public’s time. For example, Michigan Capitol Confidential reported that "39 districts combined to pay at least $2.7 million to cover the costs of teachers who work on union business."
From MichiganVotes.org:
Senate Bill 567: Create another subsidy program for particular developers
Republican Arlan Meekhof from West Olive was the lone "no" vote.
A Senate Fiscal Agency summary describes the criteria for the handouts:
-- Increased the density of the area.
-- Promoted mixed-use development and walkable communities.
-- Promoted sustainable development.
Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, has placed regulatory reform on the agenda for the fall legislative session. The Senate leader has made a wise decision as Michigan’s oppressive regulatory regime is a significant obstacle to job creation in the state. Excessive environmental bureaucracy is a major problem, but it is not the only barrier to job creation. Employers who wish to expand or locate in Michigan are faced with extensive state and local requirements such as difficulty in obtaining business licenses and complex zoning requirements that they do not face in other states.
Last week, the pro-union Economic Policy Institute released a report on right-to-work by Gordon Lafer, an associate professor at the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center. Dr. Lafer raised a lot of objections, most of which were trivial, to our claim that right-to-work would benefit Michigan's economy.
A subcommittee of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing on proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules that will likely reduce the nation’s electricity output from coal-fired power plants by 25 percent. Astonishingly, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had not performed an analysis on the implications of the proposed EPA rules on electric reliability, nor do they intend to perform an analysis in the future. There was, however, division among the five commissioners who testified regarding the need to perform an analysis. The three Democratic commissioners, including the chairman, saw no need to do a reliability study, while the two Republican commissioners dissented.
The Detroit Free Press published a response to my essay, “Rethink state’s liquor distribution system,” on Sunday. It reads more like a beer commercial designed to redirect attention away from unnecessarily high beer prices, rather than a scholarly rejoinder to the facts presented in my original essay. There are four major problems with the letter:
The Flint Journal today is reporting on a story Michigan Capitol Confidential carried over the weekend regarding a recall effort against Rep. Paul Scott, R-Grand Blanc, and the involvement by the Michigan Education Association and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce in the matter.
A study from the Beacon Hill Institute in Massachusetts shows that rapidly increasing health insurance costs caused by that state's "Romneycare" system has "discouraged job and employment growth, especially the creation of jobs that offer health benefits." This led to 18,313 fewer jobs created in 2010, compared to what would have happened without the state's health care "reform" law.
Labor Policy Director Paul Kersey is cited in a Sunday Detroit News editorial about a proposal in the Legislature to extend right-to-work protections public school teachers.
Kersey told The News that while he supports what is being called, “right-to-teach,” he would rather see right-to-work granted to all employees.
The bankruptcy of “green jobs” darling Solyndra is in the news because it could potentially cost U.S. taxpayers $535 million due to a federal “stimulus” program loan guarantee. The Silicon Valley solar-panel maker’s failure comes on the heels of another “green” corporate welfare beneficiary also going under, Evergreen Solar (with a factory located in Midland, Mich.). These deals were big losers for Americans.
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.
House Bill 4929, Ban using public school resources to deduct
union dues: Passed 55 to 53 in the House
To prohibit school districts from using taxpayer resources (including their
payroll processing systems) to deduct union dues or fees from employees’ pay,
and then sending the money to a union. This practice is the current norm, so
the bill would require unions to collect dues or fees from school employees on
their own. Under a recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling (MEA vs. Land),
districts are already prohibited from deducting employee pay and sending it to
a union political action committee.
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, has a column today in Dome Magazine about how civil society can help reintegrate Detroit into the “local, regional and global economy.”
For an explanation of what constitutes civil society, please see this essay by Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman.
Federal government green jobs initiatives are long on promises and short on results. The Obama administration promised a federal Department of Energy $38 billion loan guarantee program and claimed it would create or save 65,000 jobs. According to a report in The Washington Post, government records indicate that the federal initiative has created only 3,545 jobs. The relatively small number of jobs created by the program comes at a high cost to taxpayers who have to foot the bill when the high-risk ventures fail.
By eliminating the cap on the number of charter public schools that can operate in
Included in the $450 billion spending plan
The city of Detroit earns a C- for online transparency from Sunshine Review, a “pedia” site that rates thousands of local governments using a transparency checklist it developed.
SR’s managers seem surprised the grade is not lower, asking on their Facebook page, “Anyone else surprised?”
The economies of the state’s large urban areas like Detroit and Flint are on life support. A bill introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, would effectively pull the plug on those cities, letting them silently die. House Bill 4901 would create an “environmental justice” regulatory regime. The concept behind environmental justice is that minorities are disproportionately affected by pollution in the areas in which they live.
Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, told public TV’s “Off the Record” program last week that he now supports a right-to-work law for public school employees: “They (unions) could still offer (school employees) their membership; it wouldn’t be a forced membership. They (unions) would have to recruit and do their work off campus.” The full text of the relevant section of the interview is posted below.
Jarrett Skorup, research associate for online engagement at the Mackinac Center, appeared recently on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS 1320AM in Lansing and on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR 760AM in Detroit to discuss an article he wrote for Michigan Capitol Confidential about how few teachers in Michigan are fired for poor performance.
