Final Report of Stakeholder Work Group Recommendations
June 17, 2011
INTRODUCTION
When the state sought proposals to carry out a Health Insurance Exchange planning process, its RFP included a requirement that public input be obtained through a work group process. The RFP directed the formation of five work groups and broadly laid out the issues that should be considered by each group. The work groups are:
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report on interesting votes and bills in the Michigan Legislature, and includes how each legislator voted. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
The high-speed rail project on the Blue Line between Port Huron and Chicago could more accurately be called slow-speed rail after the announcement by Norfolk Southern that it will limit speeds along the route. The company said it will only pay for maintenance on the track to handle trains traveling between 25 and 60 miles per hour. Oh well, the so-called high-speed rail project funded by $200 million of federal subsidies was never very fast anyway, with the most optimistic predictions of cutting travel time between Pt. Huron and Chicago by only 30 minutes.
For Terry Bowman, the decisive moment came when his union, UAW Local 898, ran an article in its newsletter arguing that Jesus would have supported Obamacare. The realization that his union dues were being used for politics — aggressive big-government politics at that — eventually led Bowman to create a new organization called "Union Conservatives."
Bonuses Delta College is giving staff members that will cost about $400,000 raise serious questions, Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh told The Bay City Times today. The bonuses come after budget cuts and a tuition increase.
“Whenever budget cuts are on the legislative agenda we hear from local governments and the education establishment that they have ‘cut to the bone,’” McHugh said. “Among other things, decisions like this raise serious questions about those kinds of claims.”
The House Committee on Regulatory Reform took testimony yesterday on House Bill 4326, sponsored by Jeff Farrington, R-Utica, which would prohibit state agencies from promulgating or adopting a rule more stringent than the applicable federal standard unless specifically authorized by statue. Several environmental and labor groups testified against the bill, claiming it would roll back environmental protection, according to a report in MIRS.
A Detroit News editorial today cites research by Mackinac Center analysts regarding the state Liquor Control Commission and what The News refers to as a system that is “archaic and anti-competitive.”
More information about how the state’s three-tier distribution system can be found here and here.
Communications Specialist Kathy Hoekstra, guest hosting on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR AM760, talked with Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-DeWitt, about the “administrative state,” and legislation under consideration to stop non-elected bureaucrats from usurping the Legislature’s decision-making power.
Gov. Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature believe the state is being required to pay more than its fair share for regional power grid upgrades. The state’s two major utilities, along with the governor and Legislature, have taken the unusual step of appealing to the federal government to overturn the cost allocation scheme that the state had previously agreed to.
It was announced Friday that the city of Pontiac, currently being run by a state-appointed emergency financial manager, was seeking to merge with Oakland County as one way to solve its fiscal problems. Oakland County Executive Brooks Patterson indicated that a merger would not be legally possible, leaving open the very real possibility of a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy for the city.
A plan by Mackinac Center scholars to privatize the University of Michigan written some seven years ago was cited in a Washington Examiner Op-Ed regarding a similar idea for the University of New Hampshire.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report on interesting votes and bills in the Michigan Legislature, and includes how each legislator voted. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
A budget crisis provides an opportunity for state park officials to be innovative — a lesson I learned as a state government manager, including a stint as chief of Michigan State Parks.
Government bureaucracy is resistant to change and it is almost impossible to employ innovative management strategies as long as money is flowing into government coffers. Government managers are often besieged by special interest groups and unions who have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. State parks should be managed not to placate special interests but instead with a customer-driven focus.
Gov. Snyder’s budget and tax reforms mean he is willing to take on political careerists at the expense of his own political future, according to an Op-Ed written by Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman and Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh that appears in the Detroit Legal News.
The Flint Journal is reporting on a story that first appeared in Michigan Capitol Confidential about teachers in Linden receiving automatic pay increases as per their contract, even though that contract is expired.
House Bill 4152, which has passed both the House and Senate and awaits Gov. Snyder’s signature, would establish that when a government employee union contract has expired and no replacement has been negotiated, any seniority-based automatic pay hikes for individual employees (“step increases”) may not occur.
In “The NAACP vs. Black Schoolchildren,” Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn writes today about a clash in Harlem, which is relevant to public school funding fights here in Michigan. The dispute is over a lawsuit in which the teachers union and the NAACP are trying to shut down several low-income charter schools in New York City, in the process raising the ire of thousands of black parents and their school-age children.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis this morning released new state gross domestic product figures and noted in its press release that through 2010, the ongoing economic recovery appeared widespread. Michigan’s 2009-2010 state GDP growth rate was 2.9 percent, its best since 2002 and 15th best in the country. In the Midwest, the state was surpassed only by Indiana, which grew the third fastest in the country.
Lansing Township officials have taken actions to become real estate developers — a risky proposition for local taxpayers. According to the Lansing State Journal, developers have passed at the opportunity to add retail space and parking near the Eastwood Towne Center north of Lansing. Local government officials, however, seem more than willing to risk taxpayer money on the chancy development scheme.
There is a curious attitude in some quarters that holds that government redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to certain business investors is somehow morally superior to skipping the redistribution but allowing businesses in general to keep more of what they earn.
New market information indicates that the Environmental Protection Agency’s war on energy waged through an onslaught of new rulemakings to limit emission of CO2 is going to be expensive for American households and businesses. Critics of the unilateral rulemaking efforts of the EPA have predicted that energy costs will increase due to new government regulation, while administration officials, environmentalists and other supporters of the new EPA rules have argued the costs will be minimal.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report on interesting votes and bills in the Michigan Legislature, and includes how each legislator voted. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
It is going to take massive reductions across all areas of government spending if America hopes to avoid a future sovereign debt crisis. Ending energy subsidies for both conventional and alternative energy would shave hundreds of billions of dollars off the federal government’s perpetually red balance sheet.
Jason Gillman over at Right Michigan has stumbled across an interesting piece of internal union business.
In a letter sent out May 24, Executive Director Mel Grieshaber asked Michigan Corrections Organization members to “self-identify” (quotations in original) so that the union could “know more readily who to call to see if you’re available to participate in a targeted effort.” The letter referred to earlier surveys of MCO members, along with union town hall meetings and prison tours. Attached was a form asking members to indicate their political party and strength of partisan loyalty, listing seven categories. MCO Assistant for Government Affairs Jeremy Tripp declined to confirm or deny the authenticity of the letter and the party ID form, both of which can be viewed here.
In The Detroit News today, Daniel Howes writes, “In less than two years, General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC morphed from bankrupt basket cases rescued by the feds into profitable automakers with new leadership, re-energized product lines and expanding work forces.” While the Detroit 3 are now profitable and optimistic, it may be premature to say that they have expanding workforces. While auto jobs are no longer being lost at their decade-long steady pace, clear job gains have yet to be prevalent.
The Michigan League of Human Services has published a new report explaining that a single parent with one preschool child and one in school would have to earn nearly $52,000 annually to attain the organization’s definition of “economic security over a lifetime and across generations.” The Lansing State Journal’s headline writer helpfully promotes one item on the League’s policy agenda by titling an AP story about the report: “Minimum wage not enough in Michigan.” A more accurate headline might read, “Single parenthood unaffordable in Michigan.”
