An Op-Ed that appeared in both The Hammond Times and Evansville Courier-Press today cites a Mackinac Center scholar and a Center study.
The Op-Ed says that Richard Vedder, an adjunct scholar with the Center and a professor of economics at Ohio University, testified before the Indiana General Assembly last week that “right-to-work states have higher rates of employment, productivity and personal income growth.”
The Flint Journal today is reporting on a story that first broke in Michigan Capitol Confidential about attempts by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to keep a “green” bus company afloat after giving Fischer Coachworks a $1.6 million subsidy.
Right-to-work opponents have long claimed that such laws are not worker friendly. Mark Gaffney, president of AFL-CIO, reiterated this claim in his July 20th Op-Ed in The Detroit News with the moniker right-to-work (for less). But his claims are just plain wrong.
An Op-Ed by Michael LaFaive on Michigan’s three-tier liquor distribution system appeared in the Detroit Free Press Sunday. LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, calls for an end to the state’s monopolistic distribution system, which increases costs for consumers.
D. Joseph Olson, a founding member and chairman of the board of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, will be inducted into the Michigan Insurance Hall of Fame later this month, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
Olson, a Brighton native, served as state insurance commissioner from 1995 to 1997 and retired in 2008 as vice president of government relations from Amerisure Insurance Co.
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. The House and Senate are in the midst of a summer break, so rather than votes this week’s report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has intervened on behalf of a graduate student research assistant at the University of Michigan who objects to an illegal attempt to be unionized, according to the Detroit Free Press, the Hawaii Reporter, Washington Examiner, Livingston Daily Press & Argus, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Michigan Daily, the Ashville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and AnnArbor.com.
A multi-million dollar investment heavily subsidized by Wayne County that a Mackinac Center expert warned against more than a year ago has come under fire by auditors, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Wayne County “botched” the $32.5 million project, called an "Aerotropolis," the Free Press reported, and “bookkeeping for the project was so shoddy that auditors couldn’t accurately tally the jobs” created. Jobs that were counted included “UPS delivery persons” and people working at hardware stores.
(Editor's note: This was written in preparation for the Mackinac Center's celebration of "Friedman Legacy for Freedom Day," taking place Friday, July 29, 2011 at the Henry Ford Museum.)
On the bookshelf of an average American patriot, it would be more common to see a collection of Ronald Reagan biographies than books on the life of Milton Friedman. Ask a person on the street who they think holds the most power in America and you have a good chance of hearing “the president.” However, the president is a single man whose power is limited by checks, balances and, depending on his character, his personal desire for re-election. One free man with an idea can prove influential and limitless without holding public office. Milton Friedman was that man.
A Mackinac Center analyst says it is “harmful meddling” for legislators to introduce a bill that would ban employers from considering the current employment status of prospective job seekers, according to The Detroit News.
“Politicians are forever sticking their noses into the business of business,” Mike LaFaive, director of fiscal policy, told The News. “It’s a slippery slope toward the next onerous mandate.”
The number one weather-related killer in the United States is not hurricanes or tornadoes, but rather heat waves. The elderly and poor without central air conditioning in their homes are most vulnerable to the inevitable periods of hot weather experienced in much of the country during summer months. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under the direction of Lisa Jackson, has launched an all-out war on coal fired power plants, the results of which could be deadly during heat waves.
The draft legislative resolution below* opposing the creation of a state Obamacare insurance “exchange” is on the agenda for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual meeting next week. Members of ALEC’s Health and Human Services Task Force will take up the measure, and could vote to make it an official ALEC model for legislatures around the country to consider adopting.
A recent Detroit News editorial calling for more disclosure of campaign spending by beer and wine wholesalers cites Capitol Confidential on the matter, which covered it here and here.
An editorial in The Detroit News today calls on the state government’s employees to come to the bargaining table to offer concessions. It cites an analysis from University of Michigan economist Don Grimes that showed public-sector compensation increasing from $43,450 to $62,237 in the past decade, much higher than private-sector growth. But the state government compensation imbalance is worse than this.
The teacher tenure and teacher evaluation reforms signed into law this week by Gov. Rick Snyder significantly revise the school staffing process. Among other changes, layoffs and recalls will no longer be based solely on seniority, and schools will have to use teacher effectiveness as a guide in making these staffing decisions.
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. The House and Senate are in the midst of a summer break, so rather than votes this week’s report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
The notion that public-sector wages are lower than private-sector wages is an oft-repeated claim, but one that has trouble standing up to reality. In addition, the comparisons can get complicated.
In an essay in the National Affairs journal, scholar Daniel DiSalvo provides evidence that public-sector workers in lower-wage jobs are paid more than their private-sector counterparts. For example, nationwide data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that government office clerks average $27,000 a year in salary, versus $23,000 in the private sector. Janitors’ wages show similar trends: $23,000 in the public sector compared to $20,000 in the private sector. (Public school and local government janitors earn even more, coming in at more than $28,000 on average nationwide.)
The New Jersey Offshore Wind Economic Development Act turns out to be more like the “perfect storm” for that state’s economy — news that does not bode well for supporters of developing an industrial wind park in Lake Michigan. The Beacon Hill Institute has released a cost-benefit study that concludes that off-shore wind development in New Jersey will cost jobs and hurt the state’s economy.
Government does not ultimately create jobs, as government programs must rely on capital taken from the economy, preventing it from being utilized by more efficient private market forces. However, government policies certainly do impact job creation, sometimes positively, but more often negatively. Examples of job-killing policies abound at all levels of government. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's war on energy through a proliferation of rules aimed at putting coal-fired power plants out of business is driving up energy costs, with the effect of taking money out of consumers' pockets and leading to fewer jobs. The latest assault on coal-fired power plants is an EPA rulemaking so strict in limiting mercury emissions that it will likely result in the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants around the nation.
On April 20, 1995, three firms were selected by state bureaucrats and political appointees to be the first “winners” of a new discriminatory tax break program championed by Gov. John Engler, the “Michigan Economic Growth Authority.” One of those firms, Waldenbooks, better known today as Borders, announced Monday afternoon that it will close its doors forever and liquidate its assets. Borders is hardly the first MEGA “winner” to come out a loser, but perhaps it’s the most noteworthy.
An editorial in today’s Detroit News calls for an end to the forced unionization of private-sector employees who receive money for performing state-subsidized services, a cause the Mackinac Center has championed for nearly two years.
More needs to be done, however, as the editorial points out: Some 40,000 home health aides continue to be trapped in an illegal union scheme, much like tens of thousands of home-based day care providers were until recently.
An Op-Ed by Russ Harding, senior environmental analyst, about the high cost and low job productivity of so-called “green energy” was featured on the editorial page of Sunday’s Detroit Free Press.
In the piece, Harding calls on the Michigan Legislature to rescind the state’s renewable energy portfolio, which he says will drive up costs for consumers and hinder economic growth.
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. Because the legislature did not meet this week, rather than roll call vote results this report presents a sampling of recently proposed state laws.
Yesterday, the Government Accountability Office released a list of contracts worth more than $700 million awarded to consultants to “assist in implementing” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.
One Michigan organization, the Physicians Health Plan of Mid Michigan, received two contracts totaling $23.4 million, for which it has already been paid $1.8 million.
This week it was revealed that the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest government employee union, is actively involved in recall campaigns targeting Gov. Rick Snyder and many Republican legislators. Reportedly, the union is spending money and encouraging its members to participate in the recalls, which are based on bills passed this year that modestly trimmed union power and government employee benefits.
