A change in state law that eliminates tax credits for charitable donations shouldn’t impact such giving, one Mackinac Center analyst told The Jackson Citizen Patriot.
“I don’t see it having a major impact on giving in the state,” Mike LaFaive, director of fiscal policy, told the paper. “The best anti-poverty program in the world is a good economy.”
A new online database released today by the Mackinac Center allows users to measure several facets of every high school in Michigan, including graduation rates and ACT scores, as compared to the rest of the state, according to The Bay City Times and WEYI-TV25 in Saginaw.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends local newspapers a report on interesting votes and bills in the Michigan Legislature, and how their legislators voted. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
While the price of gas at the pump is still high, it has been steadily dropping across the nation for the past three weeks. Motorists in many areas of Michigan are paying between 50 to 70 cents per gallon less than when gasoline prices were at their peak this past spring. The astonishing response of the federal government to this positive development, as announced by the Obama administration yesterday, is to release 30 million barrels of oil from the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
A new Mackinac Center study shows the 1997 pension reforms for state employees has saved Michigan between $2.3 billion and $4.3 billion, according to The Bay City Times.
“Closing state employees’ traditional pension plan to new employees and placing them in a defined-contribution plan with individual retirement accounts was a considered a dramatic step when the legislation was passed in December 1996,” said Rick Dreyfuss, an adjunct scholar with the Center and an actuary. “But a comparison of the performance of the two plans since then suggests the decision was sound.”
Michael Van Beek, director of education policy, was a guest on WXYZ-TV7 in Detroit recently, discussing his new study on school funding.
The results will “challenge sort of the conventional understanding of how schools are funded and what some of the problems schools face considering their funding and how they spend their money.”
The on again off again expansion of the Marathon Petroleum refinery is on again as reported in a cover story in the Detroit Free Press. According to the Free Press article, the expansion of the Marathon refinery in southwest Detroit is the largest construction project in recent years and will employ 1,300 workers at its peak. This is good news for economically depressed Detroit, both in terms of new jobs and increased tax revenue.
There really is no other way to interpret recent actions by the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board: It is the goal of this administration to muzzle employers who for whatever reason prefer a non-union workforce and who want to make the case to their employees. The quaint notion behind the First Amendment — that people should be able to speak their minds about matters of mutual interest, and that rational debate is useful in a democratic society — would seem to no longer apply in the workplace.
Michigan state Sen. Joe Hune has introduced a bill that would cut state cigarette taxes by $1.00 per pack. If adopted, this would represent a sea change in the thinking behind two cigarette tax hikes over the past nine years, which raised the per-pack tax from 75 cents in 2002 to $1.25 in 2004 and then to $2.00 in 2004. Michigan is currently tied for 11th highest cigarette tax in the nation, making it a target for lucrative smuggling operations. Importantly, Sen. Hune’s Senate Bill 517 would go a long way toward reducing cigarette smuggling and other negative unintended consequences.
When a local, state or federal environmental regulatory agency crosses the line from being an impartial enforcer of laws and regulations to becoming an environmental advocate, both the rule of law and private property rights are in jeopardy. Unfortunately, this happens all too frequently. Many government employees working in environmental agencies often feel they have the right or even responsibility of a higher calling in protecting the environment, even if means adding to or interpreting the law to suit their ends.
Ending billions of dollars in ethanol subsidies should allow the market to determine if the product is viable, a Mackinac Center spokesman told WEYI TV25.
“It doesn’t make sense for them to be shut out of the market if they have a product that works,” Michael Jahr, vice president for communications, told the station. “The problem is, right now it doesn’t.”
An Op-Ed by Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst, and James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, was featured in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press. The commentary, about Gov. Rick Snyder’s agenda and his willingness to take on “political careerists,” was also picked up by the Zanesville Times-Recorder in Ohio, which like the Free Press is owned by Gannett.
The Macatawa Area Express, a publicly funded transit system in Holland, is looking to cut costs, according to the Holland Sentinel, after a Michigan Capitol Confidential story last month exposed the costs of municipal transit agencies.
According to the Sentinel, MAX employees miscalculated and provided Capitol Confidential with incorrect information. The system spends $2.07, not $5.46, to move a passenger one mile.
The president’s letter in the January-February edition of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers newsletter suggests that association members are not primarily motivated by economic self-interest, but are merely active supporters of public safety. He then offered to sell the Mackinac Bridge to potential buyers at an excellent price.
As revealed in Michigan Capitol Confidential last week, a state beer and wine distribution monopoly that successive Legislatures have protected for decades enriches a handful of families (the so-called “Millionaires Club”) at the expense of consumers, taxpayers and small business microbrewers, whose ability to create jobs is also hurt. Over the years legislators have played partner to the distributors, collecting a share of their monopoly profits through steady streams of campaign cash and other benefits.
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.
