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.”
About eight minutes into his interview on Frank Beckmann's show yesterday, Cato fellow and Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore expounded on the need for a Michigan right-to-work law:
I do a report every year with Arthur Laffer, the famous Reagan economist, called "Rich States, Poor States," where we rank the states from the most competitive to the least competitive. And Michigan was always, at best, in the middle of the pack. I think this will raise Michigan's competitiveness. You know, before you did this reform, as you know, Frank, Michigan had some of the highest taxes on small businesses of any state in the country, and I think this will make it a much more equitable system, much more pro-growth and will bring jobs.
A new study by Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek details the revenues and expenditures of every Michigan public school district over the last seven years and finds that schools in larger cities spend more per pupil than their rural counterparts, according to WSJM AM1400 in St. Joseph.
Research about health insurance for public school teachers by Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek is highlighted in today’s Livingston Daily Press & Argus editorial.
Van Beek found that in about half of the plans offered statewide, teachers pay nothing toward the cost of their own health insurance premiums, and that teachers pay an average of about 4 percent toward their premiums compared to 22 percent for the average Michigan employee.
Gongwer New Service reported last week that a new BlueGreen Alliance “Jobs21 Initiative” has been formed. The BlueGreen Alliance is comprised of labor and environmental activists who will promote green jobs as the promised path to economic prosperity. That’s bad news for Michigan workers because the BlueGreen Alliance has more to do with liberal politics than job creation.
Flint schools could save close to $4 million annually through extensive privatization of noninstructional services, according to The Flint Journal.
The Journal cited research by Center scholars that found 12 of 21 school districts in Genesee County outsourced food, transportation or custodial services. Statewide, nearly half of all public school districts do the same.
Today’s Detroit News editorial cites research by Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek and notes that “Schools aren’t hurting for money.”
Van Beek found that per-pupil spending for Michigan’s public schools was $11,661 in 2010, which is an all-time high.
A recent Michigan Capitol Confidential story about a Michigan school superintendent who wrote to Gov. Rick Snyder asking that his school be turned into a prison was cited by CNN.
The Bay City Times also wrote about the issue.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report on important or 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.
Beating a self-imposed deadline by five days, the Michigan Legislature has passed a state budget with many notable spending cuts and an overall tax cut. The most significant and far-reaching change was to eliminate the Michigan Business Tax, replacing it with a much less complex and burdensome 6 percent Corporate Income Tax.
Some 88,000 people left Michigan in 2009, according to The Detroit News, a development that Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive finds troubling.
“We’ve long been mortified at Michigan’s losses,” LaFaive told The News. “Every person who leaves may potentially be the next Berry Gordy or Will Kellogg.”
