Businesses throughout the state consistently told former Gov. Jennifer Granholm that obtaining required environmental permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality was an expensive, time consuming and frustrating experience. The former governor refused to make any meaningful regulatory reforms and arguably made matters worse by combining the DEQ and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources into one agency in the waning days of her administration.
Michigan residents opposed to Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget reforms are looking at the situation from the wrong angle, a Mackinac Center analyst told The Wall Street Journal.
“Many of the protesters seem to think the war is between rich and poor,” said Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative. “But the real class war today is between government and the people who pay for it. And the government’s been winning.”
A push by the UAW to regain perks it gave up to help Ford avoid bankruptcy could mean the American automotive industry is “drifting toward the habits” that pushed it toward bankruptcy in the first place, according to Fox News.
Senior Economist David Littmann told Fox, “All the bad habits are going to be on the table for restoration,” including the cost of health care benefits. Littmann also addressed this issue here.
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman in a column for Dome Magazine said that Gov. Rick Snyder thus far has had a “promising debut,” especially on matters of fiscal policy and taxes, but must be “equally strong on regulatory and union matters” for Michigan to succeed.
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, was cited in two national publications over the weekend.
The Washington Times reported on the MEA’s call for an illegal teachers strike. “I don’t think the (Gov.) Snyder administration or school boards can dismiss this as a bluff,” Kersey said. “They (the MEA) are very well-financed and deeply entrenched in the school districts.”
Robert Bobb has faced a multitude of challenges in his two years as emergency financial manager of Detroit Public Schools, a Mackinac Center analyst told the Associated Press.
“He has a school board that has taken him to court — and won; a recalcitrant teachers union that promises to file grievances. Then he has people within Detroit neighborhoods who don’t want to see schools shuttered,” said Michael Van Beek, director of education policy. “There are so many competing interests within the Detroit Public Schools, you kind of have to throw a lot of different stuff against the wall to see what sticks.”
The latest news on the union corruption front, courtesy of our friends at the Department of Labor, Office of Labor-Management Standards…
On Feb.15, 2011, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Deidra Lucas, former president of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 100 (located in Pontiac), was sentenced to time already served (one day) and three years of supervised release. She was also ordered to complete 50 hours of community service and pay restitution of $39,403 and a $100 special assessment. On Oct. 14, 2010, Lucas pled guilty to one count of embezzling $5,283.20 of union funds. The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Detroit District Office.
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.
Robert Striebel, executive vice president of Hart Enterprises in Sparta, was surprised when a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality inspector arrived at the facility unannounced and informed him she was there to do an air quality inspection. Hart Enterprises, which manufactures precision medical devices, is not required to have an air quality permit. Striebel said the DEQ inspector informed him that no complaint had been filed, but “since many larger companies are now out of business they have time to investigate smaller companies.”
The laws that govern the freedom of information and the openness of government proceedings in Michigan create a political environment that “makes the process more fair,” Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, told the Port Huron Times-Herald for a story celebrating Sunshine Week 2011.
New federal statistics call into question the long-held claim that agriculture is Michigan’s second-largest industry.
“Agriculture is nowhere near as big as most Michigan industries,” James Hohman, the Center’s fiscal policy analyst, told The Detroit News. “You drive through the state, you see a lot of agriculture. But when you start adding it up, it doesn’t account for as much as you might expect.”
It’s like clockwork: Whenever a natural disaster strikes, certain economists praise the “silver lining” of this “stimulated demand” and the positive economic effects that are sure to come from this calamity. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami are no exception.
Michigan has extensive forest land totaling nearly 4 million acres in state ownership. There is more federal and state owned land in Michigan than any other state east of the Mississippi River. Forest-related jobs are especially important to the local economies of the northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula — areas with chronically high unemployment. The Department of Natural Resources manages state forest land for recreation and timber production, but more intensive management of state forests by DNR would lead to the creation of badly needed jobs in northern Michigan.
A recent editorial in the Detroit Free Press on Gov. Rick Snyder’s executive budget cites a 2007 study by Andrew Coulson, an adjunct fellow with the Mackinac Center, titled “School District Consolidation, Size and Spending: An Evaluation.”
“There are more potential savings by breaking up large districts than by consolidating smaller ones,” Michael Van Beek, director of education policy for the Center, told the Free Press. Coulson’s study found that the optimal size for a school district is 2,900 students. Gov. Snyder has said school districts can make up the cuts in per-pupil funding by looking at economies of scale. Center analysts have also found that school can save millions of dollars by privatizing noninstructional services.
Politicians claim job creation is a top priority, but political rhetoric does not always reflect reality. Often government actions kill jobs. Nowhere is the negative impact of government regulation on job creation more evident than in the energy sector. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has released a study titled: “Progress Denied: A Study on the Potential Economic Impact of Permitting Challenges Facing Proposed Energy Projects.” The study indicates that stalled energy projects are costing the American economy $1.1 trillion and nearly 2 million jobs.
It was always hard to imagine how this could end well for Wisconsin’s public-sector labor unions. When the senate Democrats there left for Illinois, it was obvious they were stalling, but they were never able to come up with a way to use the time that they bought. They had no ideas or counter-proposals. It is obvious they will have to return to Madison eventually to deal with state business, and when they do the state’s budget deficit and labor union contracts will be waiting for them.
One cannot fault the author of a new proposed amendment to the state constitution that would abolish the state’s civil service commission. The CSC has acted foolishly, ignoring the sensibilities of a solid majority of Michiganders and heaping new burdens on already much-weighed-down taxpayers. By extending benefits to “domestic partners” of state employees, the CSC thumbed its nose at Michiganders who have rejected gay marriage, as well as added to the cost of government. Further, the CSC cancelled a 3 percent employee contribution to health care benefits that was slated to take effect for non-exclusively represented employees.
With the proliferation of laws and regulations passed by federal, state and local governments every year, it is nearly impossible for the average citizen to know if they are in compliance with the law. This regrettable situation is made worse by the recent trend of criminalizing non-compliance with statutes.
The amount of film subsidies given away in Michigan was under-reported by $72 million in 2008 and 2009, according to WDIV-TV4 in Detroit.
The discrepancy was discovered by Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman and broken by Michigan Capitol Confidential.
Union officials continue to complain about losing millions of dollars in “dues” money that was illegally taken from small-business owners over the past few years.
The Michigan Department of Human Services decided last week to end the stealth unionization of home-based day care providers.
A New York Daily News columnist cites Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, in a column today calling for an end to corporate welfare.
“It’s the illusion of job creation,” LaFaive told Bill Hammond. “That’s why politicians like it. Illusion trumps reality in their industry.”
Legislation has been introduced to repeal the state’s prevailing wage law, according to The Saginaw News.
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, testified before the Michigan Legislature recently that the state’s prevailing wage law costs taxpayers an additional $200 million to $250 million a year because the law requires union-scale wages be paid on all construction projects involving public money — even if the lowest bidder is not a unionized company.
Both the Holland Sentinel and Lansing State Journal editorialized in favor of the decision by the Michigan Department of Human Services last week to stop taking illegal “union dues” money out of subsidy checks that home-based day care owners receive on behalf of low-income families.
If there is any doubt about what the real motivation was behind the creation of Child Care Providers Together Michigan, the very first page of the first issue of their newsletter pretty much gave the game away. Right underneath their “welcome new members” blurb is the headline “Dues Payment” and an article explaining how [a]ll providers covered by the contract are to have dues/fair share fees deducted directly from State payments to pay for the cost of representation. We are happy to report that we have made significant progress in our efforts to proceed with dues collection.”
UAW President Bob King has a unique perspective on day care worker “pay cuts.” During a press conference yesterday, King denounced Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration for ending the Department of Human Service’s practice of taking “dues” out of government subsidy payments that low-income families use to pay home-based day care providers. According to the Detroit Free Press, King described the governor’s action as part of an agenda “to destroy the middle class.”
