Related to “Obamacare’s Michigan Collaborators” posted here last week, Americans for Tax Reform has created a “Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare.” This adds another wrinkle to the “collaborate vs. resist” discussions state lawmakers are currently having.
A Wall Street Journal editorial cites research by Mackinac Center Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek that shows average teacher pay in Michigan from 2003 to 2009 was tops in the nation compared to relative state wealth.
You can read more about teacher salaries here, here and here.
The House and Senate met this week to elect officers and adopt rules, but took no votes on legislation. Because there were no votes, this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
House Joint Resolution C (Extend term limits)
Introduced by Rep. Sharon Tyler (R), to place before voters in the next general election a Constitutional amendment to revise the term limits on legislators. Currently, representatives may only serve three terms of two-years each, and senators may only serve two terms of four-years each. The bill would allow legislators to mix-and-match these House and Senate terms in any combination for a total of not more than 14 years in the legislature. The measure is cosponsored by Reps. Greg MacMaster, Peter MacGregor, Al Pscholka, Matt Lori, Kevin Cotter, Kenneth Kurtz, Mike Shirkey, Mike Callton, Ken Yonker, Gail Haines, Hugh D. Crawford, Kurt Damrow, and Wayne A. Schmidt, all Republicans. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
Elections do have consequences. MIRS reports that Michigan House Democrats in their first press conference for the 96th Legislature called for the creation of clean coal-fired power plants as one of their top three priorities. House Minority Leader Richard Hammel and House Democrats should be applauded for breaking with former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the environmental lobby, who have launched a war on energy by consistently opposing the use of coal to generate electricity. The Obama administration has initiated a series of Environmental Protection Agency rulemakings that will make coal-fired power plants much more expensive to operate, causing energy costs to increase for both businesses and consumers.
Business owners are cheering a proposal in Lansing to repeal and reform the Michigan Business Tax and the 22 percent surcharge that comes with it, according to WJRT-TV12 in Flint.
Mike LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy, provides this analysis, which shows repealing the surcharge would create nearly 28,000 through 2016.
Lobbyists for deep-pocketed, politically well-connected health care interests are already pressing for Michigan to create an ObamaCare insurance “exchange.” In a recent Mackinac Center Op-Ed published by the Detroit Free Press, scholar John Graham explains why this is a bad idea:
Earlier this week, on its last day of session, a lame-duck Illinois Legislature passed a 67-percent income tax increase, along with large business and corporate tax hikes. The measure was approved by just a single vote, and was shrouded in backroom deals and payoffs to constituency groups across the board. The Chicago Tribune’s lead editorial the following day had a short headline: “Goodbye, Jobs.”
A Boston Globe columnist cites this blog post by Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, in discussing the pitfalls of binding arbitration for public-sector unions. As Kersey also notes, the issue is gaining attention from several governors.
Michigan voters in 1984 approved amending the state Constitution requiring that oil, gas and mineral lease and royalty payments be placed into a trust fund creating the Natural Resource Trust Fund. The legislature then passed Public Act 101 of 1985 to implement the new amendment.
The Bay City Times and The State News are both reporting that Michigan does not rank first in the country for outward migration for the first time since 2005.
The data put out by United Van Lines shows Michigan is now No. 2 nationally, with 62.5 percent of all moves made by the country involving outbound traffic. Mike LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy, analyzes the UVL report here.
One suspects that the vast majority of workers are at least vaguely aware of their right to organize. Nonetheless, the National Labor Relations Board, apparently desperate to drum up business for unions and work for itself, intends to issue new regulations that would force employers to post notices informing workers that they do, indeed, have a right to organize.
It’s probably no coincidence that the first bill (HB 4001) introduced in Michigan’s new Legislature is to repeal the 21.99 percent surcharge slapped onto the Michigan Business Tax in 2007. The surcharge is despised by the business community, and is seen as a job killer by policy analysts and politicians alike.
A story in the Jan. 10 edition of the MIRS Capitol Capsule reports that, according to the National Institute of Corrections, Michigan spends more than $5,200 more to lock up a prisoner for a year than the national average. Also, nearly 29 percent of the state workforce is employed by the Department of Corrections, and it will absorb 23.1 percent of the current year’s general fund budget. This is hardly new information.
Early indications are that our new governor is acting boldly and wisely in his attempt to right size Michigan’s fiscal ship. That’s good news, and he should be applauded, in part due to the fact that he will need the moral support. Why? The budget is in worse shape than even he and members of the media have probably fathomed. I’m not the first budget analyst to notice this, but I may be the first to say it out loud.
The 10 Kent County school districts that broke state law by including illegal language in their union contracts have announced they hired one attorney to represent all them, according to WOOD-TV.
The districts, which are being sued by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation on behalf of five Kent County taxpayers, included “no-privatization” clauses in their contracts. Michigan law states that privatization of non-core functions, such as food, janitorial or transportation services, is not subject to collective bargaining.
Ten years ago this month the Mackinac Center mailed a special, 28-page, full-color, Detroit-specific edition of Michigan Privatization Report to editors across Michigan. We had recently completed a comprehensive review of the city’s budget, and were deeply concerned by what it revealed.
Two Mackinac Center analysts were guests on WFNT-AM1470 in Flint recently.
Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, discussed Loar v. DHS, a lawsuit he filed on behalf of three women who are attempting to fight the illegal, forced unionization of 40,000 home-based day care providers. The case is now before the Michigan Supreme Court.
In this Dec. 23, 2010 blog post, Russ Harding predicted the Chevy Volt would win the Car of the Year award at the North American International Auto Show — for a variety of reasons. The announcement was made today.
Last year the Mackinac Center reported that for the first time since April 2006, Michigan did not have the nation's highest unemployment rate (Nevada beat us out).
The still-bad-but-not-worst-possible news continues: For 2010 — the first time since 2005 — another state (New Jersey) has beat out Michigan in the annual United Van Lines ranking of state outbound migration.
As Americans celebrate the 196th anniversary of the most decisive day during the Battle of New Orleans, the causes of war are becoming obscure and bear remembering. By 1812, the British had effectually denied the rights of trade, neutrality and legitimate nationhood to the United States. Great Britain decided to search American trade vessels for goods sold to Napoleonic France and seize American shipmen to fight in the English war against France under the charge that they were really deserted Englishmen. The very survival of the United States rested on the principles of free trade, and upon these grounds it would stand or fall.
Because the War of 1812 is now shrouded in myth, a return to the original source material is necessary to understand America’s perspective in the early 19th century. President James Madison’s address to Congress explains decisively the British atrocities committed against American shipmen, the frontier and the federal government. Madison reminded Congress that the British in seizing American shipmen on neutral American trade vessels without “the exercise of a belligerent right founded on the law of nations against an enemy,” were acting on the “municipal prerogative” of British subjects and putting Americans under British jurisdiction. Britain, in applying their own domestic rules to the open sea, was violating America’s just claim as a legitimate nation to traverse the seas according to the law of nations. In so arguing, Madison assumed that free trade determined the international existence of a nation. Without free trade, a nation is being denied nationhood. Although strange to modern ears, Madison believed this atrocity jeopardized America’s political existence.
Then, Madison transitioned from general to particular evils. American shipmen being seized for British military service were not given a trial before a tribunal to prove that they were Americans according to laws of war, and were instead subjected to the whims of British commanders. These Americans were deprived of their country and all that they held dear, while being forced on board British naval ships to fight the wars of the very people who had abducted them. The repeated petitions of the American government were met with indifference. Madison further related how, under British orders, British ships swarmed the American coasts, ignoring American territorial jurisdiction and hindering American importation and exportation. The British would only repeal these orders if France repealed certain domestic and international decrees not exclusively relevant to the United States. Madison concluded from this that the loss of American commerce was not based upon the war rights of Britain, but upon British attempts at monopoly beneficial to its own commerce. In other words, the conflict was between British monopolization and American free trade of the seas.
Transitioning from the Atlantic to the American Western frontier, Madison added that the frontier atrocities of Native Americans against United States citizens were supported and supplied by British garrisons and tradesmen. Regarding the brutal nature of these attacks, he called the aggression “a warfare which is known to spare neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity.”
Madison concluded, “We behold ... on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Great Britain.” Would America defend its liberty or allow Britain to usurp it?
President Madison’s war proposition was given over to the Foreign Relations Committee headed by John C. Calhoun. Calhoun, who addressed the House of Representatives on June 3, 1812, with a request for war. Echoing the arguments and sentiments of Madison, Calhoun declared, “from this review of the multiplied wrongs of the British Government since the present war, it must be evident to the impartial world, that the contest which is now forced on the United States, is radically a contest for their sovereignty and independence.” Given the choice between recognizing an already-existing war or giving up independence, Congress declared war on the same day.
Michigan is faced with a financial crisis due to a projected budget overspending crisis approaching $2 billion for this fiscal year. It is understandable that a newly elected governor and Legislature are preoccupied with stopping the fiscal bleeding. Republican leaders are arguing that the state budget can be balanced with spending cuts. Democratic leaders are arguing that spending cuts alone are too drastic and will result in an unacceptable reduction in state services and that cuts must be accompanied by revenue increases – political speak for tax increases.
Michigan’s local governments face fiscal challenges in 2011. The state already has a pretty good policy in dealing with its local units as their finances are stressed, but this policy should be improved in a few ways so that local governments continue to be solvent as taxable property values fall and spending pressures increase.
Saginaw County officials have quietly buried a previously scheduled vote to repeal its “prevailing wage” ordinance for construction projects costing more than $50,000. Prevailing wage laws prohibit granting a government contract to the lowest bidder unless the company pays above-market, “union-scale” wages. In addition to state and federal prevailing wage laws, around 30 local governments across Michigan have their own version.
An editorial in today’s Detroit News that calls on Gov. Rick Snyder to reform Michigan’s regulatory regime cites a recent study by Russ Harding, senior environmental analyst, titled “Environmental Regulation in Michigan: A Blueprint for Reform.”
Among Harding’s proposals that The News cited were creating an agency independent from the DNR and DEQ to handle permit applications and an assurance to businesses that those applications will be treated in a timely manner.
In his first executive order, Gov. Rick Snyder has split the Department of Natural Resources and Environment back into two separate agencies. His action restores the organization of state government dealing with natural resources and the environment into two separate agencies; recreating the Departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources.
