A front page article in last Friday's Detroit Free Press touts the opportunity for the Hungarian Mangalitsa pig to add to life to the Michigan hog industry. The Mangalitsa pig is known for its thick lard and tasty flavor and can be found on the menu in trendy restaurants in San Francisco, New York and Chicago. Traverse City businessman Marc Santucci is bringing the tasty pig to Michigan, but his biggest barrier in the long run may not be market acceptance for the new product but rather Michigan's unfriendly regulatory system.
Two Op-Eds by Mike Van Beek, director of education policy, on school employee concessions and how sales tax and lottery money fund public education, appeared in The Oakland Press Friday. Van Beek has written extensively about several commonly held myths surrounding public school funding.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 27, the respected North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) has determined that proposed new federal power plant rules will force the closure of electric generating plants representing 7 percent of America's capacity. These are not the highly controversial carbon dioxide regulate-and-cap rules, but additional ones. They will force electricity consumers to finance the replacement of perfectly good coal plants with more expensive natural gas ones.
Funding will continue in fiscal 2011 for the Michigan Department of Human Services to operate the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
The MHBCCC is the shell corporation created by the state of Michigan and Mott Community College as part of the forced unionization of 40,000 home-based child care owners and operators. The Livingston Daily reported that a proposal to strip the funding was removed during state budget negotiations, and that the agency will have to provide quarterly updates of how it spends the funding.
The average teacher salary in Harbor Beach Community Schools was $58,229 in 2009, second highest in Huron County. Teachers contribute nothing to the cost of their health insurance premiums, which cost the district $19,761 per teacher for a family plan. These are among the highlights in the current collective bargaining agreement negotiated between the district and the local arm of the Michigan Education Association union.
(Editor's Note: This is an updated version of a blog originally posted Oct. 28, 2010, that reflects the most recent decision in this case by the Michigan Court of Appeals.)
For more than a year, the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation (MCLF) has been battling the forced unionization of Michigan's home-based day care owners and providers in the state Court of Appeals. Four times, the appeals court rejected the Foundation's case with the legal equivalent of a wave of the hand.
In his recent article for National Review Online, columnist Michael Barone highlights the influence that government employee unions have over elections. In particular, he spotlights AFSCME and the $87.5 million it plans to contribute to candidates. He then follows the money trail back just a little bit to reveal the real source of government union money and power:
There are a number of popular theories why the American economy is stuck in the doldrums and one in 10 Americans cannot find a job: consumers are not spending enough, the government is not spending enough, the government is spending too much, jobs have gone to China, etc, etc. Arguably, the single biggest drag on economic recovery — overregulation — is not discussed much.
The average teacher salary in Cadillac Public Schools was $55,617 in 2009, and teachers contribute nothing to the cost of their health insurance. The district pays $220 to employees for simply not enrolling in the school health insurance plan. These are among the highlights in the current collective bargaining agreement negotiated between the district and the local arm of the Michigan Education Association union.
Both of Michigan's 2010 gubernatorial candidates favor spending more on higher education. Republican Rick Snyder says we need to "reverse recent trends of under-investing in colleges, universities and community colleges," and Democrat Virg Bernero claims, "Access to higher education is a huge concern."
USA Today notes that a recent article in Michigan Education Digest reports that even though a high percentage of members consider themselves "conservative," the Michigan Education Association has endorsed Democrats in 111 of 114 races statewide.
Michigan Capitol Confidential has more on the issue here and here.
Mackinac Center President Joseph Lehman is quoted in the November 2010 issue of National Review about the upcoming elections, including the possibility of Republicans winning governorships and gaining a majority in state legislatures in a number of states because, as some observers indicate, they are not currently the majority party.
From today's Wall Street Journal, "Where the New Jobs Are":
"According to a new Texas Public Policy Foundation study, Texas experienced a decline of 2.3% from its peak employment, while California fell nearly four times further, with 8.7% of jobs vanishing."
Russ Harding, senior environmental analyst, was featured in a story on using government subsidies to purchase hybrid trucks that appeared on both Michigan Public Radio and National Public Radio recently.
Harding has written about subsidies for hybrid vehicles previously, including here and here. Michigan Capitol Confidential also recently featured this story about the cost of hybrid buses.
The Tax Foundation released its 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index today, and not surprisingly Michigan comes off looking rather mediocre. Our overall ranking is 17th, which may strike some as not too bad given all the dislike for the Michigan Business Tax expressed by both business owners and the politicians who represent them.
The number of school employees for each student in Michigan's public school system has been rising for most of the past 15 years, and stands now at one employee for every eight students. This is surprising given Michigan's declining economy over the last decade and the school establishment's perpetual complaints of being underfunded. But even more startling trends emerge when the data are dissected further.
A new study by Mackinac Center Adjunct Scholar Rick Dreyfuss shows the pension and retiree health care benefits given to public school and other state of Michigan public-sector employees are "out of line" with those offered in the private sector, according to MIRS Capitol Capsule.
As the governor's race heats up, it is refreshing to see an occasional area of agreement between the candidates; especially when the agreement makes good economic sense.
Both major gubernatorial candidates, Rick Snyder and Virg Bernero, have alluded (more than once) that they will not raise taxes and in fact will make business tax cuts.
Environmental groups and other proponents of shifting to renewable energy to power our factories, heat our homes and fuel our vehicles are often the same groups that stand in the way of natural resource development. They don't realize you cannot have one without the other. An article in Sunday's edition of the Detroit Free Press describes how the fledgling alternative energy industry in Michigan is being thwarted by China's control of 90 percent of the world's production of rare earth elements. The production of solar panels and wind turbines requires the use of these elements. According to the Free Press, China's hoarding of rare earth elements caused MasTech to stop production of wind turbines for 10 weeks this past summer at its plant in Manistee because it could not secure a reliable supply of neodymium magnets.
Mike LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, suggests some alternatives for creating jobs after several years of government failure on that front in this Detroit Free Press Op-Ed.
He specifically cites eliminating the Michigan Business Tax, giving Michigan employees Right-to-Work protections and reining in the state's regulatory regime.
An article currently appearing on MichCapCon.org and Mackinac.org describes how 72 of the likely winners in 81 races for open Michigan state House and Senate seats are already members-in-good-standing of the bipartisan political class. These include 61 current or former office-holders, eight current or former political staffers, several relatives of legislators, and others who have been government or school officials or employees.
The Legislature did not meet this week. Because there were no votes, this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
Senate Bill 1531 (Impose new regulations on natural gas “fracking” extraction)
Introduced by Sen. Liz Brater (D) on September 29, 2010, to impose groundwater discharge permit regulations, fees, permit requirements, etc. on the use of "hydraulic fracturing" to extract natural gas. This new technology reportedly has more than doubled the amount of known domestic gas reserves. See also the Brater amendment to Senate Bill 1177, defeated on a party-line vote, which would have banned “fracking” altogether in Michigan. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
In an interview with The Detroit News, gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero said, "One of the reasons we lose kids to the private school system is because of discipline."
"Losing" kids is an interesting way for Bernero to describe families who choose to opt out of the public school system, since he himself was primarily educated at a non-public school, and also chose one for one of his children.
A Saginaw company under fire for problems associated with its application for tax subsidies in Michigan says it will partner with a Colorado company on a solar module project, according to WJRT-TV 12 in Flint.
GlobalWatt has been the subject of controversy since a Mackinac Center investigation found problems with economic development information about the company both in Michigan and in Texas.
There has been very little innovative thinking on energy policy by political leaders in Michigan in recent years. The status of energy policy in the state could best be described as: let's just follow the pack by pursing alternative energy and green jobs. How has that worked out for us? Not very well as Michigan continues to lose population and jobs with the state's unemployment rate the second highest in the nation. Studies coming out of Europe have shown government mandates and subsidies to promote alternative energy come at a high price both in terms of higher energy costs and loss of jobs in other sectors of the economy.
