Last night, Channel 2 News in Detroit busted a group of about half a dozen workers at Chrysler's Jefferson North plant drinking and apparently smoking pot during their lunch break. Reporters Bob Wolchek and Huel Perkins got a little riled up and laid it on a little thick with the judgmentalism, but there’s a problem here, all right.
Merit pay didn't raise the test scores of students in Nashville, Tenn., during a three-year period when it was tried in an experiment that ended in 2009. This is the story beneath a raft of "Merit Pay Doesn't Work" headlines attached to news reports around the country this week describing a new study about the limited experiment.
In late 2008, the auto industry was in dire straits. With two companies filing bankruptcy, and another nearly in the same state of affairs, the nation collectively debated what missteps had brought this once powerful pillar of the national economy to its knees. Some argued that excessive executive pay was to blame, while others pointed out the above-market compensation of the average domestic auto employee, especially when health and retirement benefits were factored in. While the real reason consisted of a mixture of both of these shortcomings, the end result was a $700 million taxpayer-funded bailout. In effect, the citizens of the United States undertook the ownership of both General Motors and Chrysler. Since the bailout, both companies began to climb out of bankruptcy, and Chrysler was sold to Fiat.
Mark Adler, a lobbyist for the Michigan Production Alliance, and Carrie Jones, the director of the Michigan Film Office, defended the state's film subsidy program in a Senate Finance Committee meeting today. To do so they employed a long-recognized economic fallacy, the "Broken Window" theory, which only considers economic activity that is "seen" while ignoring unseen economic costs.
The ruling class in Washington and Lansing has determined that for our own good motorists should be driving electric cars. House Bill 6435 would grant a $20,000 credit against the Michigan Business Tax for gas stations that put in public charging points for electric vehicles. Washington has already lavished tax credits of up to $7,000 for purchasing electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and the soon to be released Chevy Volt.
Michigan lawmakers are considering a package of bills that would reverse an anti-competitive energy policy that Mackinac Center scholars warned about in a study more than two years ago, according to The Detroit News.
The Gongwer Michigan Report newsletter that is primarily read by Lansing insiders (subscription required) recently did a story on the status of welfare programs today compared to past recessions. The gist was that cash welfare is much reduced compared to the past, but Medicaid and food stamps are much increased, which generates challenges for both welfare recipients and state policymakers trying to balance the budget.
The Detroit Free Press reports today that Michigan's film subsidy program is "a big loser for Michigan taxpayers," according to a new Senate Fiscal Agency Report.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, pointed that out nearly 18 months ago.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the Michigan Court of Appeals must explain why it rejected a lawsuit regarding the forced unionization of small-business owners, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit a year ago, on Sept. 16, 2009.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report to newspapers and TV stations showing how just the state legislators in each publication's service area voted on the most important and interesting bills and amendments of the past seven days. The version shown here instead contains a link to the complete roll call tally in either the House or Senate. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman addressed the disparity in benefits between the private and public sectors in Michigan as a main reason for the state's economic turmoil at the West Michigan Policy Forum Thursday, according to the West Michigan Business Review.
A federal district judge in Grand Rapids has ruled that a class action lawsuit brought by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation aimed at ending the forced unionization of small-business owners can proceed, according to The Grand Rapids Press.
WKZO AM590 in Kalamazoo and WSJM AM1400 in Lansing both report that privatization of support services in Michigan public schools is up 8 percent over last year.
The reports cite the Mackinac Center's 2010 School Privatization Survey, which Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman said shows nearly half of all districts in Michigan outsource food, custodial or transportation services.
This past Saturday, Sept. 11, there were somber ceremonies, moments of silence and prayers in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terrorist attacks on that date in 2001. American Flags fluttered in abundance — many at half staff — outside homes and businesses throughout the nation.
A Lansing company that received $2 million in state subsidies three years ago is hoping to expand from 12 employees to 14, according to the Lansing State Journal.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm said KTM Industries is a "success" of the 21st Century Jobs Fund, the State Journal reported.
Not to put too much on Mayor Dave Bing, who undeniably inherited a mess when he took over city hall, but with all due respect to his honor 50-mile an hour winds by themselves do not a natural disaster make. They are, to be sure, a challenge, as power lines and trees go down, but cities throughout the country have coped with far worse without the kind of damage that Detroit suffered earlier this week. No, Detroit's latest disaster is a decidedly man-made kind, the product of a city government that has yet to find the formula for recovery, and in particular government employee unions that have yet to suffer consequences that are proportional to their recklessness.
The director of Flint's Mass Transit Authority disagrees with a recent Michigan Capitol Confidential analysis that shows that cities that buy zero-emission or hybrid buses pay too much money for any resulting environmental benefit, but still calls the story "accurate," according to The Flint Journal.
Skepticism surrounds a recent report from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. that claims its "21st Century Jobs Fund" helped "save or retain" 20,000 jobs in the last five years, according to WOOD-TV8 in Grand Rapids.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, has analyzed MEDC claims of job creation, while one state senator has said the agency's press releases "are an absolute disconnect with reality."
A frightening report from the first day of school in Detroit describes how two students were shot on their way home from Mumford High School. Thankfully, both appear to be OK.
Also disturbing is the contrast between this event and the broader assessment made by a school district spokesperson contained in the same news story, published in The Detroit News: "Overall, this has been one of the most successful opening days in recent history." There's no doubt the official meant well, but one nevertheless hopes that this isn't the definition of success in the Detroit Public Schools.
The Detroit Free Press reports that a pending state budget deal for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1 will match expected revenue to desired spending by means of across-the-board cuts in department administration, a tax amnesty program, and an early retirement pension-sweetener for state employees. It contains no systemic reforms or program reductions. Meanwhile, with the end of federal stimulus subsidies, revenue projections for the following fiscal year fall off a cliff.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm's "Cool Cities" initiative has not done much to help the working middle class. Joel Kotin, a professor at Chapman University, sheds light on what is happening in American cities in an article appearing in "The American" titled "Urban Plight: Vanishing Upward Mobility." Mr. Kotin points to a Brookings Institution study that found that New York City and Los Angeles have the smallest share of middle-income neighborhoods of all American cities. The Brookings Institution found that in 2007, Manhattan ranked first in social inequality, with the top 20 percent earning over 50 times more than the bottom 20 percent, a gap similar to Namibia's.
Last Sunday, The Grand Rapids Press released a new study on the likely effects of a right-to-work law on Michigan’s economy as part of its ongoing “Michigan 10.0” series. Dr. Hari Singh, an economics professor at Grand Valley State University, wrote the paper, which focused on the automotive industry. Singh’s paper looks over some of the academic literature surrounding the issue, including two Mackinac Center studies.
An annual survey of nationwide employee health insurance costs contains good news for employers: The average premium increased by only 3 percent in 2010 — much less than in previous years.
Unfortunately, the good news doesn't extend to this state's public schools. Nearly $2 billion is extracted from Michigan taxpayers to provide health insurance to school employees, or $1,300 per pupil, and the rise in these costs shows no sign of slowing.
A recent Michigan State University study about school consolidation should be ignored both because of plagiarism issues and because its methodology is flawed, according to an Op-Ed by Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek in Sunday's Lansing State Journal.
