According to the state constitution, once the Legislature is formally notified of government employee pay raises, it has 60 days to rescind them. That means that the Legislature has until April 10, 37 days from today, in which to cancel out pay increases of 3 percent that the state has negotiated with unions representing its employees.
Daniel Henninger highlighted recently in The Wall Street Journal a book titled "The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America," written in 1991 by Dr. Burton Folsom Jr., senior fellow in economic education for the Mackinac Center.
Two votes in the state Senate on Wednesday may cause residents to question how seriously lawmakers are treating the need to restrain government spending. The first vote was on a resolution rejecting a 3 percent pay hike for unionized state government employees. The total cost of the raise is $77 million. To be fair, a majority of Senators did vote to reject the pay hike, but not enough to attain the two-thirds supermajority required on such measures. (See previous post on this site.)
Excerpts from Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 35, which would have rejected a 3 percent pay hike for unionized state government employees for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2010:
Whereas, The additional cost of these state employee contractual increases to the fiscal year 2010-2011 budget is estimated to be $77.3 million; and
One hates to argue with such a trusted and beloved figure as Kermit the Frog, but nowadays it’s easy to be green — if anything it’s too easy. Witness Ron Gettelfinger’s half-baked argument for green automobile jobs in today’s Detroit News.
The UAW chief tells us that there are 190,000 new automotive-sector jobs about to be created, and we can have them all right here if Republicans and Democrats do…something. What exactly Gettelfinger hopes they will do isn’t spelled out or even hinted at but it probably involves gobs of taxpayer money. That’s a favorite tactic of salesmen who are tasked with moving an expensive product of dubious value: wait as long as possible to mention a price tag.
The forced unionization of home-based day care owners, which the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation is fighting against in Michigan, is spreading to other states.
Michael Jahr, senior director of communications at the Center, told The Daily-Record of Wooster, Ohio, "It appears to be little more than just an effort to refill the ranks of unions that have seen a depletion of members over the years."
The second annual report from the Michigan Film Office shows that $69 million was transferred from Michigan taxpayers to movie makers in 2009, but is sketchy on further details, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
The report mostly promotes the film office and "doesn't sufficiently account for taxpayer dollars," Mike LaFaive, director of the Center's Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told the Livingston Daily.
Another nationally syndicated columnist has written about the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation's fight to end the forced unionization of small business owners.
Marybeth Hicks, writing in The Washington Times and at Townhall.com, details the state of Michigan's shell game that forced some 40,000 home-based day care owners into a union, and the millions of dollars in "union dues" that are now being taken from those owners.
Everyone can agree that Michigan's roads are in need of repair. How to pay for it, however, is another issue.
"We're enthusiastic fans for sound infrastructure, provided it's done cost-effectively," Mike LaFaive, director of the Center's Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told The Grand Rapids Press. LaFaive also told The Kalamazoo Gazette that, "After a lost decade of economic growth, the people of Michigan would be willing to try almost anything to see the government improve service and save money, as long as it's done wisely."
Just when there was hope that Congress might actually be listening to the majority of Americans who do not want higher energy costs through federal cap-and-trade legislation, here comes another attempt by some in Congress to take more money from consumers and kill more American jobs.
According to the Michigan Information & Research Service's Capitol Capsule (subscription required), a new poll by EPIC/MRA shows 57 percent of voters favor a plan that would require government employees to pay 20 percent of the cost of their own health insurance premiums.
Mackinac Center intern Sarah Grether, 21, died in a two-car accident in Midland County Friday night, according to the Midland Daily News.
You can read tributes from her colleagues at the Center here.
Proponents of a tax hike on Michigan residents are using the wrong numbers to support their argument, according to a recent Op-Ed by James Hohman, fiscal policy analyst, in The Dearborn Times-Herald.
Before raising taxes, however, policymakers should take a closer look at how they spend the billions of dollars they already take from Michigan's families and businesses. Hohman explains how in this Oakland Press Op-Ed.
From MichiganVotes.org
2010 Senate Bill 1174 (Rewrite corporate takeover rules for particular insurance company)
Introduced by Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom (R) on February 25, 2010, to rewrite the rules for corporate acquisitions so as to raise obstacles to the acquisition of a controlling interest in the Fremont Insurance Company (which is located in the district of the bill sponsor) by the Indianapolis-based Steak and Shake Corporation. Specifically, the bill would require a two-thirds supermajority of shareholders to vote in favor of the sale if the current board of directors opposes being taken over.
Excuse me for not feeling all warm and tingly after Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced the latest state subsidies for wind and solar manufacturing. The Dow Chemical Co. is a big beneficiary of the state's generosity and is slated to receive $61.3 million in state tax credits over 15 years as an incentive to construct a production facility in Midland to produce solar shingles. Dow will also receive an advanced battery tax credit worth $42 million to help finance its joint effort with Townsend Ventures in producing batteries for hybrid and electric vehicle. Gov. Granholm is placing a big bet with tax payer money that green energy manufacturing is the best hope for Michigan's economic future. Let's hope she is right — however the track record of government officials picking winners in the economic lottery is not good. As this study by Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive and Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman shows, the state does not have a very good track record with this type of gamble. Less than 30 percent of jobs promised by these subsidies ever come to fruition. Furthermore, an econometric analysis showed that every $1 million in MEGA manufacturing tax credits awarded in a given county was associated with the loss of 95 manufacturing jobs in that county.
As this recent story in Michigan Education Report shows, school districts in Michigan are finding it increasingly difficult to pay for the escalating costs of teacher health insurance.
According to Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek, the average health insurance policy for Michigan teachers costs about $15,800, of which teachers on average contribute 4.2 percent toward the premiums. The average Michigan family, on the other hand, pays about $2,500, or 22 percent, toward a policy that costs $11,300. More information on individual school districts can be found in the Michigan School District Health Insurance Database.
State Reps. Pam Byrnes, D-Lyndon Township, and Dan Scripps, D-Leland, are calling for co-sponsorship of legislation that would require that the current renewable energy mandate of 10 percent be increased to between 20 and 30 percent of the electricity produced by utilities in the future. Doubling or tripling the renewable energy mandates for utilities requires that significantly more energy be produced by non-conventional sources such as wind, solar or biomass. Generating electricity from wind or solar is generally more expensive than utilizing conventional fuel sources such as coal or natural gas. The increased cost is passed on to Michigan families and businesses through higher energy bills, which results in less money for consumers to spend and fewer jobs created by business.
Tens of thousands of small-business owners in Michigan could be freed from forced unionization if Senate Bill 1173 becomes law.
Some 40,000 home-based child care operators were shanghaied into a union because they receive subsidy payments on behalf of low-income parents. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Human Services over this very issue.
At the risk of sounding a bit wonky, the Overton Window is an important idea around the Mackinac Center. The concept of the window was developed by, and eventually named after, our late Vice President Joe Overton, who observed that at any given point in time certain political positions were plausible and mainstream while others were considered too extreme — whether conservative or liberal, libertarian or socialist — to be worthy of much discussion. In fact, it can be dangerous to be too closely associated with a cause that lies outside that range.
Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the most recent quarter of its Business Employment Dynamics statistics[*] showing the level of private-sector "job churn" in each state, which is the number of jobs that disappear and the number that are created. They show that from the third quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2009, 778,025 jobs were created in Michigan and 1,144,655 jobs disappeared. Among other things, the figures starkly illustrate just how ineffective the state's economic incentive programs are.
From MichiganVotes.org:
2009 House Bill 5567 (Grant property tax breaks to a particular subdivision)
As is the case with most, if not all, state spending, current resources should be spent more wisely before looking at raising taxes.
That is especially true of the gas tax, which Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh wrote about in an Op-Ed for the Cadillac News. (Scroll to the bottom.)
From MichiganVotes.org:
2010 House Bill 5784 (Mandate "in person" accident and ticket reporting to Secretary of State)
Introduced by Rep. Matt Lori (R) on Feb. 9, 2010, to require individuals involved in a car crash or who get a ticket to report this "in person" within seven days to the Secretary of State, subject to a $500 fine and 93 days in jail for not doing so. The person would have to bring in proof of insurance at the time of the incident, and if the vehicle wasn't insured the Secretary of State would report this to the local police or sheriff.
One can’t help but wonder why they do it. Every couple of weeks, The Detroit News will run some tedious recitation of organized labor’s talking points on its Op-Ed page. The article will be completely predictable: It will not diverge from standard union rhetoric in the slightest, nor will it contain any new information. It will say the most outrageous things, but the outrages will be old outrages that we’ve heard a dozen times before. It will not really address anything pressing. It will read like something from a mediocre union newsletter. In short, it will be a waste of space.
The Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency has performed an initial review of Jennifer Granholm's executive budget recommendation, which reveals that the proposed service tax would increase sales tax revenues by more than $900 million when fully implemented. The revenue would (eventually) be offset by a reduction in business taxes.
