I apologize for taking so long to respond to Ron Gettelfinger’s article in last Thursday’s Detroit News. I have to tell you I’ve really struggled with it. My first response was a six-page rant, but then I came to think that I might have done just as well with a simple “whatever.” ThenI realized I needed to come up with something in between, so I’ll do my best. Just understand there are multiple layers of inanity behind Gettelfinger’s words. Start to pry beneath any of it and you risk hours of frantically trying to document the stuff he gets wrong only to realize you’re just scratching the surface.
Fox News aired a segment by John Stossel titled "Whose Business is it Anyway?" Thursday afternoon on "Shepard Smith's Studio B," about the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation's lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Human Services over the forced unionization of home-based day care providers. MCLF Director Patrick J. Wright was interviewed for the taped piece.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm introduced a series of tax hikes today to raise more revenue to cover its overspending. But adding a tax hike would increase the revenue to a system that's already giving Lansing more revenue than typical among states.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm presented her executive budget today. In it, she argues that Michigan needs to raise taxes in the over the next few years because its revenues are far below its constitutional revenue limit. She states, "The gap has grown as a result of the economic downturn and is anticipated to widen further as currently enacted tax changes take effect in the next several years."
Former Libertarian Senate candidate and party chairman Michael Corliss is apparently confused by my recent commentary on the Michigan Education Association and its efforts to scuttle reform proposals passed by the state Legislature, so much so that he thinks he’s in “Bizarro World.” The confusion is understandable — politics does sometimes make for odd sleeping arrangements — but Corliss, an MEA member, misses the main point and in the process makes the very political and very leftish MEA into some sort of free-market, small-government ally, which is truly bizarre.
In her State of the State address last week, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm listed the reasons why she believes the state's economy has fallen. "We all know the reasons — trade policies that dismantled factories here and built them in Mexico, the auto industry in meltdown, the banking crisis, the mortgage crisis, and on top of all that, a severe national recession." While the latter reasons may have played their part, company and job relocation to Mexico has been the least of Michigan's problems. Furthermore, trade with Mexico has actually been a bright spot for the state.
Wesley Reynolds, Mackinac Center operations intern, writes about President William Henry Harrison to commemorate the 237th anniversary of his birth at Landmarks of Liberty.
Members of a panel discussion on WXYZ TV's "Spotlight on the News" program agreed that Gov. Jennifer Granholm's final State of the State address last week was well-delivered, but lacked substance.
Ken Braun, managing editor of Capitol Confidential Daily, said less emphasis should be put on the annual address because it doesn't contain budget information. The governor's budget proposal, due Feb. 12, is where the focus belongs, he said.
The following is a lightly edited excerpt from an e-mail recently sent to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy by a front-line worker in the state's welfare department:
"... [Meanwhile,] we employees have sacrificed pensions, furlough days, raises, health benefit deductibles, layoffs, early retirements and mental health for sake of the State, but the hole just gets bigger. Now they want to cut the retiree benefits? ... This should be the time when the Baby Boomers are uniting to heal the nation; instead, we are a flood of forgotten voices who have allowed our generation to be passed over."
Is Detroit’s economic plight a bellwether for the nation? “Detroitification,” a phrase coined by my colleague, Jack McHugh, is defined as the hollowing out of the private economy to prop up unsustainable (and often unresponsive) government establishments. Is this an apt description of Washington’s policies?
The president of the Michigan Education Association stated on the radio recently that school employees have "given and given and given and given." Comparing teacher salaries to personal income demonstrates that the taxpayers who pay for teacher salaries have "given" a lot more.
Lou Schimmel, a Mackinac Center adjunct scholar, has been appointed to a committee that will investigate whether the city of Pontiac should contract with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office for police services or maintain its own department.
The Oakland Press in this editorial said "We are confident he will keep an open yet fair mind in evaluating the data."
Even though the state Legislature voted to defund the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council in the current budget, the agency is still operating, and the Department of Human Services, which oversees the MHBCCC, won't tell the Legislature where the money is coming from.
The same forced unionization problem the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation is battling on behalf of home-based day care owners is now stirring up controversy in the in-home health care provider field.
MCLF Director Patrick J. Wright told the Livingston Daily that allowing state agencies to dictate who is or isn't a public-sector union member is bad precedent.
Even when Gov. Jennifer Granholm picks winners and losers, the winners get knifed in the back.
In her State of the State address Wednesday night, the governor divined six business sectors she says will "transition us to a new economy that's only beginning to emerge." One of those sectors is biotech, which the governor has targeted with state subsidies that, she says, will give Michigan a "competitive advantage" by "diversifying our economy." And she crowed about "33 new life sciences companies" in Kalamazoo created with state assistance.
Regardless of whether Michigan receives a share of federal education money under the "Race to the Top" program, new legislation in Michigan could help improve education by opening the door for more charter public schools and using student achievement as a starting point for teacher merit pay.
Controversy continues to swirl around the application for tax subsidies associated with a film by Michael Moore that attacks banks for taking bailout money.
The Flint Journal and Detroit News are covering the issue, as is CNSNews.
Tom Gantert, senior correspondent for Capitol Confidential Daily, provides the most up-to-date analysis here. CapCon Daily's coverage also was cited on the The Huffington Post.
(Editor's note: This article has been modified to correct an error that appeared in the original version. The version below correctly states that in 2007, Michigan's state and local revenue for public schools per $1,000 of personal income ranked third in the nation, behind Wyoming and Vermont.)
We’ve noticed an odd and disturbing trend recently — novel interpretations of labor law being used to thwart the privatization of non-educational services by school districts. State law prohibits collective bargaining over the privatization of non-instructional services (such as transportation, lunch programs or janitorial services), but school districts are getting mixed messages about union authority in this area.
How does Michigan Capitol Confidential Daily describe itself?
Hundreds of thousands of subscribers and readers have embraced the bimonthly print edition of Capitol Confidential over the past two years. Now, that same in-depth analysis of legislative action the conventional media cannot or will not cover is available online, with new content posted every day.
Last week Oregon voters approved a ballot initiative imposing a $700 million hike in business and personal income taxes. The Wall Street Journal reports that the government employee unions which funded the effort spent some $6.5 million, or $2 million more than business and taxpayer advocates raised to oppose it.
News Advisory
Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010
Contact: Michael D. Jahr
Senior Director of Communications
989-631-0900
Tally of Proposed Government Expansions and Limitations in State of the State Address Available Wednesday Night
Mackinac Center experts available before and after for analysis of economic development, budget, education and other proposals
Gov. Jennifer Granholm gives her last State of the State speech tonight.
Mackinac Center analysts have reviewed each State of the State speech dating back to 1969 and tallied the number of proposed expansions and limitations of government that each governor has offered. The "scorecard" of proposals below provides some insight into each administration's desire to see government solve perceived public policy problems.
A new study published in Environment Science and Technology analyzes the environmental impact of school choice policies in St. Paul, Minn. The authors found that eliminating school choice would lower emissions rates 3 to 8 times and curb the "significant environmental consequences" of providing more educational opportunities for children.
David Littmann, senior economist for the Mackinac Center, was a guest on "The Frank Beckmann Show" on WJR AM760 Monday morning. He discussed Michigan's economic woes and proposed spending cuts Gov. Jennifer Granholm is said to recommend in her "State of the State" address Wednesday night.
