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.
On his Facebook page, State Rep. Justin Amash, R-Kentwood, has posted the text of an e-mail sent by MEA school employees union Communications Director Doug Pratt to Rep. Tim Melton, D-Pontiac, chair of the Education Committee:
Put in a graduated income tax...I can afford to pay to have good schools for my kid and others in my community. And put a tax on services...it is ridiculous that I pay a tax on clothes for my son or a night out at a restaurant (pretty normal middle class things) and I don't pay tax on my landscaping bills, my snow removal, my season tickets, my golf rounds, or my dry cleaning (all things that I and any other family in Michigan could do without if we chose). And don't feed me the line that it'll hurt our economy. I was just in Chicago over the weekend and bought a book at a Borders on Michigan Ave that had a 10.25% sales tax on it. That's almost double what we charge here...and I didn't wait until I came home to buy the book...
The term "Detroitification" — which I first coined in 2007 to describe the process by which the private sector is hollowed out to prop up an unsustainable government establishment — has been catching on in various places around the country.
The term generally implicates government employee unions that use their political muscle to keep the loot flowing to members in the form of outsized compensation and benefits, and to bitterly resist reforms like privatization. In the term's namesake city it also refers to patronage and corruption, with members of the local political class funneling boodle to their friends, relatives and key campaign supporters.
Overtime costs for municipal employees can quickly mount and therefore deserve special consideration.
"Overtime is typically an area for abuse," Mike LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told the Erie (Pa.) Times-News for a story about that city's costs. Although such expenses can be legitimate in some cases, LaFaive said, such as for police officers and firefighters, civil service rules and union protections can provide "ample opportunities" for overtime for municipal employees.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm argues (with some remorse) that during her seven-year tenure, Michigan has cut more from its budget than any other state. The claim is dubious, but another milestone about which she does not boast is verifiable: Since Gov. Granholm's first inauguration in January 2003, Michigan has led the nation in tax increases.
Michigan boasts the longest coastline in the United States, has more than 12,000 inland lakes, hundreds of golf courses, state parks, camping facilities, snowmobile and hiking trails, wonderful towns and cities and a great human capital base. We enjoy four seasons and a temperate climate, and have very few natural disasters: no hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes, wildfires. Our road system, power grid and access to unlimited supplies of fresh water are superb — all critical elements for business expansion. Our universities compete head to head with other institutions in the United States and attract students from all over the world.
Had Joe Biden's stimulus-boosting, damage-control visit to mid-Michigan this week been made open to the public rather than just a few hand-picked visitors, maybe someone could have asked him why a 4-year-old "taxpayer" received a "first-time homebuyer" tax credit of $8,000.
In presenting her executive budget, Gov. Jennifer Granholm stated, "I have cut more state spending than any governor in Michigan history, having resolved more than $10 billion in deficits since 2003." It's unnecessary to state that one of those budgets was "resolved" with a $1.4 billion tax hike — not exactly cutting more than anyone — but even the $10 billion is an overstatement.
While states are fighting for an ever larger share of the so-called stimulus money, Michigan should be glad it did not receive more than it did for a Detroit-to-Chicago high-speed rail corridor.
Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center, explains why in this Detroit Free Press Op-Ed. This is the second time O'Toole has written about this issue for the Free Press since August. The first can be read here. You can also read a review of his recent book, "The Best Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future," here.
Recent news reports that the Canadian premier of Newfoundland and Labrador would obtain heart surgery at an American hospital occasioned teeth-grinding by supporters of a government-run health care system like Canada's, and snickers from those opposed to the Congressional plan to impose a system with many of the same features here.
Flags are everywhere at the Olympics, but the games are not about international strife. There, patriotism trumps nationalism, and performance eclipses politics. The Olympics highlight the fact that individuals, not governments, make countries great.
During the games, governments are no longer the faces of their countries. We care more about what a 16-year-old girl is doing on the ice than that the vice president is in the stands. In fact, the only spectators we care about are the very ordinary families of the competitors.
