An article from the Summer 2002 issue of Michigan Privatization Report proved prescient. A follow-up by Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, eight years later is trying to warn officials in Kalamazoo not to repeat their folly.
Yesterday, forecasters from the Michigan House Fiscal Agency, Senate Fiscal Agency and Treasury Department met to agree on an estimate for the next fiscal year's state revenues. These revenues are important because coupled with spending figures, they tell us whether fiscal 2011 will result in a surplus or deficit.
Russ Harding, senior environmental analyst and director of the Center's Property Rights Network, will talk about cap-and-trade tonight at 7 p.m. in Livingston County.
The Livingston Daily Press & Argus has more details.
(Editor's note: The following commentary is an edited version of a book review written by Joseph G. Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center, that appears in the January/February issue of The Freeman, the journal of the Foundation for Economic Education.)
A new online database contains health insurance information for more than 95 percent of Michigan's 551 public school districts, according to Michael Van Beek, director of education policy. In more than 300 plans, teachers do not contribute a single penny toward the cost of their own premiums. Health insurance for school employees costs Michigan taxpayers nearly $2 billion per year.
It's been said many times before, and yet people rarely seem to understand that believing in the free market does not necessarily make one a fan of business. Business (especially large corporations) is often willing to fight government over taxes, and yet join government when it suits its own purpose.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it is once again proposing to lower the ozone standard to between 60 and 70 parts per billion from the current standard of 75 parts per billion it established during the George W. Bush administration. This would be the third time the ozone standard has been lowered since the Clinton administration lowered it to 84 parts per billion in 1997. This is more of a political decision than a scientific one.
In November, I wrote about the "Luckiest ZIP code in Michigan", which, according to the official Web site that tracks federal stimulus dollars, was a ZIP code in Lansing. Further review of all 674 ZIP codes on the Michigan list, cross-checked with United States Postal Service ZIP Code lookup finds $573,161 in federal stimulus money went to five ZIP codes in Michigan that do not exist. $1,254,110 went to ZIP codes in other states, including $1,143,025 that went to ZIP Code 55411 (Minneapolis, Minn.) and created zero jobs, according to recovery.gov as seen below:
With apologies to John Lennon, I imagine a city without cars.
Exhaust fumes replaced by fine boutiques and fern bars.
All the people walk to workplace and shops,
And the streets are patrolled by mo-ped cops.
All city life is one of perfect precision,
Nothing's out of place if you have a Grand Vision.
Even with an expected budget overspending crisis of $1.8 billion next year, Michigan government's revenue situation is doing much better than the rest of the economy.
State tax receipts are largely determined by how well a state's economy is doing. When workers earn more, they pay more income taxes. When consumers buy more, they pay more in sales taxes.
Patrick J. Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, said he will explore further options after the Michigan Court of Appeals dismissed - without explanation - the foundation's lawsuit against the state Department of Human Services in a case aimed at preventing union dues from being taken from home-based day care owners.
Here's how to make an economic bubble: Throw in generous amounts of government money, add legislative mandates and stir with supportive media attention. Sound familiar? First we had the dot com bubble, then the housing bubble. Now we are headed for a green jobs bubble.
Called "arguably the greatest American in the 20th century," during his 95 years Norman Borlaug probably saved more lives than any other person. He is one of just six people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And yet Dr. Borlaug, who died this past September, is scarcely known in his own country.
Most conservative reviewers of James Cameron’s new film “Avatar” have been strongly negative, to the point of being dismissive. Fairly typical of the sort is the normally very reasonable John Podhoretz, who sums up the story as follows:
An American soldier named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is sent to make friends with the blue people. To effect this, scientists download his consciousness into a 10-foot-tall blue body. Jake discovers that the natives are wonderful in every possible way. They are so green it's too bad their skin has to be blue. They're hunters and they kill animals, but after they do so, they cry and say it's sad. Which only demonstrates their superiority. Plus they have (I'm not kidding) fiber-optic cables coming out of their patooties that allow them to plug into animals and control them. Now, that just seems wrong - I mean, why should they get to control the pterodactyls? Why don't the pterodactyls control them? This kind of biped-centrism is just another form of imperialist racism, in my opinion.
A draft of the Michigan Environmental Justice Plan was released for public comment on Dec. 11, 2009. Reading it took me back to the days I worked on environmental justice issues while serving as director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
The Michigan Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear a case today regarding a disagreement between Howell Public Schools and its teachers union over the release of teachers' e-mails. Mackinac Center Senior Legal Analyst Patrick J. Wright filed a "friend of the court" brief in the case, explaining that the e-mails are public record and thus subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Despite Michigan's numerous shortcomings, one area where we excel is tax collections. In fact, over the past two years Michigan's tax revenue per job increased 3.5 percent while the national average fell 1.5 percent.
While legislators claim Michigan's tax structure is outdated and clamor for ways to extract more money from a shrinking population base of producers, the ongoing overspending crisis created by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Legislature is not evidence of too little revenue funneling into state coffers.
Three tomatoes are walking down the street — a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him ... and says, “Ketchup!”
Catching up on a couple of items left over from before my Christmas vacation:
School funding issues continue to dominate discussion in Michigan as 2010 gets underway.
An Op-Ed by Lorie Shane, managing editor of Michigan Education Report, ran in Friday's Dearborn Times-Herald. The piece contains several questions that taxpayers should ask local school boards when officials try to claim school funding is inadequate.
Michiganvotes.org tracks every bill and every amendment introduced each year in the Michigan Legislature. It also tallies the number of roll call votes each legislator misses every year. Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh, who has put together the annual count since 2001, said the information should not be used to jump to any conclusions about a particular legislator. Several votes can be missed in just one day, for example, and extenuating circumstances can be involved that cause a legislator to miss session days, such as a severe illness or military duty.
Last year, a legislator that the authors have known for many years asked for our opinion on a new state "incentives" program targeted at a specific industry. His response to an expression of skepticism was slightly shocking:
"So you don't think we should use the tax system to get people to do what we want them to do?"
(Editor's note: This is adapted from an article that originally appeared on Industrialpolicy.org.)
As Detroit and the rest of Michigan look forward to 2010 and beyond, it might be wise to look back at what economics lessons the experience of the past half-century may provide to guide our future choices.
(Editor's note: This entry is adapted from an article that originally appeared on Industrialpolicy.org.)
Reams of empirical evidence indicate that when it comes to increasing the prosperity and opportunities of the people in a state, nation or society, government "economic development" programs fall far short of what their proponents advertise. Here are three of the reasons this is true.
A recent Gongwer story (subscription required) paints a dreary portrait of Michigan's education funding over the last decade, or what they term the "lost decade." The article states that since 2000, education "was one of the first budgets hit with cuts and freezes." When it comes to K-12 schools, a broader perspective reveals a different story.
During our 21-year history, the staff and adjunct scholars of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy have been honored with the opportunity to associate with more than a few intellectual luminaries. Of these, perhaps none shines the light of intellectual gravitas more brightly than Mackinac Center adjunct scholar and supporter, Paul J. McCracken.
