The Michigan Education Association's LM-2 report for the 2008-09 school year is up at the U.S. Department of Labor's Web site. (You can also check it out here.) This is the annual report on spending that nearly all private-sector unions and a handful of government employee unions are required to file annually.
According to a Detroit News article, a countywide proposal to raise taxes for bus service will not appear before Oakland County voters anytime soon because there isn't sufficient support from the Oakland County Board of Commissioners to place it on the ballot. The News also notes that 38 of 61 communities within Oakland County have already opted out of getting bus service from (and thus paying taxes to) the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation.
The annual revenue of the Michigan Education Association school employee union in the year ending Aug. 31, 2009, was $132.2 million. This comes to $83.01 for every K-12 student in the state.
Sources: MEA revenue from "Form LM-2” filed by the union on Nov. 24, 2009, with the U.S. Department of Labor. Per-pupil amount based on 2009-2010 pupil count projected by the May, 2009, Michigan Consensus Revenue Agreement.
Our ongoing examination of the SEIU-Member Action Service Center (we’re calling it MASC for short) continues to bring up interesting nuggets of information about the for-profit union subsidiary that received a $2 million tax credit from the state:
It is not at all clear that SEIU was seriously considering other locations aside from Redford; the union did not appear to have taken steps to set up operations outside of Michigan in case the MEDC grant fell through. This is awkward for MEDC because part of the rationale behind its decision to grant this operation MEGA credits was the possibility that SEIU might put the Member Action Service Center elsewhere.
Russ Harding, senior environmental analyst, wrote an Op-Ed in Saturday's New York Times about the problems ethanol subsidies create, calling on the federal government to put an end to them.
Harding wrote that these subsidies will not make the United States less dependent on foreign energy sources, nor does ethanol production help the environment. He also pointed out that increased ethanol production has had an adverse impact on the food supply for the world's poorest people.
In his weekly column in the Lansing insiders publication "The Dome," Tim Skubick joined the finger-wagging chorus bashing lawmakers for taking two weeks off for deer hunting season. The meme played by the Governor and attention-seeking statewide office candidates is, if they stayed in town they could "solve the school funding crisis, the economic mess, college kids not getting their $4,000 state scholarships," etc.
The University of Michigan's "Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics" predicted last week that Michigan will lose 60,300 jobs in 2010 and unemployment will rise to 15.8 percent. In 2011, the figures will be 16,200 jobs lost and 15.1 percent unemployment, according to the forecast.
Russ Harding, senior environmental analyst for the Mackinac Center, is cited in Reporting Michigan on the recent revelation that e-mails regarding research on "man-made global warming" may contain information that shows scientists massaged data to downplay evidence contrary to their views.
In earlier posts on the Michigan Economic Growth Authority's decision to grant a $2 million tax credit to the Service Employees International Union Member Action Service Center (MASC — get it?), we stated that the credit was refundable. To this point, we have yet to see any evidence that this report was incorrect. But a lot hinges on this point; a refundable credit means that the state could wind up paying as much as $2 million to the SEIU subsidiary even if they have no tax liability, which would be an especially disturbing outcome. So we have spent the last few days attempting to contact the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (which administers MEGA) and get the definitive word. The MEDC's response to this seemingly simple yes-or-no question has been unenlightening in some ways and very enlightening in others. It all depends on what you want to know.
Joseph G. Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center, was a guest on Detroit's WDET Public Radio today, where he detailed the creation of the Overton Window and how it is applied to a range of public policy issues, including taxes and school choice.
The concept has drawn national attention and increasing Google popularity since Glenn Beck discussed it on his television program Friday.
Editor's Note for 1-21-2011: Today’s main story on MichCapCon.com is about Gov. Snyder’s call for repeal of Michigan’s item pricing law, which he says is outdated. The item pricing law is an example of a “consumer protection” law that has been aggressively enforced for several decades by all of the politicians who have previously served as Michigan’s Attorney General. This commentary, from 2009, spotlights some other examples.
(Editor's note: This blog entry was originally posted Oct. 28, 2009. It is being reposted after Sen. Alma Wheeler Smith, D-Salem Township, a 2010 gubernatorial candidate, announced her plan to restructure Michigan's taxes, including a graduated income tax topping out at 9.35 percent.)
David Littmann, the Mackinac Center's senior economist, writes in the November/December issue of dbusiness magazine about if, and how, Michigan's economy can recover in 2010. Littmann references two items written by other Center scholars, including Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh's "101 Ideas to Revitalize Michigan," and a commentary by James Hohman, fiscal policy analyst, and Adam Rule, a 2009 summer research intern, that showed Michigan pays about $5.6 billion more per year in benefits for public-sector employees compared to the benefits of private-sector employees.
Editor's Note: This November 2009 article by Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman discusses a reference made at the time to the Overton Window by Fox Broadcasting's Glenn Beck. For the Mackinac Center's new Overton Window Web page, including an interactive tool and answers to common questions about the Window and the Mackinac Center, go to www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow or click here.
An editorial in Sunday's Grand Rapids Press highlights a 2007 Mackinac Center study on Michigan's prevailing wage law and calls for the act's abolition.
"The Effects of Michigan's Prevailing Wage Law," by Labor Policy Director Paul Kersey, examines the rationale behind the law and points out the millions of dollars it needlessly forces various entities to spend on projects when state money is involved.
Friday's Wall Street Journal has a piece by Eric Felten on a "dark skies" movement seeking to define outdoor lighting as a form of "pollution" and pass laws to boss people around regarding their choices on lighting up their own property. The piece characterizes those promoting such coercion as "trendy types touting natural lifestyles" and notes that, "for municipal busybodies, no cause is complete until it has been imposed on all one's neighbors."
The Michigan Economic Growth Authority is a discriminatory tax credit program sold as a way for Michigan government to "create or retain" jobs here. This week it even offered a special deal to a for-profit arm of the Service Employees International Union. Ironically, the MEGA deal was offered in part to address the union's complaint that it is at a disadvantage due to Michigan's "high labor costs" compared to two other states the SEIU was supposedly considering (one of them with a right-to-work law reviled by the union). This according to a document obtained by Detroit News business writer Daniel Howes ("State tax credit to labor union is baffling," Nov. 20).
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, was a guest on "The Frank Beckmann Show" today on WJR AM760. Kersey discussed a $2 million refundable tax credit the Michigan Economic Development Corp. awarded to the Service Employees International Union.
Kersey blogged about the issue yesterday, raising several questions that legislators and taxpayers should be asking about this unique deal.
At a press conference Tuesday announcing several new recipients of discriminatory state tax breaks granted by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, Gov. Jennifer Granholm repeated a number of false or misleading statements about this state government's policy of picking winners and losers, and its effects as a substitute for genuine labor, regulatory and tax law reforms.
Michigan legislators have introduced two bills (HB5558, HB5559) that would increase tipping fees to place trash in landfills. If passed, the current fee of seven cents per cubic yard will rise to $7.50 per ton. The increased fees are estimated to raise $145 million, according to Gongwer News Service. This could not come at a worse time for economically struggling Michigan households. Any increase in tipping fees would of course be passed on to consumers and businesses in the state already in the worst economy in Michigan since the Great Depression. The money raised by fee increases would go to local governments for recycling programs.
Michigan politicians are fond of blaming the domestic auto industry's decline for all the state's problems. But "auto industry" just doesn't mean what it used to here. For example, domestic auto sales have fallen by 49.8 percent since their 1999 peak. Over the same period, however, inflation-adjusted state tax and fee revenues have only declined by 15.9 percent.
While Michigan's school funding "crisis" rages on, the Alabama Board of Education just came up with a plan to balance the state's education budget in one day.
Unlike Michigan, Alabama's state Board has the tools needed to contain the out-of-control labor costs that generate our public school establishment's perpetual and self-imposed funding debacles. Last week, they came up with two ways to balance the state education budget:
A Detroit News editorial cites David Littmann, senior economist for the Center, on what can be done to strengthen the dollar.
Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst, participated in a panel discussion recently where a representative sampling of Michigan residents addressed issues ranging from education reform to welfare spending, according to the Lansing City Pulse.
The MEDC's decision to extend a $2,000,000 refundable tax credit to the Service Employees International Union is, to put it mildly, very questionable. This is a deal that warrants the strictest of scrutiny from the media and the public. The following are just a few of the questions relating to this grant for which the public deserves answers:
An unusual joint hearing occurring right now of two state House committees on Michigan's film subsidy program brought to mind a letter received last summer from Janet Lockwood, director of the Michigan Film Office. The letter was in response to a Mackinac Center press release describing how the subsidy program may actually destroy jobs.
