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.
(Editor's note: This is an edited version of a recommendation that originally appeared in The Detroit News on Nov. 24, 2009.)
Michigan pays twice when high schools and community colleges overlap services and offer the same courses. In addition, studies estimate that community colleges spend one-third of their time providing remedial education, essentially doing the job that high schools are supposed to do. Allowing students to skip some high school extracurricular courses and move on to college earlier would lessen this redundancy and give many students a jump start on job training or a four-year degree.
By Jack McHugh
Three similar proposals introduced in the Michigan Legislature this year — House Joint Resolutions Z and CC, and Senate Joint Resolution K — would place recognition of a "Right to Independent Medical Care" in the Michigan Constitution. Specifically, they would establish that "every person has a right to provide for his or her own health care" and prohibit any law or rule that would directly or indirectly "compel any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system." (SJR K and HJR CC only apply to federal laws or rules, while HJR Z applies to any government mandate or ban.)
Focus on the Family's weekend news program highlighted the Mackinac Center's legal fight against the DHS's forced unionization of 40,000 day care providers in Michigan.
Mackinac Center President Joseph Lehman was interviewed for the segment. He commented:
It's the 200th anniversary of William Gladstone's birth. Though Gladstone is the namesake of a small Michigan town, that was not, in fact, his biggest contribution to the world. As a British parliamentarian and prime minister, Gladstone pursued policies to uphold individual freedom and personal responsibility. Michigan could use more statesmen like that.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a neat story about a meeting between two typical Americans with something in common: tea.
Bruce Richardson is a Kentucky resident, author and host of tea parties — the kind where you sit down and actually drink fine tea. The article also reveals that he is concerned about the alleged damage being done by humans on the environment due to global warming. He was in Lexington, Ky., on a book tour and visiting a business owner who serves tea for a living but hadn't yet learned the finer points of properly preparing the beverage.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation's suit against the DHS continues to draw national attention. The case, the first filed by the newly created public-interest law firm, seeks to prevent the state and two unions from siphoning off nearly $4 million in "dues" from subsidy checks that home-based day care operators receive when they care for the children of low-income parents.
Science is in trouble. The process of scientific discovery is too often being traded for the practice of political science. The recent "Climate Gate" scandal is just a symptom of a much larger problem. When scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit refuse to release climate data and dismiss any legitimate questions regarding their methodology or conclusions, they undermine the credibility of the very profession they practice.
As Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan Legislature continue to create an overspending crisis by budgeting expenditures higher than revenues, talk has turned toward potential tax increases. Keep in mind that Michigan's unemployment rate has more than doubled since the 2007 tax hikes.
The idea that agriculture is Michigan's second-largest industry is a piece of conventional wisdom often iterated, in fact, so much that a Google search for "second largest industry" returns Michigan's iterations of the idea. Yet this is false. Agriculture is nowhere near as large as most Michigan industries.
