In response to a question from Jon Boguth in Time on what makes Michigan's existing businesses less worthy of tax relief than film producers, Gov. Jennifer Granholm responded, "You can't give tax credits to everybody, because somebody's gotta pay for them." It's a clear admission that the program is not costless. And because the film incentive is so generous, the costs of "success" would be massive.
Politicians are often anxious to been seen as "green" as they support stringent environmental standards and mandates. Unfortunately, they often ignore the costs of those measures — that is, until those costs come home to roost in their own districts. Witness U.S. House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey, D-Wis., who along with 98 other Democrats voted to protect agricultural and Great Lakes shipping interests from Environmental Protection Agency regulations as part of a deal to move a $32.24 billion natural resources funding bill.
Legislators loading (more) debt onto taxpayers to pay the health benefits of retired government employees may make many voters wonder who these pols really work for. Here's the latest version, from MichiganVotes.org:
Senate Bill 927, introduced by Republican Senators Mark Jansen, Bill Hardiman and Roger Kahn, to give local governments the power to borrow without a vote of the people to pay for the health benefits that current and past officials have offered to government employees after they retire. A referendum on the debt would be required only if someone gathered signatures from 5 percent of local registered voters or 10,000, whichever is lower. The amount of debt imposed could be as high as 5 percent of the jurisdiction's state equalized property value.
Michael LaFaive, director of fiscal policy, responded today to a Detroit News story that distorted information contained in a recent policy brief written by Gary Wolfram, Ph.D., a Hillsdale College professor and Mackinac Center adjunct scholar.
Wolfram's brief also was referenced in this Oakland Press column.
In Wednesday's MIRS "Capitol Capsule" (subscription required), Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO Greg Main discusses the latest Michigan Economic Growth Authority targeted tax break deals for selective "winner" companies. MEGA is the flagship program of the state's "economic development" bureaucratic empire over which the MEDC presides.
State Sen. Nancy Cassis has introduced legislation in Lansing that would allow localities to set up what might be called “right-to-work zones.” The authority of local governments to take this step is dubious — what little legal authority there is on the question is all negative — but while courts have struck down local right-to-work ordinances both times they came up, neither of the two decisions involved a state statute that authorized local right-to-work. This is a question on which legal experts disagree vehemently, but a carefully-written “local option” law passed by the state legislature could work.
A speech on health care reform at Northwood University last night sponsored by Students for a Free Economy was covered by WEYI-TV25 and the Midland Daily News.
SFE hosted Michael Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who discussed "The Obamacare to Come." Tanner, a nationally known author and speaker, will discuss the same topic tonight in East Lansing.
Some American politicians frequently tout the European model as a shining example of energy policy, citing government policies there promoting alternative energy over the past decade. Recent studies out of Spain and Germany, however, indicate that those two countries have been successful in increasing the amount of alternative energy but at a high cost to their economies.
Last Saturday, The Detroit News ran an article titled "Michigan's Shrinking Government" examining various measures of state spending and employment. The piece had several problems, but one sentence stood out: "The economic development staff has been slashed."
The Mackinac Center sponsored a luncheon Oct. 26 in Troy where attendees had a chance to meet some of the "stars" of the Center's recent YouTube video series in which Canadian citizens describe the problems they have had with their country's single-payer health care system. Two of those individuals are Shirley McGuin and Mike Jubenville.
The Granholm Administration wasted no time after the Michigan Economic Growth Authority monthly rubber-stamp board meeting on Tuesday to start pumping out press releases bragging that more than 2,800 new jobs were coming to Michigan as a result of selective tax break deals for the latest gaggle of "winner" firms and projects.
Governor Granholm and certain quarters of the state media have been very excited by a recent report from the Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth extolling the success of the No Worker Left Behind Program, but the report leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It is far from clear that NWLB has had any positive effect on the state’s economy, or even done much to help its participants. Until the economic fundamentals of the state are addressed, retraining programs are probably an exercise in futility.
Lawrence W. Reed, president emeritus of the Mackinac Center, will be inducted into the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame Wednesday night, according to the Midland Daily News.
"The 2009 laureates truly epitomize the essence of Junior Achievement; free enterprise, ingenuity and entrepreneurship. They have unselfishly shared their individual successes and talents to enhance the quality of life in Midland and the surrounding areas. We are fortunate to have such giving leaders in our community to serve as role models for our youth," Mike Rush, president of Junior Achievement of Central Michigan, told the Daily News.
A public forum about Canadian health care hosted Monday by the Mackinac Center was covered by Reporting Michigan.
Speakers included three Canadians featured in videos the Center recently released, discussing their difficulties with nationalized health care and warning that the United States should not pursue reforms to that end.
The legislative defenders of this state’s public school unions and establishment — including horrendously failing school districts like Detroit’s — recognize that they can no longer just stand in the schoolhouse door blocking the exit of students seeking a real education someplace where learning actually occurs.
While Lansing plays out the current chapter in the perpetual shortfall between how much it would like to spend vs. how much it expects to collect, new evidence reveals that the total revenues and spending of Michigan’s state and local governments have never been higher.
The Detroit News on Saturday published an article in which reporter Ron French compiled various indicators to suggest that Michigan state government is smaller now than at the start of this decade (“Michigan’s shrinking government”).
There are various ways to measure this, and one used by Mr. French was to compare total state spending in Fiscal Year 2008-2009 — the fiscal year just ended on Sept. 30 — to the year "2000." The article did not specify whether that meant fiscal Year 1999-2000 or calendar year 2000, so I called and asked. Mr. French told me the comparison was to FY 2000-2001, which only included three months of calendar year 2000.
Transparency, spending, health care and the state's budget process were the topics of several media stories involving the Mackinac Center in the last few days.
The Center's efforts to convince every public school, municipality and legislator in the state to post spending online were highlighted in a story Friday in the Midland Daily News and an editorial Sunday in The Detroit News. WNEW-TV5 in Saginaw also covered the issue.
Disguised as “reform,” numerous health care proposals are finding support in Congress. The result is a mishmash of plans that do little to improve access, quality or cost. There are at least 10 criteria that provide a foundation for reform.
Fifty percent of the nation's health care costs are attributable to lifestyle, such as smoking, alcohol abuse, improper diet, lack of exercise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lesson: Reform must include incentives for changing behavior.
By Jack McHugh
Some ObamaCare proponents have claimed that the Mackinac Center's YouTube videos documenting the human cost of Canadian doctor shortages are off base, because the bills in Congress don't create the same system as Canada's. They are both right and wrong - the bills would create a system different in its details, but one with the same dysfunctions, generated by reproducing here the same skewed incentives.
Since April 2008, Michigan has given qualified film productions up to 42 cents on the dollar for every expense they incur in the state. While the state is able to point to a number of films and projects given assistance from this program, the state's motion production and sound recording industries employ fewer people now than when the subsidy began.
A news report from Detroit TV station WDIV seems to indicate that a $146 million film production studio has instead become a boondoggle for the city of Allen Park. The official news release from the governor's office touted that Unity Studios would create up to "121 new jobs" initially, then as many as 3,000 new jobs when the facility is "at full operation." Backers also boasted it would include "a village where people can live, shop and find entertainment options" at the proposed 104-acre site on the privately owned land that once housed the Visteon Technical Center.
Michelle Malkin said it best when she said, "The Culture of Corruption has never hit so close to home."
The prominent author, blogger and commentator was referring in a recent blog post to a shady scheme to shanghai Michigan's home day care providers into a newly-formed, dues-paying labor union. Last month, the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation exposed this scheme in its first lawsuit, Loar v. DHS. A Mackinac Center news release explains the Sept. 16 filing:
Frank Beckmann, host of "The Frank Beckmann Show" on WJR AM760, cited the Mackinac Center in his weekly Detroit News column today.
He referenced a study by Paul Kersey, director of labor policy for the Center, that found Michigan's public schools could save about $250 million a year if the state's prevailing wage law was overturned.
This chart might be called the "Political Class Desperation Index." The need for transformational reform of Michigan's tax, spending, labor and regulatory environments is indicated by the skyrocketing unemployment rate. The failure of the political class to buck special interests — including government employee unions — and finally undertake those reforms makes its members increasingly desperate to create the appearance of "doing something." Thus the massive increase in futile picking of winners (and losers) for receipt of discriminatory tax breaks and subsidies. These create diversionary "feel good" stories for local newpapers, but do nothing to reverse the state's economic decline — and may even accelerate it. ("MEGA" is the flagship program of Michigan's bureaucratic "economic development" empire.)
