Cross-posted from State House Call.
As time passes, the real foundations and intents of ObamaCare become glaringly apparent.
The latest ObamaCare revelation came from the supposed “bipartisan” health care bill of Democratic Senator Max Baucus. Those who choose not to buy a government-approved health care plan can be imprisoned up to one year and fined up to $25,000. It seems the heavy hand of government would be exercising some serious coercion and extortion on We the People.
As the last day of Fiscal Year 2009 draws to a close, legislators are struggling to enact a new Michigan state budget for FY 2010. This afternoon Gov. Jennifer Granholm sent out notices of impending layoffs should a deal not be reached.
After using one-time federal “stimulus” money, the state still needs around $1.3 billion in program reductions and/or new revenues (higher taxes, more fees) to close the budget gap.
The House of Representatives just attempted to approve the K-12 School Aid Fund budget with a $218 per-pupil cut. One of the most contentious of the budgets in the Dillon/Bishop "cuts only" plan, which was discussed on this page earlier today and last week. As noted in the post this morning, the Michigan Education Association was attempting to influence the votes of several GOP members.
Don't get me wrong - there are real cuts in these budgets working their way through the House and Senate this week, among them 11 percent off local government revenue sharing, and stiffing the bill from Medicaid doctors and hospitals another 4 percent, on top of 4 percent earlier this year. (And who do you think ends up paying higher doctor and insurance bills instead, hmmm?)
Lisa Snyder has watched (without compensation) a five-year old kindergartener for her widowed neighbor and a seven-year old boy for another neighbor for a short period of time as they wait for the school bus. The Michigan Department of Human Services (DHS) made national news by demanding that she become a licensed day care provider. But what has largely been overlooked is that if Ms. Snyder were to go through the licensing process, she would thereby become a member of a purported government employees’ union.
As I noted yesterday, there's speculation swirling about the capitol regarding whether the Republicans "have the guts" to vote for budget cuts. And as I referenced last week, one of those cuts is a $218 reduction to the K-12 budget. So it comes as little surprise that the MIRS Capitol Capsule now reports a "source" who claims that the Michigan Education Association is cranking up the heat on some of them to "back away" from the $218 reduction.
Choosing between budget cuts and tax hikes should not be the way the Michigan Legislature solves it's self-created $2.8 billion overspending crisis, Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh told the Livingston Daily today.
The Michigan Legislature has until midnight tonight to pass a balanced budget for fiscal 2010, but should consider things like government employee salary and benefits reform and other transformational change rather than just focusing on taxes and program cuts.
It's apparently not a love story between filmmaker Michael Moore and Michigan's generous refundable tax subsidy for the movie industry. In his quote about the program in a Sept. 29, 2009, blog post on the Michigan Messenger Web site, Moore is clearly not even enamored with it:
For public schools and their employees, "pupil count day" is one of the most important days on the school calendar. Judging by the actions of some large school districts throughout the state, count day trumps the first day of school, MEAP testing days and graduation day. Many schools go all out trying to corral as many students as possible to show up on this day-of-days.
This morning, a loyal reader of Michigan Capitol Confidential posed an important question about a Constitutional Convention that will doubtlessly come up a lot in the months to come. My reply is printed below -- KB.
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I read your bi-monthly newsletter, Michigan Capitol Confidential, all of the time. I love it because it gives me information about Michigan laws and lawmakers I normally would never get elsewhere. Anyway, I've been thinking about how we can impact state government. It turns out that we can demand a constitutional convention in 2010.
Poverty rate data released today shows that Michigan fell further in its economic status. The percentage of Michigan residents living in poverty increased from 14 percent to 14.4 percent in 2008, according to the Census Bureau release.
In 2005, Michigan had the 22nd highest poverty rate. Today's release has the state at the 16th highest.
By Jack McHugh
Updated on Oct. 1
Facing a Sept. 30 deadline to adopt a budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, the Legislature has been busy with more than just closing the desired-spending vs. expected-revenue gap (a.k.a. “the deficit”). In the 30 days preceding the deadline they introduced 304 bills.
The Michigan Education Association union is leading the education establishment's attacks on lawmakers' plan to pass a no-new-taxes budget that among other things reduces state spending on public schools. In a podcast posted yesterday, MEA President Iris K. Salters repeated a claim she made in an Aug. 26 Detroit News Op-Ed that school employees "probably have saved over $700 million" in health care costs. Salters does not disclose the source of this figure.
The saga of a Middleville woman investigated by the state Department of Human Services for the crime of keeping an eye on some neighbors’ kids as they waited for the school bus has gone national after having been all over the blogosphere for days.
Maybe the attention will shed some light on the false promise of “licensure” as a way of protecting the public. In fact, in almost every case licensing laws are promoted by the professionals who will be subject to them for the purpose of limiting competition. The Mackinac Center published an article on this a while back that explains.
Q. If it comes down to an all-cut budget, can House Republicans be counted on to supply the needed votes?
"If House Republicans can't be counted on to support an all-cut budget, what is the reason for the existence of House Republicans?" DiSano said. "That caucus is filled with hard-line conservatives who talk tough in GOP primaries. Now is their chance to shine and cut, cut and cut some more. The question is do they have the guts to go home and explain these cuts?"
Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst, is quoted in a Detroit News article today about Michigan's budget negotiations and the possibility of a government shutdown if a balanced budget is not passed by midnight tomorrow.
McHugh said powerful state employee unions play a role in the process.
Op-Eds by two Mackinac Center authors were recently featured in the Dearborn Times-Herald.
"Political Anatomy 101," written by President Joseph G. Lehman, explains the need for Michigan politicians - particularly those running for governor - to use their spines as well as their mouths when discussing budget and tax issues with voters.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Mackinac Center's Morey Fiscal Policy, was cited in today's Lansing State Journal in a story about the public's disinterest in tax hikes. The Michigan Legislature currently faces a self-created $2.8 billion overspending crisis and has until midnight Wednesday to eliminate it and pass a balanced fiscal year 2010 budget. The Legislature passed $1.4 billion in tax hikes in 2007 to balance the state budget, since which time Michigan's unemployment rate has doubled.
Yesterday, I published the second part of this essay, which uses an MEDC letter-to-the-editor in the Wall Street Journal to illustrate the agency's pattern of using illegitimate rhetorical devices in response to serious critiques, including distractions, irrelevancies and non sequiturs. Part I was published Wednesday. Here's third and final part:
Following up on yesterday's report of possible corruption in Detroit Public Schools, The Detroit News reports on the arraignment of Ecorse's mayor and controller, who have been charged with conspiracy, bribery and fraud with regards to the city's public works contractor. The pair allegedly received at least $10,000 and a Lexus from the contractor, according to The News.
Do parents really want school choice? Ab-so-lutely. According to a Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency report titled “Explaining School Choice,” when given the ability to choose their children’s school, Michigan parents are exercising that choice at increasing rates.
The state is currently wrestling with how to close a budget for fiscal year 2010 that overspends revenues by $2.8 billion. Some of the proposed cuts to state spending are significant and debate over them may be holding up completion of the budget, which must be passed by midnight Sept. 30 to avoid a government shutdown.
The Michigan Senate has voted to keep the state wetlands program targeted by Gov. Jennifer Granholm for return to the federal government. The vote was along party lines with the Republicans voting to keep the program and the Democrats voting against the legislation. Once again, legislators from both parties have come to the wrong conclusion.
In an effort to help this state's political class bust out of its narrow conceptual box the Detroit News is running a "50 ideas to fix Michigan" feature, solicited from various entities that have a few. The Mackinac Center tried to provide ideas that no one else would offer, that represent not just "cuts" but genuine transformational reform in the way the state does business, and that truly "blow up the box" that constricts most conversations on state budget issues to a simplistic "cuts vs. tax hikes" formula. The first Mackinac Center idea highlighted by the News is one we first offered back in 2003, to save $65 million without reducing the number of law enforcement officers by devolving Michigan State Police road patrols to county sheriff deputies - something the Lansing budgeteers should have on the table this week as they struggle to craft a budget that "saves" the jobs of 105 troopers eliminated last spring.
USA Today cited a recent Mackinac Center study showing that just one-third of jobs promised by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. have come to fruition.
The article discussed the frenzy among various states to create more and more subsidy programs that take money from taxpayers and transfer it to particular companies making promises, particularly in the race to gain so-called green jobs.
