Cross-posted from State House Call.
No wonder Congress isn’t concerned about a government health care plan implementing rationing: Members have their own medical staff close at hand, according to ABC News.
And why should they worry about costs? “When specialists are needed, they are brought to the Capitol, often at no charge to members of Congress.”
In a press conference today, Gov. Jennifer Granholm argued that tax hikes are necessary. "What we're fighting for is Michigan not becoming Mississippi," she said.
However, the rhetorical flourish is undermined by the reality that Mississippi is no longer the "small government = high-poverty" foil that Michigan's political class has often used to justify keeping their government employee constituencies well-fed with more tax dollars.
Rep. Eileen Kowall, R-White Lake, called me today about our recent blogging regarding the House Republicans recommended by the Michigan Education Association and how that may be impacting whether the House can pass the $218 per pupil reduction -- a seemingly reasonable 3 percent trimming of the state's School Aid budget. Rep. Kowall wanted to clarify that while she did receive a recommendation from the state's most powerful public school employee union in the most recent election (2008), she did not do anything to ask for it other than answer their candidate question sheets and express a willingness to speak with them after getting into office. And furthermore, she proceeded to point out that she has never received money from the MEA's political action committee.
A week from today Michigan State University's School of Labor and Industrial Relations will host a conference on Project Labor Agreements. PLAs effectively require that any bidder on a public construction must have an agreement in place with local construction unions -- effectively freezing non-union contractors out of bidding. Since the overwhelming majority -- close to 80 percent -- of the construction industry in Michigan is non-union, this chokes off most of the potential competitors and raises the cost of construction.
The Michigan Education Association is trying to scare the public and the Legislature by claiming that a $218 per pupil reduction in the state school aid fund would result in 10,000 teacher layoffs. Since this reduction in spending only accounts for 2 percent of the total cost of public schools, it seems highly unlikely that it would require downsizing the number of instructional employees by 10 percent. Looking closely at teacher compensation shows that we could achieve the same savings with exactly zero layoffs, and even if savings came directly from layoffs, it would be less than a quarter of what the MEA threatens.
Research by Policy Analyst Ken Braun was highlighted in a column by Nolan Finley in today's Detroit News.
Braun's numbers show that Michigan pays teachers about $12,000 a year above the national average, which adds up to $1.3 billion annually.
An Op-Ed by Communications Director Michael D. Jahr and Assistant Editor Hannah K. Mead was published in today's Midland Daily News.
The piece details how the state of Michigan, in the midst of a multi-billion overspending crisis and without a balanced budget for fiscal year 2010, can still find time to create Web sites giving people advice on everything from what to eat to what to wear.
(The following is a reply to an email that was sent from a reader of this morning's Current Comment. The entire text of the e-mail from the reader is reprinted underneath the reply. -- KB)
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Mr. G:
Please note that I did not advocate balancing the entire state budget on teacher salary cuts alone. Indeed, I was pointing out that the $218 per-pupil reduction being advocated for the School Aid Fund budget – a cut of just 3 percent – was reasonable. And to demonstrate this, I grabbed just one large metric related to that program – average teacher salaries – where our costs appear to be way out of line with what other states pay for this SAME service. This is why you lose me when you discuss what you believe you could earn in the private sector, because my comparison was merely to what PUBLIC school teachers are paid in a reasonably prosperous state that is paying just an AVERAGE salary for the same service – namely Washington public school teachers.
The Obama administration’s announcement this week that EPA is going to regulate CO2 emissions from industrial facilities and power plants for the first time by requiring those plants to obtain a permit under the Clean Air Act is bad news for Michigan. The EPA’s action amounts to a new tax on Michigan business and families, which will lead to the loss of more jobs in the state which already is suffering from a 15.2 percent unemployment rate — highest in the nation.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
The Republican Party hasn’t done a really good job of breaking through with useful health reform ideas, but they do a great job of pointing out the hypocrisy of President Obama’s assertion that compulsory insurance is not a tax. It’s in this short video.
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that state and local government tax burden increased from 2006 to 2007. Michigan workers pay on average $8,691 in property, sales, income and other taxes. This is a one-year increase of 5.9 percent.
Michigan state and local governments rank above average in tax burdens[i] by many measures.
ABC News is reporting today that a couple of labor unions are a little miffed that Michael Moore used non-union labor during work on his newest release, "Capitalism: A Love Story", which opens in theaters nationwide tomorrow.
I am reminded of the scene from Moore's 1989 film "Roger and Me" when Moore talks to factory workers through the windows of an auto plant in Flint, Mich. They were about to lose their jobs because, as Moore hammers again and again throughout the movie, that greedy General Motors was closing the plant's doors and taking its business elsewhere.
The Michigan Legislature avoided a state government shutdown last night by caving in to union demands that more of the "stimulus" money being reserved for next year - when the state really goes over a fiscal cliff - be used to avoid a 3 percent cut to school aid. The Mackinac Center's Jack McHugh explains in a Current Comment today that this dynamic impacts all of Michigan's troubles:
The Mackinac Center was cited today by World Magazine in a story about the Michigan Legislature's failure to balance the fiscal 2010 budget and its self-created $2.8 billion overspending crisis.
The magazine correctly points out that when the Legislature addressed its $1.4 billion overspending crisis in 2007 by passing a tax increase to balance the fiscal 2008 budget, Center analysts called the move "job-killing." Indeed, Michigan's unemployment has more than doubled since the tax hike was passed Oct. 1, 2007.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
Here’s a fun video that has been making the rounds, arguing that celebrities need a bigger voice in health care reform.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
The Manhattan Institute has published a study by Steve Parente and Tarren Bragdon that examines the potential for “market based” reforms for New York. An op-ed by Paul Howard summarizes the results. Mr. Howard writes that repealing New York’s current community rating and guaranteed issue laws “would lower premiums and help as many as 37 percent of the uninsured there to buy private, unsubsidized coverage. It would also help reserve scarce tax dollars for the poorest and sickest New Yorkers.”
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.
