Costs at Michigan’s state universities have increased substantially over the past 10 years, so much so that returning tuition rates to what they were a decade ago would cost $2.8 billion, according to two analysts at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
By Jack McHugh
Senate Bill 637, Expand grass seed seller regulations: Passed 37 to 0 in the Senate
To revise details of a law that imposes a testing and labeling mandate on grass seed sellers. The bill would require cool season lawn and turf seed and mixtures to include a "sell by" date, and ban selling them if a state-mandated germination test was more than 15 months earlier. The bill would also require a larger font size be used on a required warning label.
For years my colleagues and I have charted the rise and fall of Michigan’s economic fortunes using a number of different metrics. We did so because we care deeply about the well-being of Michigan citizens — and by extension — the whole Great Lake State.
Ridesharing companies face a number of difficulties in Michigan. Municipalities regulate taxis and the state regulates limousines, but Uber and Lyft don’t fall into either category. The legal gray area they occupy has made it difficult for drivers to operate in places like Ann Arbor, as described in a recent article.
Last month the Michigan Senate passed a plan for Detroit Public Schools that gives the district a $700 million-plus bailout while establishing a commission with the power to shut down schools, including independent charter schools.
The Detroit Education Commission has long been pushed by labor unions and school administrators who dislike competition from outside charter schools, which both parents and Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes believe do a better job educating students.
When a Wisconsin judge struck down the state’s right-to-work law April 8, he relied on the false argument that giving employees the ability to work without the fear of being fired for not belonging to a union creates a “free-rider” problem.
As the Mackinac Center’s Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio explained in an op-ed published in both the National Review and The Washington Times, the real issue is that even in right-to-work states, those who work in unionized shops have no choice but to do so under terms negotiated by unions. Unions have long lobbied for the monopoly they have on representing all workers, even those who opt not to belong, and now accuse them of being “free riders.”
Uber and Lyft have provided excellent transportation alternatives to countless Michiganders in metro Detroit and Ann Arbor for the past few years, and Uber has since expanded to Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, East Lansing and Flint. But both companies operate in a legal gray area, and unclear regulations have caused headaches for passengers and drivers in some cities.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Education Policy Director Ben DeGrow corrected the myth that charter schools do not serve students with great learning disabilities.
In a letter published in the Detroit Free Press and USA Today, DeGrow explained that Columnist Rochelle Riley was mistaken when she made the claim in one of her columns. Because charter schools are public, they may not refuse students selectively.
Michigan taxpayers spend $33 million each year marketing the state through the Pure Michigan ad campaign. New findings from the Mackinac Center find that money is largely wasted.
The ineffectiveness of the Pure Michigan promotional program is the focus of an op-ed in The Detroit News by Mackinac Center scholar Michael Hicks and Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative. The piece was published as the Pure Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism convened in Lansing, and suggested lawmakers end the subsidy.
By Jack McHugh
The following is a quote from Pope Francis’ recent “apostolic exhortation” on the subject of “Love in the Family:”
At the same time I feel it important to reiterate that the overall education of children is a “most serious duty” and at the same time a “primary right” of parents. This is not just a task or a burden, but an essential and inalienable right that parents are called to defend and of which no one may claim to deprive them. The State offers educational programmes in a subsidiary way, supporting the parents in their indeclinable role; parents themselves enjoy the right to choose freely the kind of education – accessible and of good quality – which they wish to give their children in accordance with their convictions. Schools do not replace parents, but complement them. (Emphasis added.)
By Jack McHugh
Senate Bill 818, Exempt yoga instruction schools from licensure mandate: Passed 35 to 0 in the Senate
To exempt yoga teacher training schools from a state licensure mandate imposed on private trade-schools, with annual fees, government inspections, regulations and more. A Senate Fiscal Agency analysis notes that many take the classes just for the experience, and "the regulations reportedly have created a business environment that deters...offering or expanding instruction programs."
Michigan lawmakers voted 20 years ago to close the state employee pension system to new members. A new study by Anthony Randazzo and Truong Bui of the Reason Foundation looked at Michigan’s experience to see whether this reform helped the state. They found that the state saved itself from racking up hundreds of millions more in additional unfunded liabilities. But their study also has other major lessons for Michigan as it considers further pension reforms.
Background
Previous articles in this series have documented the secrecy surrounding what have been called “budget justification” reports purchased through no-bid contracts by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation from a company called Longwoods International. (See “Pure Michigan Puffery” Parts I and II as well as “Puffery or Proof?”) Longwoods produces very similar products for agencies in at least eight other states, claiming high returns from taxpayer-funded tourism ads.
By Ben DeGrow
It doesn’t take much to trigger one education official’s strong instinct to constrain parental choice, a reaction not justified by the evidence. State Board of Education President John Austin misused a study on Michigan’s Schools of Choice program to try and make the case for curtailing parents’ ability to find a school that best fit their children’s needs.
By Jack McHugh
The House and Senate are on a two-week spring break. Therefore, this report contains several recently introduced bills of interest.
Senate Bill 512: Mandate schools teach sexual activity rules/etiquette
Introduced by Sen. Curtis Hertel, Jr. (D), to require public school sex education classes to teach this:
“…That in order for consent to be given by both parties to sexual activity it must be affirmative consent and that ‘affirmative consent’ means affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity; that it is the responsibility of each individual involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other to engage in the sexual activity; that lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent and that silence does not mean consent; that affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time; and that the existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.” Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
There is a vast turnover in jobs in Michigan’s economy — more than one out of 20 are added and lost every three months. This means that there’s always someone being left behind during an economic recovery and there’s always someone finding new opportunities in a recession. Yet, the overall direction of the economy still matters and things are going well in Michigan.
By Kahryn Riley
The U.S. will face a shortage of 46,000 to 90,000 physicians by 2025, according to a report issued by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notes that the population of Americans age 65 and older will double between 2013 and 2040, swelling to 98 million. Older patients face complex health issues that require more frequent and intensive forms of treatment.
By Kahryn Riley
Michigan faces a widespread shortage of primary health care providers, and state rules on midlevel health care providers have held up a valuable solution to this problem. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants offer competent care in more locations and at a lower cost than physicians, but these professionals are limited by protectionist restrictions known as “scope of practice” rules. Policymakers should loosen these restrictions to make health care services easier to obtain and afford.
Children in Detroit desperately need more choices when it comes to their education, but bills currently making their way through Lansing would do just the opposite, as Mackinac Center Director of Education Policy Ben DeGrow wrote in a recent Letter to the Editor.
There is a need to prohibit local governments and school districts from campaigning with taxpayer money, Mackinac Center policy analyst Jarrett Skorup writes in an op-ed recently published by MLive.
In the piece, Skorup weighs in on efforts to change state advocacy laws. Earlier this year, Gov. Snyder signed Public Act 269, preventing public officials from advertising ballot issues within 60 days of an election in an attempt to stop localities and school districts from advocating for tax increases on the public dime.
By Jack McHugh
House Joint Resolution FF, Senate Joint Resolutions H and N: Limit referendum on appropriations ban
Introduced by Rep. Jim Townsend (D), Sen. Rebekah Warren (D) and Sen. Curtis Hertel (D), respectively, plus many cosponsors, to place before voters in the next general election a constitutional amendment to revise the current prohibition on citizen referendums challenging bills that contain an appropriation.
A Mackinac Center video profiling California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and her fight to free herself from forced unionism was featured this week by The Washington Post in its coverage of the Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision on the case.
Because her state does not provide right-to-work protections, Friedrichs must pay dues to the California Teachers Association as a condition of her employment. In the video, posted under the headline “California teachers explain their Supreme Court case,” Friedrichs explains why being forced to pay dues to a union violates her First Amendment rights:
The Times Herald published an op-ed this week by Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Mackinac Center, calling into question the state’s no-bid contract with a company that produces reports on the Pure Michigan advertising campaign.
On March 29, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-line ruling on a case that would have brought right-to-work protections for public employees across the country. The court said that a lower court decision would stand, meaning government unions in non-right-to-work states can still get public employees fired for not paying them.
The gas and vehicle registration tax hikes lawmakers agreed to last fall could essentially be used to pay for the state’s Medicaid expansion, Mackinac Center’s James Hohman argues in an op-ed published by the Lansing State Journal today.
Because the tax hikes — projected to bring in more than $533 million in their first year — will not take effect until 2017, legislators dedicated $400 million in general fund money to roads. Once the increased tax revenue rolls in that $400 million general fund allocation will pay for Michigan’s Medicaid expansion and increases in the Department of Health and Human Services and K-12 education budgets, according to the executive budget.
