The Michigan Legislature is currently debating how much more it should spend on the state’s public universities. Gov. Rick Snyder and the Senate want to spend an extra $64 million while the House wants to spend an extra $51.6 million. These amounts would increase current spending by 3.4 to 4.2 percent, which is well above inflation.
Individual workers aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from right-to-work laws, according to data from a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Vincent Vernuccio, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center, explains in a Washington Examiner op-ed that unions also benefit from worker-freedom laws. According to BLS data, unions in right-to-work states gained more members in 2015 than those in states that allow forced unionism.
West Virginia was in the news recently for becoming the nation’s 26th state to adopt a right-to-work law. One product of the debate is that there is new evidence of these laws’ positive effect on workers and state economies. The evidence comes from statistics of various measures of economic well-being.
Several towns in West Michigan are considering subsidizing municipal broadband, a high-risk strategy to provide better internet access for residents. One plan to provide fiber internet in Holland would cost city taxpayers more than $60 million dollars, even if projections are met. And in Laketown Township, outside Holland, residents narrowly rejected a proposal to spend $8.6 million on a similar system.
A report from the state House Fiscal Agency shows that there has been a steady decline in the number of police officers in Michigan, falling 15.4 percent from 1990 to 2015. The report does not go into why this is, but here’s one theory: Pension underfunding is crowding out government spending, including hiring decisions.
By Jack McHugh
Senate Bill 800, Appropriations: 2016-2017 Omnibus budget: Passed 26 to 11 in the Senate
The Senate version of the non-education portion of the state government budget for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, 2016. This would appropriate $38.673 billion, compared to $38.616 billion authorized the year before. When combined with the education budget (next bill), the Senate proposes to spend $54.779 billion on all of state government next year, vs. $54.530 billion originally approved for the current year. Of this, $22.567 billion is federal money and $32.212 billion comes from state tax and fee collections, a 2.4 percent increase in the state share.
There is an underappreciated level of both job creation and job loss constantly happening in Michigan. This can be seen in the most recent “job churn” figures covering July through September of 2015. During that quarter 195,118 jobs were created in Michigan, and 204,087 jobs disappeared according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
By Ben DeGrow
In recent months, Detroit Public Schools has been rife with turmoil: districtwide teacher sickouts, sensational pictures of widespread deplorable building conditions, an employee kickback scandal, reports of misappropriated federal funds, and now … more sickouts.
Mackinac Center’s Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio joined Fox Business this week to discuss the widespread closures of Detroit schools caused by teachers calling in sick to protest potential funding cuts.
This is all about politics. They’re putting politics in front of the education of kids. … The union would rather keep their monopoly and keep these kids in failing schools instead of giving them choice and the opportunity to succeed.
As Michigan legislators discuss a bailout of the Detroit Public Schools, some have argued that this makes obvious fiscal sense for the state since state taxpayers are ultimately responsible for DPS debt. Yet a look at the composition of the district’s debt shows very little taxpayer exposure.
In his 2012 book, “Coming Apart,” the social scientist Charles Murray discusses an increasing economic and moral divide among Americans.
Decades ago, Murray argues, the typical American was more likely to regularly interact with people from a different social class. People were more likely to marry across classes, attend churches with those of different backgrounds and participate in civic programs together. But today, Americans are increasingly stratified across social classes and distinctly different groupings on issues like religiosity, work ethic, education, family structure and more.
An op-ed published in the Detroit Free Press that is co-authored by a Mackinac Center analyst highlights the need for civil asset forfeiture reform in Michigan.
Michigan is one of the few states in the country that not only allows law enforcement to seize property from people who have not been charged with a crime, but requires the owner to pay between $250 and $5,000 to try to get it back. Such is the focus of the op-ed written by Mackinac Center Policy Analyst Jarrett Skorup and Nick Sibilla, a communications associate at the Institute for Justice.
By Jack McHugh
Senate Bill 564, Criminalize selling aborted fetuses or body parts: Passed 26 to 10 in the Senate
To make it a crime to receive a financial benefit or any type of compensation for transferring or selling an embryo, fetus or neonate, including organs, tissues or cells, if this was obtained as the result of an elective abortion.
By Ben DeGrow
On the surface, DeWitt Public Schools just north of Lansing and Edwardsburg Public Schools on the Indiana border look very similar. They each serve about 3,000 students in predominantly white communities with poverty rates at or below the state average, though DeWitt’s median income level and rate of college-educated residents are noticeably higher.
The path to improving student performance isn’t as simple as spending more on education, according to a new study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
The study — authored by Mackinac’s Education Policy Director Ben DeGrow and Edward C. Hoang, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs — found no correlation between increased spending and student achievement. These findings suggest that how schools spend money may be more important than how much schools spend.
A May 10 election in West Virginia could leave the state’s new right-to-work law in peril. On that day, voters will decide whether to re-elect Republican Justice Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, or replace him, possibly with union-supported Darrell McGraw.
This op-ed was originally published in Tulsa World on April 27, 2016.
Raising the state tax on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack would result in a 700 percent increase in cigarette smuggling into Oklahoma, among other consequences.
Cigarettes are a legal product. Those who use cigarettes are usually those who strongly prefer them. The high taxes imposed on cigarettes in various states create profit opportunities for those willing to buy them in low-tax states and ship them to high-tax states for resale. Thus, the product is attractive to lawbreakers.
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.
