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Senate Bill 133, Adopt “Omnibus” budget: Passed 23 to 15 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, 2015. This would appropriate $38.0 billion, compared to $37.4 billion originally appropriated the previous year. Of this, $17.2 billion comes from state tax, fee and other revenue, compared to $17.6 billion the previous year. The rest of this budget is federal money ($20.8 billion, compared to $19.8 billion the previous year). The education portion of the budget is in Senate Bill 134. Altogether, the Senate proposes to spend $53.9 billion next year, vs. $53.2 billion originally appropriated for the current year.
The May 8th edition of the Providence Journal features an article written by Director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative Michael LaFaive and Board of Scholars member Todd Nesbit, Ph.D.
The experts show how smokers turn to lower-cost alternatives when the price of cigarettes increase.
Michigan's prevailing wage law mandates hourly pay for workers on public projects, often inflating wages 10 to 15 percent above market rates. Consistently overpaying for these services cost Michigan tax payers an average of $224 million each year between 2002 and 2012, according to the Anderson Economic Group.
Excessive cynicism can be an occupational hazard of those who pay close attention to actions of legislatures and politicians. Honest debate over important policy issues is important, but political observers can be quite disappointed if they consider everything their elected officials work to decide.
The following blog post was first published by the Kansas Policy Institute on May 4, 2015.
Various proposals would raise excise taxes on cigarettes, one by as much as $1.50 per pack among other items. This is a bad — if not irrational — choice for Kansas given the large raft of unintended consequences associated with it for little in the way of public health advances.
In a news story titled “Nearly half of Obamacare exchanges are struggling over their future,” The Washington Post reports the following:
Nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the District under President Obama’s health law are struggling financially, presenting state officials with an unexpected and serious challenge five years after the passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act.
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit Votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
House Bill 4102, "Omnibus" state budget: Passed 59 to 51 in the House
The House version of the non-education portion of the state government budget for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, 2015. This would appropriate $37.9 billion, compared to $37.4 billion originally authorized for the current year. With the education budget included (next bill) the House proposes to spend $53.7 billion next year, vs. $53.2 billion for the current year.
With Senate Bill 248 the Michigan Legislature is attempting to address a number of problems with the auto insurance market in the state. Michigan’s no-fault system creates misaligned incentives, resulting in auto insurance rates that are among the highest in the nation. There is also a larger question of why we treat severe injuries from car accidents differently than we treat the similar injuries from other types of accidents.
With so many complex policy issues, how do we decide which are worthy of our support or deserve to be opposed? Environmentalism, my specialty, is rife with policy initiatives that are often based on emotional appeal, rather than well-reasoned articulations of facts.
By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit Votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
Senate Bill 233, Revise vehicle trade in tax break detail: Passed 37 to 1 in the Senate
Ken Droz, former director of communications for the Michigan Film Office, responded to an op-ed I co-authored about Michigan's film incentive program. Unfortunately, he levels criticisms and makes claims without citing any facts.
The block quotes below are the assertions he makes in a MLive article, and are followed by my response:
By Jack McHugh
The Foundation for Government Accountability has just published a report on state enrollments under the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Here’s what the authors say about Michigan:
When Republican Governor Rick Snyder lobbied the Michigan legislature to adopt his Obamacare Medicaid expansion plan, he too sold it on the promise of low and predictable enrollment. His office predicted no more than 477,000 able-bodied adults would ever sign up, with 323,000 signing up in the first year.
Grand Valley State University scores second-highest on the state’s “performance funding” measurements and Wayne State University scores the lowest. By most objective measures, the former is doing a better job than the latter — but WSU still gets far more money from taxpayers.
By Derk Wilcox
On April 8, 2015, the Michigan Supreme Court handed down an important decision upholding reforms to healthcare benefits for Michigan’s retired public school employees. Although it was specific to just healthcare, it bodes well for any future reforms to public pensions in Michigan.
The total value of property taxes collected in Michigan increased slightly from $12.8 billion in 2013 to $13.0 billion in 2014, a 1.7 percent increase, according to the state’s annual property tax report. This exceeded the 1.0 percent inflation growth for the Detroit metropolitan statistical area over the same period.
By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit Votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
Senate Bill 248, Revise mandated no-fault auto insurance personal injury coverage
Editor’s Note: The author made several attempts to contact Steve Inskeep and to request a follow-up story that might provide a fairer treatment of the Mackinac Center’s right-to-work study. We received no response.
April 6, 2015
Mr. Steve Inskeep
In a March 27 on-air exchange with David Wessel of the Brookings Institution on the impact of right-to-work laws, you focused on a “single phrase that was mentioned in a news story earlier this week” (transcript here). This phrase was sourced in the NPR story to a 2013 study coauthored by Dr. Michael Hicks and myself.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Duluth News Tribune on April 15, 2015.
Minnesota raised its excise tax by 130 percent in 2013, the consequences of which may not be fully understood. The large increase in price from that tax hike has created a yawning gap between the cost of cigarettes in Minnesota and elsewhere, spurring rampant smuggling, according to research conducted by my colleague Todd Nesbit and me.
The Detroit News reports on the lack of transparency from Michigan’s corporate welfare program.
“Michigan taxpayers are on the hook for giving 96 percent of nearly $9.4 billion in tax credits to companies in the vaguely named ‘transportation’ sector, but a state agency that doles out the job-retaining incentives refuses to disclose the revised amounts owed to individual companies,” the article notes.
According to the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning, the rates of accidents, injuries, and fatalities on Michigan's roads have been decreasing for decades. Improved pavement conditions will make the roads safer, but drivers should feel at ease that transportation is less risky than it used to be.
LaTanya Dorsey is a mother who sends her daughter to a public charter school in Eastpointe. Her daughter is on the honor roll and doing very well.
Dorsey didn't expect to have a say in where her daughter went to school.
“Usually, it's the district that you're in is the school that you would have to attend,” Dorsey said. “That kind of surprised me — that I did have a choice to send her to another school, so I was real grateful for that.”
Policy Analyst Jarrett Skorup and Assistant Director of Fiscal Policy James Hohman explain in an MLive.com column why the state should get out of the business of subsidizing film production companies.
Skorup and Hohman note:
Despite handing out nearly $500 million over the years, the program has failed to create a sustainable film industry in Michigan. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are fewer film jobs in Michigan today (1,561) then when the program began in 2008 (1,663). In 2013, there were zero full-time jobs created by these subsidies, according to the latest reportfrom the Michigan Film Office.
An Associated Press story about Proposal 1, the May 5 sales and gas tax ballot question, prominently features Mackinac Center research. From the article:
The state sales tax would go up a penny on the dollar. The gasoline tax would rise with inflation, likely more. The annual vehicle registration tax would be higher.
By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
The House and Senate are on a two-week spring break. Therefore, this report contains several recently introduced bills of interest.
Policy analyst Jarrett Skorup recently spoke on the issue of civil asset forfeiture to the Birmingham Republican Women’s Club. The event also featured Rep. Mike McCready, R-Bloomfield Hills, Regina Brim who is a local activist opposed to forfeiture, and Megan Noland, who represented the Oakland County sheriff’s office.
