Free Republic

Early Sept. 13, three men involved in a robbery tried to run over a Warren police officer in a minivan that, according to police, had an estimated $10,000 worth of merchandise. Two of the men were shot trying to flee. However, the loot wasn't cash or jewelry. Instead, police said they were after cigarettes, which Michael LaFaive, fiscal policy analyst at the Mackinac Center For Public Policy calls "gold bars." "It happens all the time," said Lt. Heidi Metz of the Warren Police Department. "Almost all tobacco stores have security systems. They've been targeted." They have been targeted, LaFaive said,...

Scrutiny and sunshine are great ways of keeping government officials honest. But the effort doesn't come without occasional conflict. That's especially true today given the advances in technology and ease with which citizen journalists can report, write and publish their own work. So it comes as little surprise that there are efforts in Michigan and in Washington, D.C., to try to define who is a journalist. In Michigan, House Bill 4770 has a provision in it that limits who can access public information by specifically defining the term, journalist. Senate Bill 987 at the national level, is a direct attempt...

Measures to eliminate licensing laws for occupations varying from interior designers to auctioneers have been introduced in Michigan's legislature, but moving those bills toward passage has been minimal. That appears to be due to the Legislature's deliberative process. More than 30 bills pertaining to the elimination of occupational licensing are now in either the House Regulatory Reform Committee or the Senate Regulatory Reform Committee. The major push for the legislation came from within the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder. In April 2012, the Office of Regulatory Reinvention recommended the elimination of 18 occupational licenses and nine licensure boards. Licensing sometimes...

The Detroit News reported that the State Bureau of Elections began a formal investigation of the Service Employees International Union regarding its financing of a ballot proposal last year. Proposal 4, which would have locked into the state constitution the skimming of millions of dollars each year from the caretakers of disabled people, was defeated by 14 percentage points. Chad Livengood in The News reported: The complaint focuses on a group called Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Care and an East Lansing company called Home Care First Inc. Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Care sponsored the ballot proposal. In campaign...

Add horse-drawn buggies to the list of vehicles targeted for increased fees in Michigan. House Bill 4965, which was introduced by State Rep. Joel Johnson, R-Clare, would allow counties to charge a $50 registration fee for horse-drawn vehicles. The bill says the money can only be used for road repairs. But $50 won't cover actual road repairs and at least one advocate for the horse drawn vehicles in the state says the bill targets the Amish and tourism in Michigan. "I don't see where it accomplishes anything," said Cady Ness-Smith, vice president of the Michigan Horse Drawn Vehicle Association. It...

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has released its latest report on state funding for schools, and claims that Michigan is spending 9 percent less on schools than it was in 2008. The report, however, ignores billions of dollars, a major flaw that Mackinac Center for Public Policy experts identified last year. In its analysis of school spending for 2007-08, CBPP left out about $10 billion in education funding, including $6 billion in revenue from property taxes and $1.4 billion in special education money. CBPP's report is especially meaningless for Michigan because of the way the state foundation allowance...

The Michigan Legislature passed a bill that would expand "business improvement zones" and allow larger businesses to potentially force smaller companies into paying higher taxes. Senate Bill 257 is sponsored by Sen. Mike Kowall, R-White Lake. It passed the House 77-31 and the Senate 31-4. MichiganVotes.org describes the law as "increase[ing] from seven years to 10 years the time one of these zones can operate without reauthorization, revise voting rules in a way that (potentially) reduces the proportion of property owners in the district needed to impose a zone's tax-and-spending powers, increase the proportion of owners needed to dissolve one,...

The city of Westland is charging an illegal fee to people seeking public information, according to a lawsuit filed today by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. In June, Michigan Capitol Confidential, which is the news service of the Mackinac Center, sent Freedom of Information Act requests seeking financial information from every municipality in the state that operates a golf course. Westland responded that the city requires a $5 fee before it will provide any information. Westland also said it would cost $1 per page for copying costs and $45.61 per hour for the person gathering the information. According to...

Despite the individual benefits of completing a postsecondary education, the value to taxpayers of subsidizing higher education is becoming increasingly threatened. Student debt has, and continues, to rise dramatically, fueled in part by ever increasing government-subsidized student loans. Taxpayers' direct costs for Michigan colleges and universities continue to stretch the state budget. It is becoming clear that neither students nor taxpayers are getting a good return on their investment. This problem has several reinforcing causes that must be addressed to achieve quality career outcomes for students and a skilled workforce. First, consumers lack access to clear data on the success...

Six Republicans and three Democrats in the state House last week approved a two bill package that would establish an Internet tax in Michigan. House Bills 4202 and 4203 are aimed at forcing Michigan residents to pay taxes on purchases they make on the Internet. Gov. Rick Snyder favors the bills, but, according to news accounts, House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, is less than enthused about bringing the legislation up for a vote in the full House. A key aspect of the issue is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said a physical presence was required to compel retailers...

One of the common complaints about the state’s management of Detroit’s insolvency is that the situation was preventable if only the state had provided more money. But Detroit already gets more state assistance than every other municipality in Michigan, and indeed, it receives the majority of state discretionary payment. This is neither justified nor fair to the rest of state taxpayers. Michigan redistributes state tax money to local governments through its revenue sharing programs. The state constitution guarantees that a portion of the state’s sales tax revenue goes to local governments and this payment is distributed based solely on population....

A Muskegon Community College instructor who turned his labor studies course into a series of public lectures has stacked the lectures with pro-union speakers. MCC Sociologist Nicholas Budimir said in a story on MLive that he wanted a balanced debate for a series of lectures open to the public, but seven of the nine "special guests" identified for the lectures work directly for unions. In the MLive story, he was quoted as saying: "There's virtually no democracy in workplaces. It's employer dictatorships." The two speakers without direct union ties are Andy Fink, chairman of the Muskegon County Republican Party, and...

Announced early this year, Detroit's "Operation Compliance" shut down two auto repair shots, two tire stores, a wood pallet shop and a junk yard in its first week. The official concern of the city is that these "illegal" businesses cause "blight and crime." But as a city official explained to ABC7-WXYZ: "There are revenues involved. If you don't go through the proper process we end up missing a lot of money." Detroit reportedly wants to shut down 20 businesses each week and more than 900 have either been closed or are in the process so far. The press release announcing...

The Michigan Education Association has continuously misrepresented the financial situation of schools, and did so again with a graphic it posted Sept. 12 on its Facebook page. On a graphic titled, “Public School Cuts: A Vicious Cycle” (see image nearby), the MEA cited an open letter from a Michigan State University professor that leaves out billions of dollars in school funding from its analysis. The picture also cites a school district issuing 223 layoff notices but doesn’t mention that the district only ended up actually laying off two teachers. In the past several months, MEA President Steve Cook has misrepresented...

In a recent op-ed in The Detroit News, Teamsters President James Hoffa criticized trade deals in the United States saying, “It is time America’s major import wasn’t cheap foreign goods and its major export wasn’t good U.S. jobs.” Hoffa used the South American country of Colombia to make his point, saying that exports to the U.S. from Colombia fell 4.5 percent between May 2012 and March 2013. But if Hoffa is implying that the U.S., and Michigan, are being hurt by trade deals, he won’t find much support from the Department of Commerce. For example, exports from the U.S. to...

Taxpayers are constantly told that film incentives are supposed to be a “temporary” subsidy to “plant and grow” an industry. But as Milton Friedman once observed, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” In North Carolina, the legislature has cut the state incentive program, once among the most generous in the nation, down to zero starting in 2014. While debating the budget, the Motion Picture Association of America, sent a letter to the state that read: “[W]ithout an extension of the production incentive program, North Carolina will no longer be considered for major feature films.” The MPAA represents...

As of Oct. 1, Michigan doctors and medical facilities will be receiving less for treating children who are in the MiChild program, which is the State of Michigan's health care program for uninsured children of working families. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH), 37,503 Michigan children are currently covered by MiChild. “This came out of the blue and at a glance looks pretty benign. But actually it's very significant,” said Dr. Megan Edison, a pediatrician in Wyoming, Michigan. “Low reimbursement rates are really having a negative impact on those in the vulnerable portion of our population. That's...

The GOP-controlled Michigan Legislature in 2012 enacted a wide array of potentially transformational government reforms. In 2013, a new Legislature is backsliding and risks fully slipping into its business-as-usual mode. Recent examples include a measure to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and to raise many fees. Coming soon may be a net-sales tax increase on internet shoppers, and authorizing new local government borrow-and-spend powers. On Tuesday legislation (House Bills 4202 and 4203) that would permit additional sales tax revenue to be collected on E-commerce was advanced by the House Tax Policy Committee. Formally, this is known as the “Main Street Fairness”...

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved House Bill 4770, which among other things, attempts to define what a journalist is to restrict access to motor vehicle accident reports for a period of 30 days after the accident. The measure is part of three-bill package aimed at impeding so-called “ambulance chasing” law firms. Within the package, the legislation is apparently an attempt to deny "ambulance chasers” quick access to accident reports. However, in that effort the bill sets out to define what does and doesn’t qualify as a “news publication.” “Government cannot license who speaks,” said attorney and MLive columnist...

Protesters rallied in Michigan and nationwide recently to claim that wages at fast food restaurants are too low. Here’s an alternative compensation schedule. These workers should be paid as much as doctors and lawyers and executives. Those in turn should all get the same salary. Every member of their staffs should make that amount too. The same principle should prevail in government: A receptionist at a state agency would make the same as the governor; a custodian cleaning a public university’s toilets would be paid exactly what the university’s president gets. Everybody gets equal pay. All across the board, throughout...