Michigan Court Inexplicably Tosses Suit, Endorses Forcible Enlistment of Day-Care Workers into the State Government
When lawyers and other commentators say that a court did not properly explain its decision, it’s typically for hyperbolic effect. But, in a bizarre move, a court in the failed great state of Michigan has dismissed an economic liberty case brought by our friends at the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation for reasons the court quite literally did not explain. The court simply denied the plaintiffs’ complaint and that was that.
Home-based day care owners Sherry Loar, Michelle Berry, and Paulette Silverson have all been taxed by the Michigan Department of Human Services because, according to the state, they are somehow employees of the state and (further!) must pay union dues. because this baseless assertion comes directly from the state DHS, an executive department, among the significant constitutional objections to the case presents separation of power problems. (Ok, I haven’t studied the Michigan Constitution, but I assume they separate their powers there.) Enough ridiculous laws are passed by state legislatures — more than 40,000 last year alone – we don’t need state executive agencies getting into the act.
Yet, the Michigan Court of Appeals has nothing at all to say about the case.
Inexplicable — and unpardonable.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Press Release Economics in Michigan Picked Apart
This morning I blogged on the wave of state governments giving away taxpayer money to businesses in the name of “creating jobs.” One of the examples I mentioned is the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), a state program that exists to generate press releases to provide cover for the state’s lamentable fiscal policies.
Michael LaFaive at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan was kind enough to send me a recent report he wrote on the folly of state subsidies to businesses. State officials like to solicit studies from local universities that just happen to conclude that such-and-such government program is creating X number of jobs. (Of course, in the rare occurrence that a study doesn’t come back with what the bureaucrats were expecting, such study will likely disappear into thin air. I’ve seen that happen first hand.) Michael’s paper deconstructs a study on the purported benefits of Michigan’s film maker subsidies, which was prepared by Michigan State University at the behest of the MEDC. A quote he cites from a 2006 study on tourism-related economic development programs nails it:
“Most economic impact studies are commissioned to legitimize a political position rather than to search for economic truth. Often the result is mischievous procedures that produce large numbers that study sponsors seek to support a predetermined position.”
If you read nothing else, read the section on page 4 entitled “Why Government Subsidies Won’t Save Michigan’s Economy.” The reasons apply to all fifty states, not just Michigan.
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