Business Leaders for Michigan, a group of some of the state’s most progressive, far-seeing corporate chiefs, has released a new 2012 Michigan Turnaround Plan – and it’s worth checking out. It lays out a far-reaching, long-term agenda that Michigan’s leading CEOs say would create nearly 500,000 jobs and increase per-capita incomes by $18,000 within 10 […]
Phil Power
Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics. He is also the founder and former chairman of the Center for Michigan which publishes Bridge Michigan and BridgeDetroit.
Posted inPhil's Column
Learning still starts at home
Over the years, I’ve been a big admirer of Rochelle Riley’s columns in the Detroit Free Press: Last Friday, she had a particularly valuable piece concerning the Detroit Parent Network, which is developing parent resource centers and connecting parents with those who teach their children. “The result is that a third more parents attended parent-teacher […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Michigan college cost dilemma bankrupts all
I’ve been observing Michigan public policy discussions for nearly 50 years. It’s amazing that, so often, it’s as though people with differing views live in two different universes. Take Michigan universities. Analysis presented last week in Bridge showed costs at Michigan public universities are higher than the average at comparable schools around the country and […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Michigan is turning students into beggars
For more than a decade, Michigan’s elected officials have imposed what amounts to a severe tax on the hundreds of thousands of students who attend our public universities. The consequences of this “college user tax” – clearly amounting to millions of dollars per year – include raising the cost bar for young Michiganders to attend […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Michigan needs productive 'midlife crisis'
“Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis” — David Brooks, New York Times columnist. For the past three years, the New Year […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Chronicle publisher stood for right things
News that Michigan Chronicle Publisher Sam Logan Jr. had passed away was a real shock to everybody who knew him. Sam was so energetic, so engaged, so filled with ideas and plans that no one ever thought he might leave us at such a premature time. He was a towering icon, not only to the African-American […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Setting the stage for 2012's performance
Frank Sinatra memorably sang about it being a long, long time from May to December and about the days dwindling down to a precious few. That’s the way it is in Michigan as the darkness closes in early at the end of the day and we begin to take stock of the year that’s about […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Center will make your voice heard on schools
I know I’m not alone when I say I’m disgusted with the way our political system is (not) working these days. What seems to be happening all over the country is that a mixture of highly partisan activists from both parties, passionate ideologues and special interest groups are succeeding in mostly closing off the political […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Get the mentally ill out of prisons, jails
Michigan taxpayers could save millions of dollars every year, not suffer any hardship and do humanity a service. How? Simply by shifting treatment of the mentally ill from state prisons and local jails to a system of outpatient treatment and mental health courts. This shift also would reverse a past mistake of epic proportions. Over […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Value of universities exemplified by new hospitals
The other day, my wife Kathy and I went to have a look through the new, soon-to-open University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospitals. The hospitals, located on the south side of the U of M medical system’s campus, have been under construction for the last four years. (The women’s hospital […]