FORT WAYNE, Ind. — In the weeks after “Right to Work” became law in Indiana, Michigan-based Android Industries was anointed a poster child for the job growth state officials predicted would flow from the measure. Company officials insisted it was no accident they picked Indiana to open an automotive plant in suburban Fort Wayne in […]
Ted Roelofs
Ted Roelofs of Kentwood, has written extensively on healthcare as well as prison and juvenile justice reform. Roelofs spent nearly three decades at the Grand Rapids Press where he covered politics, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rural poverty and mental illness among the homeless. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Reach Ted at ted.roelofs@gmail.com
Posted inBusiness Watch
Political fallout from RTW deal yet to land
INDIANAPOLIS — With passage of Right to Work legislation imminent, Indiana Democrats huddled on a Monday night in February 2011 to plot strategy. The following morning, some three dozen state representatives bolted for the Comfort Suites in Urbana, Ill., trying to wait out a Republican majority determined to push the measure through. The move left […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Political winds bolster bridge, fuel-tax review, but not renewable energy
On energy, bridges and taxes, voters spoke volumes on Tuesday. Defeat of Proposal 3 means, for the foreseeable future, that Michigan will pursue a more limited investment in wind power and renewable energy than neighboring states. Defeat of Proposal 5 means a simple legislative majority remains the threshold for statewide tax increases, perhaps opening the […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Proposal 5: Supermajority rule on taxes
The signal moment in the budget reform agenda of Gov. Rick Snyder came by a margin of one, as the state Senate voted 20-19 in May 2011 to approve a $1.7 billion tax cut for business and impose a variety of changes to Michigan’s personal income tax. Lt. Gov. Brian Calley cast a rare tie-breaking […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Formula for turning jobless into employed remains elusive
Five years after she entered Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind retraining program, Macomb County resident Lori Wingert is still grateful. She lost her job teaching preschool children of Ford Motor Co. employees when the automaker shut its child development center. She was among the first participants in 2007 in the program, which paid for Wingert’s […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Proposal 5 seeks end to majority rule on taxes
The signal moment in the budget reform agenda of Gov. Rick Snyder came by a margin of one, as the state Senate voted 20-19 in May 2011 to approve a $1.7 billion tax cut for business and impose a variety of changes to Michigan’s personal income tax. Lt. Gov. Brian Calley cast a rare tie-breaking […]
Posted inMichigan Government
California is poster child for tax limitation rules, for advocates and critics alike
In the depths of the Great Depression, California lawmakers devised a bold prescription for balancing the state books. Called Proposition 1, the 1933 measure called for a complicated shift in taxes between state and local governments and boosted state spending for schools. Almost as an afterthought, it required a two-thirds vote in each chamber to […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Prop 5 advocates say taxes are high, but figures show Michigan in the middle
It is an article of faith among small government advocates that Michigan residents are overtaxed, especially in relation to other states. That might have been true in 1985, when Michigan ranked seventh in the nation with a state and local tax burden of 10.4 percent, compared to a national average of 9.7 percent. The data […]
Posted inTalent & Education
In Grand Rapids, a tale of two kids
Like any mother, Grand Rapids resident Courtney Malone wants the best for her children. That’s why she worries about her 3-year-old son, Bryson, who is on a waiting list for the state’s Great Start Readiness Program. She fears he could be losing ground by missing out on the all-day preschool. “It’s very disappointing,” said Malone, […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Khan Academy sparks passion from fans, skeptics
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a big fan. So is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who calls California-based Khan Academy “a glimpse of the future of education.” Founded in 2006 by Bengali-American Sal Khan and profiled on “Sixty Minutes,” the academy’s free online video tutorials on everything from math to finance to cosmology reach some 5 […]
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