Phil Power is founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan. Paul Hillegonds, who these days is a vice president at DTE Energy, is one of Michigan’s most plugged-in and thoughtful people. Whenever something valuable and useful is going on in our state, Paul, a former speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, is […]
Phil's Column
Phil Power is the founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan.
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Philanthropic groups step up to lead Michigan’s urban revival
Phil Power is founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan. There’s no doubt that one of Michigan’s biggest stories this year is Gov. Rick Snyder’s decision to put Detroit under an emergency manager, and put attorney Keyvn Orr in that post. But Detroit is far from the first or only city in the state […]
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Change the school focus from spending more to spending smart
Phil Power is founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan. Can anything really move the “needle of achievement” in our kids’ schools? Over the years, we’ve sure spent a whale of a lot of money, time and lung power trying to answer that question. “School people” — by which I mean teachers, their […]
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As special interests drag down government, private entities move to public’s aid
Phil Power is founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: The biggest barrier to a prosperous American economy is the U.S. Congress. Cynical, no doubt. But true in important ways not seen for generations. The Economist, an internationally respected news magazine, recently ran a […]
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Will Michigan voters ever get the campaign finance reform they deserve?
Last week was National Sunshine Week, designed to increase transparency in government: Opening up the workings of government and politics to the healthy light of day makes things cleaner and better. Sure. Over the years, I’ve watched plenty of National Sunshine Weeks come and go, without much actually changing. So I’m more than moderately skeptical […]
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Michigan, nation will sorely miss Levin’s leadership, integrity
One major thought popped into my brain when I heard Carl Levin had decided not to run for a seventh term in the U.S. Senate next year: “Class is a lot like pornography. You can’t define it, but you sure know it when you see it.” Carl is a class act, through and through. And […]
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Snyder, Detroit journalist offer hope for city mired in woe
I’m old enough — 74 — to remember the days when Detroit was a thriving city and a magnet for folks throughout Michigan. When I was a little boy, my mother would put on her white gloves and hat and take me to the enormous J. L. Hudson store downtown. At that time, it was […]
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Detroit’s fiscal opera will end with bankruptcy aria
Same song, second verse. That’s my reaction to the news last week that the state team charged with reviewing Detroit’s financial condition has unanimously concluded a financial emergency exists in the city. The exact wording: “… a financial emergency exists because no satisfactory plan exists within the city of Detroit to resolve a severe financial […]
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Snyder tries to sell long-term investment strategy to Michigan
Give a man a fish, and you feed him a day; show him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled his proposed state budget for the next two years last Thursday. If there is a core idea in his $50.9 billion budget message, it’s the distinction between investments […]
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Michigan politicians starve the engines of economic growth: universities
While we consider Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget message – to be delivered Thursday — we might want to look at some facts underlying our economy. The (persistently) bad news: Since 2008, Michigan has slashed state support for public colleges and universities by 21.5 percent. The (sort-of) good news: We rank only 11th among states in […]