Late last winter, Gov. Rick Snyder officially dubbed March 17, 2011, as Michigan Agriculture Day. The proclamation lauds the industry as “the source of virtually everything we eat each day,” and says it plays a “key role in the growth and reinvention of Michigan’s economy.” It’s one of the ways that Snyder has singled out […]
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Posted inBusiness Watch
Billion-dollar bust?
(Originally published Aug. 10, 2011) A 15-year-long effort to spur jobs and vitality in some of the state’s most economically depressed areas by turning them into virtual tax-free zones — and thereby forgoing about $1 billion in tax collections — is being curtailed by Gov. Rick Snyder. Citing disappointing results in Renaissance Zones, the Snyder […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Learning from prison cuts in other states
(Originally published Feb. 3, 2011) When Judge Steven Alm was appointed to a Honolulu felony court in 2004, it didn’t take long before the new jurist identified what he considered a major flaw in the system: Offenders on probation repeatedly flouted simple rules without sanction, until a-dozen-or-so accumulated violations sent them to state prison for […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Income is small share of business taxes
Emerging from a long debate over the second major revision of the state’s business income tax in a decade, Michigan residents, and maybe some policy-makers, may be surprised by the results of the Council on State Taxation’s annual report on business taxes. Gov. Rick Snyder and allies in the Legislature and business community argued consistently […]