A state representative called out a union lawyer for a gross exaggeration last month in an emerging controversy over just how many of the 70,000 home-based day care workers in Michigan knew they were being unionized.

Last year in a complicated union deal, about 70,000 day care workers in Michigan learned they had joined a union known as Child Care Providers Together Michigan and were now working for Michigan Home Based Child Care Council. About 40,000 of those home-based day care workers have union dues to the tune of $3.7 million a year automatically deducted from their state subsidy checks.

Some of the day care workers had been in business for a decade before finding out they were unionized.

Nick Ciaramitaro, Director of Legislation and Public Policy for Michigan AFSCME Council 25, told legislators at a Feb. 24 Family and Children’s Services Committee hearing that 95 percent of the day care workers voted for unionization.

When pressed later, Ciaramitaro reportedly lowered that number to 50 percent.

Which was it?

According to Patrick Wright, senior legal analyst for the Mackinac Center For Public Policy, the number of day care owners who voted represented between 9 to 16 percent of those eligible.

State documents show that 6,396 day care workers voted and 5,921 were in support of forming a union. But the union supposedly represents the 70,000 day home-based day care workers in Michigan, not just the 40,000 who receive state subsidy checks, according to the Michigan Auditor General.

Wright says if you go by the 40,000 figure, then about 16 percent voted. If you go by all the day care workers covered by the union, then that drops it to 9 percent.

Wright said if Ciaramitaro meant to say that 95 percent of the 6,396 day care workers who voted were supportive of joining a union, he was only about three percent off.

Ciaramitaro didn’t respond to an e-mail sent to his home and work addresses requesting clarification.

Gary Johnson sat in a Lansing coffee shop talking about one of the many ways he would fix the United States if elected president.

The former New Mexico governor pointed to the Social Security payments for retirees that were started in 1935. Johnson said back then, payments were scheduled to begin at an age (65) most people weren't expected to ever reach. Life expectancy was an average of 61.7 years for men and women in 1935.

Now, people are living much longer than 65, and the government can't afford the program. Raising the eligibility of full benefits is just one of the must-do fixes the nation must accept if it wants to get away from borrowing 43 cents for every dollar it spends, said Johnson, who is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012.

Johnson was in Michigan last week to promote "Our America — The Gary Johnson Initiative." It's a public advocacy committee that states its goals are promoting civil liberties, free enterprise, limited government and "traditional American values."

But not all of Johnson's views would be considered "traditional."

He wants to legalize marijuana and "control it, regulate it and tax it."

"Bottom line — people smoke marijuana for the same reasons as people drink alcohol," Johnson said.

It's insane, Johnson says, that 900,000 people are arrested every year in this country for crimes involving marijuana.

"We have made felons of tens of millions of Americans who, were it not for our drug laws, would be law-abiding, taxpaying citizens," he said.

Johnson said he had no luck making pot legal as New Mexico's governor from 1995 to 2003.

"When it comes to elected officials, it (marijuana) is the number one boogeyman out there."

Johnson said he stopped smoking pot in the mid-1970s when "I came to the realization it was a handicap."

But Johnson's keys for an American recovery revolve around more mainstream ideas — such as cutting Medicaid and Medicare and defense spending.

Johnson says he would pull the U.S. military out of Iraq and Afghanistan "as soon as possible."

The U.S. is responsible for protecting its borders and acting against any aggressor that "raises arms against us." He said Iraq and Afghanistan don't meet that standard.

"We are in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, who we supported against Russia. Now, they are bad?" Johnson said. "C'mon. They are going to be around after we are gone."