Michigan House Republicans have declined the invitation extended by the state Senate to close the school employee pension system to new hires, a transformational reform that would gradually eliminate the state’s 50-year pattern of chronic pension underfunding.

Reportedly they have also watered down other Senate-passed reforms, such as one requiring current retirees to pay a little more for their own optional health insurance benefits that successive Legislatures have generously allowed taxpayers to provide.

As part of their cop-out, House Republicans have ordered up a "third-party study" to look at the consequences should they eventually find their way to accepting that one real and permanent reform. Unfortunately, the proposed study is rigged to make that outcome less likely, creating a victory for the state “Pension Industrial Complex” bureaucrats who may well have contributed to the biased procedures it is required to follow.

Specifically, the rigged study requires that the "normal costs" of the school employee pension fund — the amount deemed necessary to prefund future pension benefits earned by current employees in a given year — be compared to the costs of very generous 401(k) plan contributions that are now provided to all state employees hired since 1997.

However, the obvious benchmark is the optional 401(k) system that the House voted on for school employees, a plan with smaller employer obligations. In addition, the employer contribution rates in a defined-contribution system are flexible and legislators can set whatever terms they want.

Even more egregious is the fact that this "study" is also required to ignore the fact that the current pension system has been a lemon, and treats those "normal cost" estimates as if they honestly represent the system’s total costs. They do not. If they did, Michigan taxpayers would not be burdened with a $22.4 billion unfunded pension liability.

An honest study would compare the predictable and controllable costs of a 401(k) system to what really happens when politicized government defined-benefit systems fail to meet their overly optimistic investment assumptions. This failure is the largest reason that Michigan's unsustainable and unaffordable school pension system is so underfunded.

The House GOP's call for a biased study is an extra reward to the entrenched pension bureaucrats who have succeeded (for now) in stalling the only guaranteed real and permanent reform for this system, which is gradually eliminating it.

An article in The New York Times documents the craziness of current licensing laws across the nation.

In “So You Think You Can Be a Hair Braider?” the author focuses on Jestina Clayton, a Sierra Leone native who came to America, went to college, got married, had children and then tried to start her own business. Clayton lives in Utah, where she does a style of African hair braiding and found a niche market, providing for her family and creating value and wealth in the community.

But not for long. She was soon reported and told that her state requires a cosmetology license — which would teach her nothing about African hair braiding — to perform that service. From The Times:

A cosmetology license required nearly two years of school and $16,000 in tuition. But Clayton hoped for an exemption. After all, many Utah cosmetology schools taught little or nothing about African-style hair-braiding, and other states allowed people to practice it after passing a hygiene test and paying a small fee. Clayton made her case (via PowerPoint) to the exhaustively named governing body of Utah hair-braiding, the Barber, Cosmetology/Barber, Esthetics, Electrology and Nail Technology Licensing Board. The board, made up largely of licensed barbers and cosmetologists, shot her down.

Clayton tried to start a coalition and teamed up with a state representative, but they were no match for the powerful licensing groups that benefit from these anti-competitive regulations. The groups used their money and clout in the legislature to keep the Utah laws and eventually Clayton had to shut her business down.

The article explains: “Over the years, more and more started to lobby for licensing rules, often grand­fathering in existing professionals while putting up high barriers to new competitors. In fact, businesses contorting regulation to their own benefit is so common that economists have a special name for it: regulatory capture.”

These rules are mostly new and pervasive: In 1950, fewer than 5 percent of American jobs required a license. Today, it’s nearly a third — and the number is growing.

A burdensome licensing apparatus has also been killing jobs in Michigan while doing nothing for public health and safety or consumer protection. In the last few weeks, Michigan Capitol Confidential has done articles looking at how licensing laws harm state taxpayers trying to earn a living. Some areas covered:

• Painters have to pay hundreds of dollars and take 60 hours of classes and two exams to work.

• Barbers are required to spend 2,000 hours training for the state to grant them the privilege of providing a service.

• Putting up gutters and laying tile will cost you time and money if you want to earn a living.

• Other areas not usually licensed around the nation like floor sanders, alarm installers, glaziers and other alteration contractors.

These are only a few of hundreds of regulations advocated for by special interest groups and put into place by bureaucrats.

The defenders of these rules claim they exist to protect consumers. There are dangers in these occupations, but no more than the myriad dangers one faces in a given day — painting a bedroom and laying down tile have been done around the home by people as long as homeownership has existed. And despite claims that barbers are “the closest you can get” to being doctors, most everyone learns how to safely use scissors in kindergarten, if not before.

Those claiming that licensing helps consumers never have the onus to prove it — and they never try. The vast majority of states do not require licensing for painters, tile layers, house siders, gutter installers or other types of minor construction. And while many states license barbers, there is no evidence that doing so makes the field safer.

People are smart enough to perform these skilled tasks without a government thirsty for revenue or trade groups terrified of competition standing in the way.