A Lansing bus driver earned $140,900 in 2009 while working for the city's transit company. The six-figure income was due to 2,198 hours of overtime - or about 42 extra hours per week that the bus driver put in - according to the Capital Area Transportation Authority. The driver made $22.11 an hour base pay.

If the driver worked the standard private sector work week of 40 hours, plus the 42 hours of overtime, then the resulting 82 hour average work week would be sufficient to produce an 11 hour and 42 minute shift for each of the seven days of the week. Mapquest.com estimates that driving from Lansing to Washington D.C. requires a little less than ten hours.

Sandy Draggoo, CEO of CATA, confirmed in an e-mail that the bus driver did receive more than $140,000 in 2009. CATA declined to release the bus driver's name. By comparison, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero was paid $102,000 this year.

"In our labor agreement that we negotiated with our union that went into effect in August, we agreed to contract changes that modified the way we assign work to bus operators which will dramatically reduce the amount of paid overtime," Draggoo said. "Even more importantly, negotiated changes in the contract will save significant dollars so that annual earnings like this operator will not happen in the future."

There was also a CATA bus driver that made $114,691 in 2009, according to information released to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy following a Freedom Of Information Act request.

CATA has nearly 300 bus drivers, some of which are part time. There were 25 bus drivers who grossed more than $80,000 last year. The bus system spent $11.2 million just on bus drivers' salaries, including overtime, last year.

That Lansing bus driver made more than Robert Foy, director of the Flint Mass Transportation Authority, who earned $106,800 in 2009. Foy was the Flint bus system's highest paid employee in 2009, according to a FOIA request.

Historic? Groundswell? Tsunami?

Pundits reached deep for superlatives to describe Tuesday's election results, but one thing won't change much: 86 percent of new Michigan legislators will be individuals who have already been immersed in government to some degree.

This is slightly less than the 88 percent I projected here on Oct. 21. Out of 52 open seats in the House, goverment insiders took 42 - two fewer than predicted.

Similarly, individuals who are already members-in-good standing of the political class took seven out of nine House "turnovers" where incumbents were defeated. The winners are all Republicans, the ousted representatives Democrats.

Here's the breakdown: Among these 61 new House members are 28 current or past officeholders (three mayors, six city council members, 10 county commissioners, five township trustees or supervisors, and four school board members); eight current or past congressional, legislative or Detroit city council staffers; two relatives of current or former legislators; and one termed-out state senator.

Seven more of the "newcomers" are current or past local government appointees or managers, two are former public school employees, and one is a social worker. That all adds up to 49 out of 61 new House members.

On the other side of the Capitol, political careerists took 28 out of 29 open Senate seats, as projected.

80 percent of the 61 new House members and 97 percent of the 29 new Senate members are government insiders even before going (or returning) to Lansing. The combined total is 86 percent.

The article containing the Oct. 21 projection explained how the incentives that operate on individuals who are political careerists make them more likely to "serve the political/governmental system" over the interests of families and businesses, and so less likely to enact a "real-change" reform agenda.