Michigan spends a quick $3B picking winners and losers

Legislators pass 5 bills, call for $2.9B to be handed out to the few, as chosen by state officials

By James David Dickson | March 3, 2023

Corporate welfare is a big winner, early into Michigan’s 102nd Legislature. With just five bills signed into law, Michigan lawmakers have spent $2.9 billion of taxpayer money picking winners and losers, by way of cash giveaways and grants.

Senate Bill 7 represents the quickest billion dollars to be spent in Michigan history — $946 million, to be precise. The spending package includes $200 million for a paper mill in Escanaba that is not required to create a single new job.

The 2023 Public Acts Table for Michigan, last updated Feb. 15, only shows 3 laws.

Two more bills have passed since, and they await Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature: House Bill 4001, which spends $1.65 billion on business subsidies for the Ford Marshall battery plant, and House Bill 4016, which spends $800 million on other business subsidies.

James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center, told CapCon that improving Michigan’s business climate, not creating targeted cash giveaways, is the path to job creation.

“Michigan’s economic recovery has stalled before the state got back all the jobs it lost during the pandemic. Half of all the states have fully recovered,” Hohman noted.

“The places that are up the most are states like Utah and Idaho, which don’t subsidize select companies with large taxpayer subsidies, but have better business climates than Michigan. Lawmakers ought to spend less time on ineffective subsidies and more time improving the state’s tax and regulatory system,” Hohman said.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

MSU ends COVID-19 vaccine mandate

MSU says COVID-19 is now a matter of ‘personal health responsibility,’ not a public health crisis

By Jamie A. Hope | March 3, 2023

Michigan’s two largest public universities are taking different stances on whether to require students, staff and faculty to receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

The University of Michigan recently announced it will require the vaccination of students living on campus in the fall 2023 term, but Michigan State University has reversed course. MSU will no longer require a COVID-19 vaccination for students and employees.

U-M announced its COVID-19 vaccination requirement for fall 2023 on Feb. 20. MSU gave notice that it will no longer require the vaccine, as of Feb. 28.

“As the pandemic continues to shift from an acute public health crisis to a personal health responsibility, MSU no longer will require the COVID-19 vaccination for students, staff and faculty, effective today,” MSU University Physician Michael Brown wrote in his letter announcing the new policy.

As Brown writes in his statement:

Now, as both the virus and our understanding of it continues to evolve, there is widespread protection due to the number of individuals vaccinated. New vaccine boosters and treatment options are widely available, and we know better how to protect those most vulnerable.

It is unclear why U-M prolonged the requirement, as Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Jan. 10, 2022, that the vaccine does not prevent transmission of the coronavirus. The university did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Only 49% of Michiganders had taken a vaccine when MSU imposed its mandate on Aug. 31, 2021. The number for the state now stands at 59%.

The numbers look different, however, for the share of Michigan’s population that is up-to-date on COVID vaccines. Most people are considered fully vaccinated when they have had two initial doses and at least one booster. Some, however, chose a vaccine that only requires one shot and a booster. Only 16% of state residents have all of the recommended COVID-19 vaccines, which is what MSU required. Ingham County, home to MSU, has a slightly higher rate of 19%.

Businesses, governments and schools are slowly dropping mandates after the Biden administration announced plans to officially end the public health emergency in May. Yet the incidence of COVID in the MSU area is close to what it was when the university created its mandate.

Ingham County averaged 0.4 COVID deaths per day when MSU first announced the requirement. The daily average is currently 0.5, according to The New York Times COVID tracker. The test positivity rate was 8% when the mandate went into effect. It is now 14%, which means the virus is more active than it was before the mandate.

MSU still faces a lawsuit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of three former university employees. The plaintiffs were fired because they refused to take a COVID shot, arguing they have natural immunity after contracting the virus shortly before MSU announced its mandate.

The case is still awaiting a decision from the court. Since judges heard the case in December, a new study published in The Lancet concluded that natural immunity from previous infections is more effective against severe disease and lasts longer than the protection offered by various COVID-19 vaccinations.