Citizens Research Council of Michigan
 
Publications Tax Outline Economic Development State Budget Analysis Ballot Issues Almanac
 
Home
Contact CRC
CRC in the News
About Us
Frequently Asked Questions
Case for Support
Testimonials
Staff
Directors
Links
 
E-Mail Updates
Search CRC Website
 
 APPLICATIONS
 
Democracy Works When People Support It
 
CRC Column

The right to criticize government is also an obligation to know what you are talking about. 
 -Lent Upson, 1st Executive Director of CRC  

While the Citizens Research Council of Michigan makes the results of its analyses freely available through this website, in printed versions, and in forums, the media frequently bring CRC research to a wider audience.

Media Coverage

  • Deficits, reserve shortage hit the state budget, Crain's Detroit Business, January 4, 2009
    Lawmakers head into 2009 facing dual budgetary challenges and state finances that have weakened in recent years, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan.

    The report highlights elected officials' task of tackling both an ongoing, structural imbalance between spending pressures and revenue, and the budgetary effects of the national recession.

  • Lawmakers Look At Another Deficit Next Year, WSJM Radio [St. Joseph], January 2, 2009 When the Michigan legislature resumes work after the first of the year, it be looking at a budget deficit expected to reach 400 million dollars by September 30th -- the end of the state's fiscal year. Governor Jennifer Granholm has promised not to raise taxes - like last year - to boost revenues. Citizens Research Council of Michigan Director, Craig Thiel, says that means the most likely answer will be cuts in state services.

    Thiel says if the legislature doesn't cut spending the only other alternative is to increase revenues. Thiel says increased revenue could come in the form of sales or income taxes that the Governor opposes. He says spending reductions could involve the state's Corrections Department, where one of every five general fund dollars is spent.

  • Some suggestions for a better 2009, Detroit News, January 1, 2009
    Fix the road ratio. About $1 billion in state tax revenues are dedicated to road work each year in this state, but southeast Michigan hasn't been getting its fair share. A 2008 study by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan found that Keweenaw County in the Upper Peninsula received a whopping $569 per person in transportation funds while Wayne County only got $89 per person. By every conceivable measure -- the number of drivers, the number of roads, the amount of commerce traveling on those roads, and the number of taxpayers in Wayne County compared to its northern counterpart -- that ratio is indefensibly out of whack. The Citizens Research Council argues that this can be resolved by indexing revenues to highway miles traveled. Whatever the measure, the revenue sharing ratio must be addressed by lawmakers in 2009.

 

  • 'CPR' for Dartmouth's fiscal ill health, South Coast Today, December 29, 2008
    The Citizens Research Council of Michigan completed a study that indicates that there are significant cost savings realized by consolidation of local government services. New Bedford recently has moved in this direction with its creation of a Department of Infrastructure, which combined city departments and reduced labor and administrative costs.

  • Smoke and Mirrors: Lansing’s new $40-billion budget is long on promise but short on reform, dbusiness, December 2008
    The pending mismatch between state revenue streams and spending has been tracked for years by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan (CRC), a respected nonpartisan think tank in Lansing. "Storm clouds are brewing on the horizon," says CRC director of state affairs Craig Thiel. "The budget for next year is based on a significant amount of one-time resources that won’t be available when they go to write the budget for 2010. That’s a problem."

    Thiel notes that a tax hike was approved in 2007 but says it didn’t solve long-range problems. "There was also a major tax restructuring with respect to the business tax," he says. "The problem is that neither of those things -- on their own or combined -- [affected] the projected growth path of the revenue that’s coming into the state. In effect, we solved the immediate problem, a shortfall, a mismatch between revenue and spending. But when you start running those revenues out and the spending out, the lines diverge quite rapidly. Characterize it as a missed opportunity in terms of restructuring the system to get more growth out of it."

    The research council and others say the state faces a "structural deficit," created when the cost of programs and policies grow faster than revenue, even when the economy performs well. "This gets to an issue that we’ve been tracking," Thiel says. "The state really has an inherent mismatch between the ongoing revenues ... coming in and the spending that’s built into the budget."

  • How to kill a Michigan business tax, Detroit News, December 18, 2008
    Corrections is the logical place to start. It's the one area of the budget that's been spared from the chopping block. Our prison population has soared 538 percent in the last three decades, and costs have skyrocketed 5,000 percent, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan. With more than 50,000 inmates, Michigan has the highest prison population in the Midwest. The cost of a year in prison is $30,000 per inmate.

  • Nation doesn't owe Michigan a dime - or does it? , Monroe News, December 14, 2008
    A Citizens Research Council of Michigan study concluded that "if Michigan had received the same proportion of all federal payments to states as the proportion of its population to the total U.S. population, an additional $14 billion in direct payments would have been made to Michigan recipients in 2007."

 

  • Michigan needs its fair share, Detroit Free Press, November 30, 2008
    And we’re getting worse, according to an analysis released last week by the widely-respected Citizens Research Council of Michigan. The apolitical public issues organization says Michigan, still the 10th most populous state in the nation, dropped from 2006 to ’07 from 44th among states to 45th in per capita federal spending. ...

  • How to kill a business tax, Lansing State Journal, November 28, 2008
    Corrections is the logical place to start. It's the one area of the budget that's been spared from the chopping block. Our prison population has soared by 538 percent in the last three decades and costs have skyrocketed 5,000 percent, according to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council. With more than 50,000 inmates, Michigan has the highest prison population in the Midwest. The cost of a year in prison is $30,000 per inmate.

  • New thinking needed on sharing scarce tax dollars, Detroit News, November 25, 2008
    With a sour economy a continuing fact of life, a new analysis by the Michigan Citizens Research Council observes that it would behoove local governments to continue and accelerate attempts to gain savings through combined operations or functions. ...

  • Study: State's policies fill prisons, [St. Joseph] Herald-Palladium, November 24, 2008
    Fewer inmates get paroled, and more of those who do are going back to prison for breaking technical rules, said Matthew Johnson, who conducted the study for the [Citizens] Research Council of Michigan. ...

  • Report: More ways for locals to consolidate, Gongwer News Service, November 18, 2008
    As economic and budget woes continue across the state, more and more local units of government have turned to collaboration as a way to cut costs and a report recently released by the Citizens Research Council highlights the strategy locals should use to assess further partnerships. ...

  • State tries to craft budgets amid economic uncertainty, Crain's Detroit Business, November 17, 2008
    "I can't imagine storm clouds being any darker," said Craig Thiel, director of state affairs at the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan. "That (auto industry) economic activity drives state revenues."

  • State can't stand still on spending for roads, Detroit News, November 12, 2008
    In addition, lawmakers will have to examine how the spending is targeted. Earlier this year the Citizens Research Council examined the current distribution formula for transportation revenues and found that the heavily-traveled highways in southeast Michigan are shortchanged compared with rural areas of the state.

    Local and county road agencies in one county in the Upper Peninsula received about $270 per resident from the state in 2006, the research council found, while the formula provided about $89 for each Wayne County resident. Former Gov. John Engler tried to change the formula when the gasoline tax was increased a decade ago, but was rebuffed by legislators.

  • Cut prison costs, Grand Rapids Press, November 9, 2008
    A June report by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan concluded the state could spend another $600 million over the next several years as the prison population increases and ages.

  • Next big battle: redistricting, Livingston Daily, November 6, 2008
    The respected Citizens Research Council estimates that this deficit, left unaddressed, will balloon to nearly $10 billion by 2017.

 

  • Vote 'yes' on Proposal 2, Kalamazoo Gazette, October 31, 2008
    We turned to an analysis by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a non-partisan public-policy research organization. It concluded that Proposal 2 would not change the state's ban on cloning embryos and that all federal restrictions would continue to apply. However, the CRC also anticipates that the proposal's language about restrictions ultimately will be settled in the courts, as has been the case with other state ballot initiatives.

  • Stem cell proposal opens way to unrestricted research, Detroit Free Press, October 30, 2008
    The Citizens Research Council report validates the lack of regulations in Proposal 2 when it states: "Research on human embryos and embryonic stem cells is not restricted by federal law."

  • WSU debates Proposal 2: School of Medicine gives forum on heavily contested stem cell research initiative, The South End, October 30, 2008
    CRC cited as a source.

  • Proposal 2 is wrong for Michigan, Detroit Free Press, October 28, 2008
    The Citizens Research Council, a neutral policy review organization, agreed that Proposal 2 would tie the hands of the Legislature in regulating this new industry with an unknown and unforeseeable future.

  • Both sides of Prop 2 cite saving lives as key, Lansing State Journal, October 27, 2008
    An independent analysis by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan concluded that Proposal 2 would provide "unique constitutional protection" for stem cell research.

    It also said the proposal would, in effect, leave regulation to the federal government, which "would not make Michigan unusual."

  • The Michigan Proposals - An Off the Record Special, Off the Record, October 24, 2008
    Several references to CRC's ballot analyses throughout the show.

  • Mich. ad likens stem-cell work to Tuskegee study, The Associated Press, October 23, 2008
    An analysis by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan has said research on human embryos mainly would be regulated by the federal government if Proposal 2 passes. Embryonic stem-cell research conducted with federal funding is regulated by the National Institutes of Health, according the research council's review.

  • Beware the snowflake red herrings, Detroit Free Press, October 22, 2008
    As a comprehensive analysis by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan notes, "If Proposal 2008-02 passes, patients will retain the option to donate their excess embryos to other patients."

  • Get serious about state's chronic budget deficit, Detroit News, October 22, 2008
    According to the well-respected Citizens Research Council, without big changes, our structural budget deficit will balloon to $9.6 billion by 2017, just about the size of today's entire General Fund. And this doesn't count the effects of the Wall Street meltdown or the coming national recession.

  • Laying foundation for prosperity, Lansing State Journal, October 16, 2008
    For despite all the thrashing and moaning, nothing much was done to resolve the underlying structural budget deficit. We call it "structural," because the whole process is virtually guaranteed to turn out in the red, since the deficit is baked into the state's current level of spending and tax income -- and every year, it gets a little worse.

    The respected and non-partisan Citizens' Research Council estimates this structural deficit in the state's general fund will grow to $9.6 billion by fiscal year 2017 -- now just eight years away.

    That projected deficit is somewhat larger than this year's entire general fund total of $9.3 billion!

  • Stem Cell Politics Shift to Michigan, Inside Higher Ed, October 14, 2008
    According to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, one thing is clear: "This provides unique Constitutional protection to stem cell research." But how far it would reach would "depend on the courts."

    "If passed, research on human embryos mainly would be regulated by the federal government," continues the council’s report on the initiative. "This would not make Michigan unusual; many states leave it to the federal government to regulate the research. Current federal regulations are limited to funding, but the policy could change with the next president."quot;

  • Voters split on Proposal 2, [Shiawassee] Argus Press, October 13, 2008
    Citizen Research Council of Michigan, a nonpartisan think tank, studied the proposal.

    The report details that Michigan has some of the strictest human embryonic stem cell research laws in the nation and that "The National Academies issued ethical guidelines for stem cell research that offer a common set of ethical standards due to the lack of comprehensive federal funding and federal oversight of stem cell research. The guidelines regulate the donation and use of embryos in research and prohibit reproductive cloning, among other things. These guidelines, while adopted by many researchers voluntarily, are not legally binding."

    The report also says Michigan is only one of three states that bans research on human embryos and that passage of the proposal, "may make Michigan appear more hospitable to the life sciences industry and lead to greater investment in Michigan and its universities and research institutions."

  • Charges rampant on stem cell issue, Detroit Free Press, October 12, 2008
    CRC cited as a source

  • Understanding the atom aids Michigan, Saginaw News, October 8, 2008
    It will increase our state's return on federal dollars. Today we are 43rd in the nation, according to the Citizens Research Council....

  • What stem cell report really says, Detroit Free Press, October 8, 2008
    Opponents of embryonic stem cell research say a new report by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan bolsters their case against a constitutional initiative to expand such research.

    To understand just what a heaping helping of horse patooties their claim is, you have to read the actual report -- something the anti-stem cell research zealots seem not to have done closely....

  • Charter preparations begin, Detroit News, October 7, 2008
    "Charter commissioners can be reimbursed up to $64 a day for up to 90 meetings," said Bettie Buss, a senior associate with the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonprofit public affairs research organization.

  • Two Takes On Prop 2, MIRS Capitol Capsule, October 6, 2008
    "Everything in the ad is accurate," Doyle said. "The recent study done by the Citizens Research Council (CRC) says that Proposal 2 would put unique exemptions in the constitution for the (stem cell research) industry."

    Interestingly enough, the CureMichigan groups also cited the CRC study, claiming it refutes many of MiCause's claims.

    "The Citizens Research Council study does a good job," Richard MCLELLAN of CureMichigan said.

    The CRC study can be viewed at crcmich.org

  • Analysis: Research opponents raise future concerns, MLive.com, October 6, 2008
    An analysis by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan says research on human embryos mainly would be regulated by the federal government if Proposal 2 passes. The council's review notes that research on human embryos and embryonic stem cells is not restricted by federal law; however, President Bush's policies restrict federal funding to research on embryonic stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001.

  • Michigan voters to decide on medical marijuana, Chicago Tribune, October 4, 2008
  • Detroit Newspaper Editors Talk, MIRS Capitol Capsule, October 3, 2008
    The editorial page editors of the state's largest newspapers staged a rare joint appearance last week and found some common ground along with several philosophical disagreements.

    The Citizens Research Council (CRC) of Michigan at its 92nd annual meeting invited Detroit Free Press Opinion page editor Ron DZWONKOWSKI to share the dais with his counterpart at the rival Detroit News, Nolan FINLEY....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Updated January 5, 2009