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  • Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the Citizens Research Council of Michigan is properly cited.

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    November 21, 2014

    2008 Media Citations

    The media recognize that without a trusted, independent source of data and analysis, the flow of information about state and local government issues would be controlled by two sources — the governmental units themselves and interest groups. CRC is that trusted source. Here are the latest articles in which CRC is cited:

    [cs_accordian column_size=”1/1″ accordian_style=”default”][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”December” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    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.

    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.”

    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.

    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.”

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”November” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    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. …

    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.

    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. …

    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. …

    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. …

    “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.”

    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.

    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.

    The respected Citizens Research Council estimates that this deficit, left unaddressed, will balloon to nearly $10 billion by 2017.

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”October” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    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.

    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.”

    CRC cited as a source.

    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.

    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.”

    Several references to CRC’s ballot analyses throughout the show.

    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.

    As a comprehensive analysis by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigannotes, “If Proposal 2008-02 passes, patients will retain the option to donate their excess embryos to other patients.”

    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.

    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!

    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;

    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.”

    CRC cited as a source

    It will increase our state’s return on federal dollars. Today we are 43rd in the nation, according to the Citizens Research Council….

    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 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.

    “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

    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.

    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….

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”September” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”August” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”July” icon=”Choose Icon”]

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    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”January” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    [/accordian_item][/cs_accordian]

    2008 Media Citations

    The media recognize that without a trusted, independent source of data and analysis, the flow of information about state and local government issues would be controlled by two sources — the governmental units themselves and interest groups. CRC is that trusted source. Here are the latest articles in which CRC is cited:

    [cs_accordian column_size=”1/1″ accordian_style=”default”][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”December” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    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.

    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.”

    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.

    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.”

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”November” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    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. …

    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.

    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. …

    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. …

    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. …

    “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.”

    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.

    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.

    The respected Citizens Research Council estimates that this deficit, left unaddressed, will balloon to nearly $10 billion by 2017.

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”October” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    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.

    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.”

    CRC cited as a source.

    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.

    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.”

    Several references to CRC’s ballot analyses throughout the show.

    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.

    As a comprehensive analysis by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigannotes, “If Proposal 2008-02 passes, patients will retain the option to donate their excess embryos to other patients.”

    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.

    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!

    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;

    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.”

    CRC cited as a source

    It will increase our state’s return on federal dollars. Today we are 43rd in the nation, according to the Citizens Research Council….

    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 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.

    “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

    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.

    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….

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”September” icon=”Choose Icon”]

    [/accordian_item][accordian_item accordion_active=”no” accordion_title=”August” icon=”Choose Icon”]

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  • Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the Citizens Research Council of Michigan is properly cited.

  • Recent Posts

    • Stay informed of new research published and other Citizens Research Council news.
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