Despite what Gov. Rick Snyder said, you can leave your outhouse seat up

Gov. Rick Snyder got lots of yuks when he said during his State of the State speech that Michigan needs to do away with silly regulations, such as one requiring that outhouse users keep the seats down.

Snyder said people don't need to be told by the government how to regulate their outhouse seats.

"I don't know about you, but I have a higher authority at home," he said, referring to his wife, Sue, who could be seen laughing while seated on the House floor.

Citing outdated or silly regulations is an oft-used rhetorical tool employed by elected officials in speeches.

But, as the Detroit Free Press discovered, there is no such outhouse regulation.



Michigan does require that outhouse openings be closed when not in use. The Free Press quoted an outhouse expert about why this is important from a public health standpoint. (Warning: You might not want to read that part of the story while you're eating if you have an uncovered outhouse opening.)

Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel told the Free Press that it was OK for the governor to cite a regulation that didn't exist. The larger issue, she said, is the threat to doing our business in private:

"Whether it's a seat or lid, mandating that it be kept down perfectly illustrates the types of regulations that are outdated and need review," she said. "Do the taxpayers of Michigan really want a regulation on the books that could mean inspections of seat/lid placement would take place?"

So state government might send out the potty police to make sure your outhouse is in compliance with state regulations? That's the day we should really worry about big government.

I think this episode shows that elected officials should stop talking about burdensome regulations in public. It's just too rhetorically risky.

A week after Snyder's outhouse flub, President Barack Obama also made a joke about a regulation he regarded as unnecessary. Obama's quip was true, but not very funny.


Obama said his administration eliminated a 40-year-old regulation relating to milk spills on farms.

“We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 per year proving that they could contain a spill — because milk was somehow classified as oil,” he said. “With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.”

About the only one who thought that joke was clever was Obama.

















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Republican lawmakers to General Motors: We still hate you

Since its federally financed bankruptcy in 2009, General Motors Co. has made a remarkable turnaround. Sales, profits and employment are rising. GM even regained its crown as the world's largest automaker last year.

All of that is a terrible blow to Republican members of Congress who vehemently opposed the Obama administration's $50 billion bailout of GM two years ago. They may not have said so publicly, but many would no doubt liked to have seen GM struggling, at the least, to validate their view that the federal government had no business aiding a money-losing private business.

But, alas, there has been some good news for the GM haters in Washington--that greenie, government-subsidized Chevy Volt caught fire! The Volt, which is primarily powered by electricity and is eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit, represents everything that is wrong with auto making to the free market, "drill, baby, drill" crowd.



House Republicans are in full investigation mode, attempting to put doubts about the Volt's safety in the minds of consumers. And they are trying to prove what they know must be true--that the federal agency charged with investigating such matters covered up the Volt battery fire to protect the government's 26 percent ownership share of GM.

In addition to holding a hearing on the matter Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also released a report alleging that an "unnatural relationship" between GM and the Obama administration may have resulted in a cover-up of the Volt battery fire by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The battery caught fire last June, three weeks after a NHTSA crash test of the Volt. GM has since announced it will beef up the structure around the battery, but insists that Volt owners are in no danger.

"As one customer put it, if they couldn't cut him out of the vehicle in three weeks, he'd have bigger problems to worry about," GM CEO Dan Akerson testified to the oversight committee on Wednesday.

Akerson also lamented that the Volt has become a "political football" in a presidential election year. The success of the government's bailout of GM and Chrysler has regularly been cited by Democratic President Barack Obama as he seeks re-election in November. So, of course, the Republicans must vilify the automakers for their "unnatural relationship" with Obama.

All of this led me to wonder where Akerson, a Republican who once was an executive at the heavy hitting private equity firm, The Carlyle Group, was placing his political wagers these days.

Like most careful corporate executives, Akerson has hedged his bets. Last September, Akerson gave $5,000 to Republican Rep. Dave Camp of Midland, according to OpenSecrets.org. He also gave U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, $5,000 in May.

But if I were Akerson, I'd be tempted to not give another cent to Republicans, who seem determined to damage GM in their effort to regain the White House.






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Did Michigan Attorney General Bill Scheutte just kick off his gubernatorial campaign?

I don't claim any special political analyst powers. But when I read about today's news conference featuring the unlikely pairing of Attorney General Bill Scheutte and Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee, I wondered if something more than law enforcement was going on here.

To be fair, it wasn't just the Republican Scheutte and the presumably Democratic Godbee at the Lansing news conference. A number of police chiefs and county prosecutors came together to address the growing problem of violent crime in the state.

Flint and Detroit lead the nation in violent crime, according to recent FBI statistics.

Gov. Rick Snyder said in his State of the State speech last week that fighting crime will be a focus of his administration this year. He plans to issue a special message to the Legislature on the topic in March.

But Scheutte seemingly jumped ahead of the governor, a fellow Republican, during the news conference.



The attorney general said he wants $140 million of the state's $475 million budget surplus to be used to hire 1,000 police officers statewide. Snyder has not yet said how or if that surplus should be spent.

Several of my Lansing friends have told me Schuette does want to be governor someday. He's built a political resume full of elected and appointed positions, and his political ambitions still seem hot.

Schuette has been a U.S. congressman, a state senator, state Agriculture Department director and a state appeals court judge. He also served as one of many Republican sacrificial lambs who tried to unseat U.S. Sen. Carl Levin.

I have no personal knowledge that Scheutte intends to seek the governor's office in 2014. But if he does decide to run, we might look back on today's news conference as the unofficial start of his campaign.



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Gov. Rick Snyder's State of the State speech 'most boring ever'

With all the issues facing Michigan this year--potential right-to-work legislation, a financially teetering Detroit and what to do with a budget surplus among them--anticipation was high for Gov. Rick Snyder's second State of the State speech.

Thud. Snyder's speech mostly focused on the many accomplishments of his first year and didn't provide a clear road map--or many details--on where he's going this year.

Veteran political analyst Bill Ballenger called it "the most boring State of the State ever." And Bill has heard all of them. Just kidding, Bill!

But Ballenger said boring, in Snyder's case, is probably good.



Snyder's style is to give a broad outline of what he wants to accomplish but not reveal many details ahead of time. Witness his repeated refusal during his election campaign to explain how he intended to pay for a $1.7 billion business tax cut. We eventually found out.

As Ballenger noted during a "Off the Record" session following the SOS, a Republican-controlled Legislature means Snyder can accomplish pretty much whatever he wants without jawing much about it in advance.

Still, the speech was a disappointment to those looking for details on how Snyder intends to continue implementing what he calls "Michigan 3.0"--the era of innovation.

Strangely, he spent time praising the economic growth of sectors from Michigan 1.0 and 2.0--agriculture, manufacturing, mining and tourism. No mention at all of knowledge jobs in health care, financial services, and business, professional and technical services.

And no discussion of whether the governor will propose using some of the budget surplus on new investments in education and cities. (State Board of Education President John Austin has written an insightful piece on Michigan's need for new public investments in Dome magazine.)

Some say Snyder accomplished so much in changing the direction of state government in his first year that this year will spent implementing that new direction.

But as he did in his first year, I suspect Snyder will surprise us with some of the policy directions he takes in 2012. This is a governor who under-articulates and over-delivers. His SOS speech may have been boring, but I don't think his actions will be.





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Cost of a college eduation coming under increasing scrutiny in Michigan

Bridge magazine has an excellent package of stories this week on skyrocketing college costs in Michigan. (Disclosure: I'm a regular contributor to Bridge, but was not involved in this special report.)

Rising college costs are a problem in many states, but especially in Michigan. Bridge found that college costs here are among the highest in the country while state support for higher education is among the lowest in the country.

Those costs are putting an incredible financial burden on students and their families. Michigan students took out $1.8 billion in loans to finance college in 2010, up $600 million from 2007, according to Bridge. And that figure appears not to include loans taken out by parents to finance their children's eduction.

In today's Detroit News, columnist Marney Rich Keenan discusses her family's struggles with paying college costs for three daughters. Says Keenan:

As a state, and a country, for that matter, we can't keep on insisting our future depends on a highly educated work force and then not provide an affordable path for families to get their children college degrees.

So what can be done?



Senate Democrats announced a plan this week that would essentially provide a free college education to most students in Michigan. That would cost about $1.8 billion a year and be paid for by cutting a variety of tax loopholes, technically known as "tax expenditures."

Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor-based think tank, has proposed shifting state funding from universities to students. Its plan would also would provide tuition assistance to any student from around the world who wants to study in Michigan:

Public funds would be used to help students from anywhere on the planet who can meet entrance requirements to better afford Michigan’s higher education system. This might be the most powerful statement we can make that we want the most talented people in the world to come here to learn and ultimately live and work.

Neither of these proposals are likely to gain much traction in Republican-controlled legislature. Many Republicans, and probably some Democrats, see the problem as too much spending by the universities. The universities counter that they have cut millions of dollars from their budgets in the face of declining state support.

A wise person once told me that we used to see a college education as a societal good. We now see it as an individual good, so if you want a college degree, you should pay the entire cost yourself.

Unless we return to believing that there's a great social and economic benefit to having a high percentage of citizens with college degrees, we'll face a future of ever-rising tuition costs.





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If automakers build more hybrids and electric vehicles, will the customers come?

Toyota Prius C Hybrid

Interesting piece in the New York Times today about automakers stepping up production of hybrid and electric vehicles even as sales of the alternative-fuel vehicles are dropping.

The story likely will serve as validation to electric-vehicle naysayers that automakers are wasting their money by developing electrified cars.

But automakers could be making a smart bet in getting ahead of the market.



They know they will need more electrics to meet stringent new federal fuel economy standards that take effect later in the decade. And they know that consumer vehicle purchases shift dramatically to more fuel-efficient vehicles when gas prices jump above $4 a gallon, as they did in 2008. That could very well happen again this year.

And if I were a competitor of Toyota, I'd be looking nervously at its new compact 2013 Prius C hybrid that was introduced this week at the Detroit auto show. Toyota's latest entry in its Prius "family" of vehicles promises 50 miles per gallon fuel economy at a starting price of under $19,000.

The relatively high prices of hybrids and electrics have served to brake their sales. I'm guessing the smartly priced Prius C will appeal broadly to a new generation of environmentally conscious young buyers who are looking for quality, value and fuel economy.

That's how Toyota broke into the U.S. market some 40 years ago. Its strategy turned out pretty well.

Click here for an illuminating chart on gasoline prices since 1996. It gives you an idea why automakers are placing long-term bets on the viability of hybrids and electric vehicles.





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Detroit auto show optimism seems valid this time

It's the opening of media preview week at the North American International Auto Show, an event that often is welcomed by freezing temperatures, blowing snow and unrealistic optimism about the year ahead.

Things are different this year. The sun is shining, the snow is a no show and automakers--particularly the Detroit Three--are rightly upbeat about sales and profits this year.

Some analysts think sales could recover this year to nearly 15 million cars and trucks. That's below the 17 million vehicles they were selling a decade ago. But those sales were juiced to unsustainable levels by heavy discounting, easy credit and giveaway lease rates.



Chrysler, Ford and General Motors have much stronger balance sheets (and management) than they possessed just a few years ago. Labor costs are competitive with foreign automakers, thanks in no small part to the off-loading of retire health care benefit costs to a UAW-run trust.

These are companies that can be profitable in a 10 million sales year. Tack on nearly 5 million more vehicles and the Detroit Three should be money machines.

And they're also creating jobs again. Automakers and suppliers added 40,600 jobs in the United States last year and are predicted to create more than 150,000 additional jobs through 2015, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

One thing to remember: Despite their impressive turnarounds, the Detroit Three automakers haven't eliminated the business cycle. There will be an inevitable downturn. And the fortunes of automakers can turn on dime.

Japanese automakers will be even stronger competitors this year as the recover from last year's disastrous earthquake.

Foreign makes--the Hyundai Elantra and the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque--were just named the car and truck of the year, respectively, at the Detroit auto show.

But 2012 promises to be the best year domestic automakers have seen in years. Let's enjoy it.






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