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Articles by David Guenthner
Victory for Louisiana workers and First Amendment rights
This article originally appeared in The Center Square June 23, 2026. In 2018, the Supreme Court settled a fundamental question of constitutional law in Janus v. AFSCME. The Court held, with clarity and conviction, that public employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. This ruling was a massive victory for the First Amendment, affirming that no public servant should be forced to subsidize a private organization’s political agenda against their own will.
Op-Ed: A Victory for Louisiana Workers and First Amendment Rights Original
In 2018, the Supreme Court settled a fundamental question of constitutional law in Janus v. AFSCME. The Court held, with clarity and conviction, that public employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. This ruling was a massive victory for the First Amendment, affirming that no public servant should be forced to subsidize a private organization’s political agenda against their own will.
Workers for Opportunity joins the fight against the Faster Labor Contracts Act
Workers for Opportunity is joining a broad coalition to oppose the Faster Labor Contracts Act. This legislation would remove democracy from the workplace and empower government bureaucrats to mandate arbitration for initial contracts between unions and businesses. A letter signed by the coalition highlights that the proposed legislation would force bargaining into a 90-day window.
Workers for Opportunity celebrates Iowa win
Workers for Opportunity, a project of the Mackinac Center, celebrated a big win May 19 when Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF 472 into law. The measure strengthens a requirement that unions periodically gain their members’ trust to continue serving as bargaining agents. Iowa already had a 2017 law requiring union recertification. But many teachers and other public sector unions were able to short circuit the law and pressure government employers not to fulfill their required parts of the process.
Capping credit card rates unnecessary, harmful
Congress is considering a 10% cap on credit card interest rates and President Trump voiced his support for such legislation in his Jan. 21 speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Interest rates should be left to the private market
President Trump’s January Truth Social post calling for a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest has sparked a vigorous debate that crosses partisan and right/left lines. I recently signed onto a coalition letter opposing price controls through either credit card interest caps or the misnamed Credit Card Competition Act, which is pending before the U.S. Congress.
Pro-worker and pro-freedom: A road map for red states
Across the Southeast, a powerful trend is taking shape — one that puts workers, not political organizations, at the center of economic and civic life. People are voting with their feet, abandoning heavy-handed governments in the Northeast and West Coast for states that embrace freedom.
Michigan's Midterms Could Determine Direction Of National Politics
Sen. Gary Peters’ retirement announcement last month further solidifies Michigan as the most important state in the country, at least politically, for the next two years. Michigan has long been a swing state, not just federally but internally. Historically, the state’s political pendulum has swung at 8-year intervals.
Where high-earning households are moving: It ain’t Michigan
There’s an adage that whatever you tax more, you get less of. Michigan is learning this lesson the hard way as strong income earners flee the state. The financial information website SmartAsset last week published the results of its 2024 study, “Where High-Earning Households Are Moving.” Spoiler alert: they’re not moving to Michigan. Based on IRS data, high-income households are leaving Michigan at the 12th highest rate in the nation.
Politicians count subsidy chickens before they hatch
“Gov. Whitmer wins major economic deals” declared the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in a December 2022 press release. It described a “transformational investment” in Escanaba. State officials had found favor with a Swedish paper company’s plan to expand and awarded it a 15-year exemption from property taxes, worth nearly $30 million. The Development Corporation praised Gov. Whitmer the next month for signing legislation that gave the company an additional $200 million subsidy.
Michigan’s lawless corporate welfare
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% Michigan taxpayers just gave $16 million to seven private railroad companies. The state transportation department chose the recipients as part of an initiative called the Michigan Railroad Enhancement Program, which was launched last year. This is one of three programs that provide taxpayer-funded favors to select railroad companies.
Fiscal policy favoritism hurts everyone
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% Tax policy in Michigan makes no sense. It’s a seesaw that favors those who back the winning candidate in a general election. Members of each party work to deliver preferential tax treatment for supporters and buy favorable, job-related press coverage. It doesn’t matter if Republicans or Democrats do it — it’s wrong either way and this must come to an end. Michigan’s state legislature authorized $4.3 billion in corporate and industry handouts just in 2023.
Michigan taxpayers will lose on Ford deal
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave Ford $210 million in taxpayer money for its battery plant in Marshall, plus other giveaways and tax abatements. The company later said it will be building a smaller plant that will employ 1,700 people instead of the 2,500 originally announced. Taxpayers are still going to be making payments to the company regardless of how many people it employs.
Get more competitive on taxes
Under current policies, Michigan’s taxes are lower than the average state’s, but not quite in the lowest tier among states. Lawmakers can do more to make Michigan a low-tax state. The Census Bureau publishes a finance report that covers the total collections of taxes at the state and local government level. These can be compared to other states by dividing total revenues by population, employment and GDP. Michigan has lower taxes than the average state but is not quite in the top tier.
Michigan’s economy needs to catch up
While 25 other states have fully recovered the jobs they lost during the pandemic, Michigan is still down 71,400 jobs, a 1.6% decrease. It doesn’t look like the state is going to get above pre-pandemic levels any time soon, either. The state won’t recover the jobs lost until 2026 at the rate of growth we have experienced over the past five months. In other words, Michigan is falling behind. Lawmakers ought to improve the state’s business climate in response. Gov. Whitmer is instead making it worse.
The notion of Gotion
Note: The author will be discussing economic development incentives Monday, February 13 at a special meeting of the Big Rapids Charter Board at 7:00 p.m. The Michigan Strategic Fund approved a deal in October to grant massive subsidies to a for-profit corporation known as Gotion, Inc. It includes state and local incentives worth up to $733 million. This is a bad deal for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the size and length of state and local incentives.
Vote NO on HB 4001
The Mackinac Center strongly opposes the new version of HB 4001 to be considered later today. We specifically object to two provisions of the agreement: the machinations that will deny Michiganders the personal income tax rate reduction they have been owed for at least 15 years; and the diversion of corporate tax receipts into an ongoing, dedicated revenue stream for company-specific subsidies.
Mackinac Center adds $450 million to corporate welfare scorecard for Michigan lawmakers
The Mackinac Center debuted its Business Subsidy Scorecard, hosted by MichiganVotes.org, in 2018. The scorecard attempts to quantify the dollar value of business subsidies authorized by each Michigan legislator since 2001. An explanation of the criteria by which legislative record votes are added to the scorecard can be read here. Three provisions in SB 7, which was passed last week and signed by Gov.
Some lawmakers want to cook the books to avoid a tax cut
When Michigan lawmakers increased fuel and vehicle registration taxes in 2015, they also pledged to reduce income tax revenue in the future if a certain condition was met. Now it has been met, but Democratic lawmakers are reportedly working to stop the income tax cut for everyone in order to shift hundreds of millions of dollars to big corporations. Under the 2015 law the income tax rate will drop if state revenue increases above inflation.
Mackinac Center Alert: Vote NO on Senate Bill 844
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy recommends a NO vote on the conference report for Senate Bill 844, the budget supplemental expected to be considered in both houses later today. We specifically oppose the $846.1 million line item for deposit into the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund. First, the Mackinac Center has published a voluminous body of research over many years demonstrating that company-specific subsidies are ineffective, expensive, and unfair.
Lawmakers Should Fix Utility Favoritism Instead of Approving More
Governor Whitmer is announcing that the “Welcome to Michigan” sign has been hung out for electric vehicle manufacturers. But missing from the smiles, hand-shaking and fanfare are any specifics on what all this new government “investment” means to taxpayers.
Commentary: Give inmates an education and they'll be less likely to re-offend
Today, violence has risen in places from which law enforcement has retreated, and there is distrust between communities and those sworn to protect them. Public safety is a core function of government that requires practical, proven and effective approaches. First, it would establish incentives for eligible prison inmates — who will eventually be released back into their communities — to participate and complete rehabilitation programs such as education and job training.
Why People Believe In Selective Business Subsidies
One cliché from the political class is that candidates will go anywhere and do anything for jobs. Anything, it seems, except finding out whether their methods are actually creating jobs. Politicians seem genuinely to believe that they are practical people and that giving private companies special deals for subsidies, tax breaks, loans and other favors is necessary to help the state.
Don’t Let Companies Rewrite Corporate Welfare Rules
Unnamed private companies are getting a chance to rewrite state law in order to get hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. The state legislature created a slate of new programs last December to give an unnamed company taxpayer support, putting $1 billion into a fund for administrators to negotiate. The company was also unnamable because lawmakers signed nondisclosure agreements in order to be briefed about the details.
Diverting Money from Schools, Roads, and Public Safety to Perpetuate Corporate Welfare
Last month, a bipartisan group of senators introduced Senate Bills 981, 982, and 983, which would create a revolving fund mechanism within the Strategic Outreach and Retention (SOAR) program to pay for future company-specific incentives. This bill package has a litany of problems but foremost among them: This package will divert money away from teachers and classrooms, roads, and public safety – and toward more special deals for large corporations – for decades.
End the secrecy and misinformation in economic development
For all the concern over “misinformation” in the public sphere, one of the greatest crises of public deception in America is going almost completely unchecked. State and local elected officials, agency bureaucrats and corporate public relations departments have duped the American public into believing the massive transfer of public resources to politically connected businesses in the name of “economic development” is necessary to a functioning economy. This is simply not true.
Unprecedented Federal Borrowing Floods State Budgets
Unprecedented Federal Borrowing Floods State Budgets Giving state governments hundreds of billions of federally borrowed dollars will enable ill-conceived spending that costs taxpayers twice. Read Full Article »
Washington baits a financial trap for states
© iStock Washington baits a financial trap for states In its first two months, the Biden administration and the 117th Congress have launched a breathtaking assault on state autonomy and the Tenth Amendment. The PRO Act would usurp the most significant state labor laws. The For the People Act, H.R. 1, would do the same for state election laws. And with the recently signed American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the federal government has baited a financial trap for state governments.
Reducing police abuses requires reforming police discipline Original
In the national debate on police reform, many proposals to date have focused on additional training for law enforcement officers and bans on particular restraint techniques and weapons, such as rubber bullets and tear gas. As valuable as these ideas are, they won’t do much to make police act responsibly unless state and local policymakers intervene and fix the police disciplinary processes. After all, what good is training without effective sanctions for ignoring it?
Completing the Fix for Police Accountability
Commentary We must adopt a comprehensive approach to police reform On May 25, George Floyd was killed by members of the Minneapolis Police Department. This came less than two weeks after Louisville police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a no-knock raid on her apartment. The circumstances surrounding these two deaths involving police officers — and too many others across the country in recent years — appear to have created a tipping point in public attitudes toward police reform.
Completing the Fix for Police Accountability
On May 25, George Floyd was killed by members of the Minneapolis Police Department. This came less than two weeks after Louisville police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a no-knock raid on her apartment. The circumstances surrounding these two deaths involving police officers — and too many others across the country in recent years — appear to have created a tipping point in public attitudes toward police reform.
COVID-19 and the Word “All”
In the Mackinac Center’s research and education programs, we consider all people, all institutions, all disciplines and all times. I emphasize the word all because it is a word that too many of our elected leaders are presently failing to consider, and candidly, too many of our neighbors have yet to fully absorb. Two months ago, Gov.
The Right to Protest Should be Protected, Even During the Pandemic
Commentary Mackinac Center signs onto a joint statement spearheaded by the National Coalition Against Censorship The constitutional freedoms to speech and assembly are in the news this past week. People across the country have gathered in their communities and state capitals to petition for relief from what they believe are harmful restrictions on personal and economic activity. In Michigan, thousands of people drove to Lansing and packed the streets around the Capitol to protest Gov.
States should exhaust legal process when implementing Medicaid work rules
Among the pressing issues before lawmakers this budget season is the rising cost of health care, which, in most states, now rivals spending for public education and infrastructure. Indeed, recent surveys of registered and likely voters also demonstrate that health care reform is top-of-mind for those who plan to vote in November. It also has been one of the most talked-about wedge issues on the campaign trail, but Congress has been unable to make strides toward meaningful health care reform.
The next frontier of criminal justice reform: County jails
Michigan’s crime rate presently sits at a 50-year low and its prison population at a 20-year low. So it should follow that the state’s jail population also should be declining, as it has nationally since 2008. Instead, Michigan’s jail population has tripled since the 1980s — with no sign of abating. The front end of Michigan’s criminal justice system is badly broken, and counties are paying a particularly heavy price. According to a letter to the Pew Charitable Trusts, signed in February by Gov.
Feds should follow states' lead on expungement reform
RecoveryPark is a 501(c)3 enterprise that seeks to transform an abandoned area of Detroit — and abandoned Detroiters — through urban agriculture. Its first phase supplies fresh, locally grown specialty produce grown in high tunnel greenhouses to about 130 restaurants in the Detroit area. RP’s employees are mostly returning citizens (ex-offenders) and others with barriers to employment.
Low-income Americans can benefit from gentrifying neighborhoods
The challenge of regenerating impoverished communities in a way that their existing residents benefit long has vexed policymakers. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that influxes of capital investment tend to push out the people who live there. They get replaced by residents who have more education and higher incomes. Gentrification doesn’t solve poverty so much as move it around, goes the thinking.
Forget autopilot - lawmakers need checklists to decide program funding
Policymakers have an obligation to taxpayers to ensure that all government programs produce the maximum results for the taxpayer funds received. But how do they accomplish that when they start off with holes in their knowledge of the agencies they are funding and of the budget process? Lawmakers should have a thorough process in hand as they review agency budget requests so that agency and program budgets never run on autopilot.
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