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Michael J. Reitz, Guest Writer 11:15 p.m. ET Feb. 25, 2017

The Michigan State Capitol building on Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, in Lansing.(Photo: Elaine Cromie/Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo

Donald Trumps election unsettled many people. Hundreds of thousands of people are protesting his presidency, appointees and policies. And here in Michigan, Republicans control the governors office and both chambers of the Michigan Legislature. If you find yourself in the political minority, take heart.

There are a number of proposals lawmakers may tackle that all voters could support ideas that would especially benefit Michigans neediest residents.

Here are five ideas to consider:

Eliminate barriers to jobs:The best anti-poverty program, by far, is a good job. Work provides resources, yes, but it also gives a person a greater sense of worth, dignity and purpose. Do you remember your first job? Chances are it was tough, low-paying and something you wouldnt want to do again. But I bet you are grateful for it and can recite many lessons you learned in the role. Giving people a clear path to a job is a noble and life-affirming task.

The State of Michigan requires a license for more than 200 occupations, which affects more than 20% of workers. (Compare that to the minimum wage, which applies to only 1% of workers.) Installing wood floors, laying concrete, painting a wall, siding a house these all require permission from a government agency. The states licenses are usually accompanied by high fees and costly training. The result? We prevent people from obtaining meaningful work.

Improve the states school-ranking system:In January, the Michigan School Reform Office announced that 38 academically struggling schools could face closure after three straight years of low achievement. This announcement understandably ignited concerns.

While accountability is critically important, the manner of evaluating schools could be improved. The states Top-to-Bottom ranking merely assesses schools based on average student test scores.It fails to take student poverty into account. As a result, schools that are demonstrating growth in spite of socioeconomic hurdles can be unfairly penalized.

Promote criminal justice reform:An effective criminal justice system achieves public safety while maximizing resources. Michigan incarcerates more than 43,000 people and spends $2 billion each year on corrections. Prison sentences and prison stays here, which exceed national averages in length, consume ever more money. The state could improve how it collects and manages data to help researchers and policymakers better understand rehabilitation, prisoner re-entry and recidivism; bills in the Senate will do this.

Michigan has 3,100 criminal statutes on the books. The Legislature could reduce the likelihood that you unwittingly commit a crime by repealing outdated or duplicative laws.

If you are suspected of a crime, the police can confiscate your cash and property without an arrest or conviction. Lawmakers should protect individual property rights by banning forfeiture without the conviction of a crime.

Give citizens a tax cut:Lawmakers should reconsider a bill that would roll back the personal income tax. This would let taxpayers keep their own money and do more to boost the economy than the states costly corporate-welfare giveaways. Families can make better decisions about how to spend their money than lawmakers and bureaucrats who try to lure companies through subsidies, credits and targeted tax cuts.

Shine the light on government actions:One of the lessons from the Flint water crisis is that open government is good government. Michigan is the only state with a law that specifically exempts the governor from its Freedom of Information Act. The Legislature is also exempt from FOIA. As a result, documents and communication within those branches of government are not available to the public.

Its time to extend FOIAs requirements to the governor and the Legislature. As the law explains: The people shall be informed so that they may fully participate in the democratic process.

Casting a vote in a presidential election is a great privilege and right, but one need not wait until 2020 to practice civic engagement. There are real opportunities in 2017 to promote and advance ideas to help the people of Michigan.

Michael Reitz is the executive vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland.

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Excerpt from:
5 ideas liberals and conservatives could agree on - Detroit Free Press

Then at the Screen Actors Guild awards a succession of winners, including William H Macy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, took turns to lay into Mr Trump.

Eyes will be on the award for best foreign language film after Asghar Farhadi, director of The Salesman, was caught by Mr Trumps travel ban.

Should he win, Mr Farhadi will not be present to receive his award. But his absence will not go unnoticed.

Its going to be the most political Oscars for a number of years. When people were talking about it a few months ago, they thought it would be a race issue, said one Hollywood insider.

Now agents are unleashing their stars to say what they will. They are telling their clients they are not going to lose anything.

Another Hollywood observer, Tim Gray, features awards editor of Variety, predicted an interesting night.

I dont think it will be three hours of Trump-bashing, he said.There are 24 awards recognising everyone such as visual effects people, I dont think they will use it as a political forum.

I do expect some vague homilies. But if there are three or four attacks, that will light up the internet.

La La Land, a wistful musical telling the story of an aspiring actress and a jobbing musician, is expected to scoop a raft of awards, having earned 14 nominations - an achievement matched only twice before.

Link:
Donald Trump supporters to boycott Oscars in protest against 'Limousine Liberals' - Telegraph.co.uk

Photo from Hans van Baalen Twitter

Key European Liberals on Saturday decried the arrest of Liberal Party (LP) Sen. Leila de Lima on what they said were politically motivated drug charges, vowing to rally European Union and global support for the release of the lawmaker, who described herself as the first political prisoner under President Duterte.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Europe (Alde) Party is deeply concerned about the arrest of the Liberal Party Sen. Leila de Lima in particular and the deteriorating human rights situation in general, said Hans van Baalen, Alde President and Liberal International president of honor.

The Philippines, under the leadership of President Duterte, is turning rapidly into an illiberal state, where there is no respect for the law whatsoever, Van said in a statement issued in London by Liberal International.

The LP is a member of Liberal International, the world federation of Liberal and progressive democratic political parties.

Van Baalen said he had written the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, in order to see what action the European Union can take to free De Lima.

Liberal Internationals human rights committee chair Markus Lning, formerly Germanys commissioner for human rights, promised to push for De Limas release and called on Mr. Duterte to respect the rule of law.

View original post here:
European Liberals slam De Lima's arrest - Inquirer.net

The WA Liberals have committed $500,000 for five floating fishing platforms in the Swan and Canning Rivers if re-elected, and have also promised a specialist primary school program for gifted students.

Premier Colin Barnett said the platforms, which would be funded through the Recreational Fishing Initiative Fund, would be popular among young families and people with disabilities.

"We will also invest in the re-stocking of recreational fishing species, such as river prawns and mulloway, in the Swan and Canning Rivers as part of a $1 million commitment to build stocks of key recreational fish species in our rivers and oceans," Mr Barnett said.

"Recreational crabbing in the Peel Harvey estuary will also receive a boost from a re-elected Liberal led government with a commitment to buy out up to half of the 10 commercial crabbing licences operating in this important waterway."

The Liberals have also promised to expand specialist programs in some high schools and create a $5.8 million Primary Scholars Program at four schools to encourage excellence in science, technology and maths.

Mr Barnett said academically gifted primary school students would have access to education ranging from learning coding skills and robotics to advanced engineering.

Read more:
WA Liberals make fishing, school pledges - NEWS.com.au

We are in the midst of another election season in India, and each time a poll rolls around, I get depressed at the thought that we are about to elect criminals, corrupt populists, and members of political dynasties rather than upright, independent, reform-minded liberals.

On this occasion, laffaire Sasikala and Donald Trumps shocking win in America also weigh on the mind. As a solution, I have earlier advocated setting up a classical liberal political party in India. A young, aspiring India in the 21st century deserves a secular party that trusts markets rather than officials for economic outcomes and focuses on the reform of governance institutions. It may not win votes quickly but it would bring governance reform to centrestage and gradually prove to voters that open markets and rule-based government are the only sensible way to lift living standards and achieve shared prosperity.

Based on this reasoning, Sanjeev Sabhlok formed Swarna Bharat, a genuine liberal political party in 2013. But it has not gained widespread support. I feel guilty that I have not done enough for it; nor have my liberal friends joined it. As I think about our failure, I have come to a startling conclusion. I have realized that a party based on classical liberal principles has almost no chance of winning at the polls unless it ties itself to an identity party.

Dancing heads: Both Thatcher and Reagan were free market proponents

A populist candidate who promises subsidised electricity and food will always defeat a liberal who advocates private initiative and competition. It is hard to sell the free market at the polls because the invisible hand of the market is not visible to the voter whereas the states visible hand is only too visible. A left liberal, however, is likely to be more successful as he advocates an extensive welfare state via state intervention.

For this reason, classical liberals everywhere have chosen to join parties with cultural or social identities. In America, they went on to become liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats. In both cases, they helped to change the economic agenda of their parties.

But as a price, they had to put up with the anti-abortion Christian agenda and the gun lobby of the Republicans and the rigid, inept unions of the Democratic Party. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher tolerated Torys social ideals of traditional Englishness as a price for converting her party (and the nation) in favour of the market.

Similarly, Tony Blair taught the Labour Party to trust market outcomes rather than state intervention. Adenauer and Erhard, both classical liberals in Germany, tolerated the Protestantism of the Christian Democrats while creating the great post-war economic miracle. In a recent volume of essays, Liberalism in India, Jaithirth Rao has argued that even the most successful liberal party in history, the Whigs, who were a force in British politics for over two centuries, had a Low Church identity in contrast to High Church Tories.

In India too, many liberals support Modis vikas agenda but do not subscribe to BJPs cultural baggage of Hindutva. Modis miraculous success at the polls in 2014 was the result of a liberal appeal of maximum governance, minimum government to the aspiring young. As a result, he created space in the BJP for market liberals, and the BJP has matured into a full-fledged right-of-centre party with a clear division between an economic and a cultural right. Modi, however, is not a classical liberal like Thatcher, with ideological commitment to economic and institutional reforms. He is closer to an East Asian moderniser and he reforms on a pragmatic basis. It is still early to say if Modi will deliver, but if he wants to retain his liberal supporters, he will have to keep the cultural wing of his party under tight control. As it is, the latter is unhappy with him for not pursuing Hindutva vigorously.

I feel sad that a liberal party does not have a future in India or elsewhere. Liberalism has driven political action in the world in the past three centuries. It has won much of the political argument in the 20th century, says Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute. It won Indias fight for freedom from colonial rule; it was responsible for the collapse of communism; and it drove Indias economic reforms. But liberals did not take credit for these reforms and hence we continue to reform by stealth. Liberals are no saints but it is a shame that emotional appeals to race, religion and caste identities still matter more to voters than rational arguments for prosperity and governance.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

See the article here:
Why classic liberals don't win elections, and populists do - Times of India (blog)