Tagged: Stateside

Governor Snyder is considering a bill that would allow concealed pistols in churches, public schools and daycares.

Michigan Public Radio Lansing Bureau Chief Rick Pluta outlined the various aspects of the legislation.

“One of the trade-offs in this legislation would be that schools would no longer be open-carry areas. But they would be someplace where you could carry a concealed pistol if you took more classes," said Pluta.

Airing this week will be a series of stories Michigan Radio’s Kyle Norris compiled on Detroit’s homeless population.

To introduce the series,  Norris spoke with Meghan Takashima of the Corporation for Supportive Housing.

They spoke about some of the misconceptions people have about those without a home.

Norris began by noting her inspiration for the stories.

“Something is drawing me to these stories…when I’m with homeless people I have to be real, I have to be a human first and a reporter second,” said Norris.

How would consumers in America function without paper currency?

Miles Kimball, Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, advocates the switch from paper to electronic currency.

“The thing you want to do is make it so we can stimulate the economy with monetary policy. A lot of people don’t realize that the reason we’ve had such a long recession is because the Federal Reserve was not able to lower the interest rate because of the way our system uses money. If you tried to make the interest rate negative, which would be what is needed to stimulate the economy, then people would just keep money under the mattress. Because of that, the Federal Reserve is not able to lower the interest rate low enough to get the economy moving.”

Today we investigated Michigan's busy lame duck session. Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry and Bill Ballenger of "Inside Michigan Politics" spoke about some of the legislation and its long-term effects.

One of the reform policies is that of Blue Cross Blue Shield. Peter Luke of Bridge Magazine spoke with Cyndy about Blue Cross' future and its policy changes.

Michigan had a significant role in the Underground Railroad. Today we spoke with Dr. Roy Finkenbine about some brave Michiganians who worked to free slaves.

Representative Dan Benishek claims that cuts to our country's defense budget would not sacrifice our safety. Listen to our podcast to hear his reasons.

With the approaching "fiscal cliff" comes the concern of protecting Michigan’s businesses.  

We spoke today with Susan Tompor of the Detroit Free Press about the fiscal cliff.

Tompor noted that many companies are not laying off their workers.

“Back in November we had Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. state that it was vitally important that they work on this bipartisan agreement for the economy. When you’re selling big-ticket items, it’s a key issue. Will consumers need to cut back if we got over the fiscal cliff? Right now, according to Mark Zandi [Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics], he doesn’t see that companies are cutting back. The reason is that it would be costly to lay off workers now to prepare for what might be a temporary problem. Instead Zandi said that, overall, businesses are more likely to cut back on investing in heavy equipment as a stop-gap measure,” said Tompor.

There is an abundance of political action in this year’s lame duck session.

Bill Ballenger of “Inside Michigan Politics” and Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with Cyndy about the recent legislature coming out of the Capitol.

According to Lessenberry there were several reasons for right-to-work being passed.

“The legislature will be marginally more Democratic next time. Some of the people who were voting are people who aren’t coming back. It was a campaign year and some of the stuff that might have gotten done earlier didn’t get done,” said Lessenberry.

“Legislators have been working on a lot of these bills for a year and a half,” said Ballenger.

Ballenger noted the role of partisan politics in the lame duck session.

The measure to make Blue Cross Blue Shield a nonprofit mutual is under way.

Peter Luke of Bridge Magazine spoke with Cyndy about health care changes in Michigan.

According to Luke, the reform would put Blue Cross into the hands of policy holders.

“They [Blue Cross Blue Shield] have 70 percent of the market share and in some forms of business, critical to this legislation, they have almost 100 percent. Most of their role is in administrative capacity. For 70 years they’ve been a benevolent trust established by the State of Michigan to be the insurer of last-resort and that was codified in 1980. What this law does is turn them into a nonprofit mutual so they’re no longer owned by the people of Michigan but by the policy holders.”