Michigan Politics
Budget Aside, There Is Progress in Lansing
By George Weeks

George Weeks retired last year after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.

Amid all of the headlines out of Lansing on the battle of the budget, there were two bits of good news last week about upgrading of state services for consumers:

+ The Department of Community Health (DCH), long prodded by Attorney General Mike Cox, substantially expanded its Web site on prescription drug cost comparisons, giving consumers 118 brand names to evaluate lowest prices in their area by city or ZIP code.

In the first 24 hours of the expanded service, the site (www.michigandrugprices.com) was "overwhelmed" by 200,000 visits, according to DCH spokesman T.J. Bucholz. I called him Friday when my computer kept telling me the site was "too busy" to access.

In announcing his May price survey of 200 pharmacies in 10 communities on 11 commonly prescribed drugs that did not then appear on the DCH site, Cox said there were "staggering cost differences on identical prescription drugs."

His survey included 20 outlets in the Traverse City area and 20 in the Upper Peninsula, mostly in the Marquette area.

+ Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land said this year she will upgrade eight existing branch offices, including the one in Escanaba by the end of the summer, to "PLUS" status. Among benefits: open until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays; a self-service station for license plate tab renewals; and specialized services such as instant titles and ability to buy a copy of your driving record on site, something some prospective employers require.

Term-limited Republican Land, a former county clerk, already has created 23 PLUS offices, including one in Marquette and one in Traverse City, as well as eight downstate metro SUPER!Centers that include Saturday hours.

"SUPER!" and other hype aside, Land, in her quiet and nonconfrontational way, has done a good job of targeting limited resources to regional services, while emphasizing technology and growth of online services, not only as a peddler of licenses for motorists and boaters but also as Michigan's chief elections officer.

Term-limited Republican Cox, a former Marine who, like Land, is a prospective gubernatorial candidate, is more confrontational by nature and the nature of his job. He has vastly expanded the protective scope of the office.

While praising the DCH site as a "positive step," Cox said it "falls short on a number of requirements" of proposed legislation he is pushing, and fails to "differentiate between generic and brand name drugs."

In announcing the expanded site, DCH Director Janet Olszewski said: "Since we first introduced our Web site last year, we have repeatedly said that as we work toward expanding our site, more prescription drugs would be added as information became available."

Tourism: Hype & Hit?

As a member of the House Tourism-Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resources Committee, Representative Howard Walker (R-Traverse City) hails aggressive efforts of the Granholm administration to promote tourism.

But he says it would be counterproductive folly if the Lansing talk of a 6% sales tax on "luxury and discretionary" items leads to hits on entertainment lures of the tourist industry.

Tourism, he says, is giving "a real positive impact" to the Michigan economy, but the more it is taxed, "you'll get less (economic impact) from what you're taxing."

The very nature of discretionary spending is that the consumer has discretion to spend those dollars elsewhere.