Blues on the Bay, Housing for Teachers, Federal Cuts to Radio and TV, Possible Hole in Michigan Budget, and Stats from Beyond the UP
– INFORMED BREVITY –
Next Week in Whispers
Next Wednesday we will be publishing “The Big Beautiful Act, Medicaid and the Upper Peninsula” by Michael Broadway and Joslin Brown.
Blues on the Bay
That is Big Bay, where a lot is happening these days. Mark Bevins, the owner of Big Bay’s Thunder Bay Inn, is bringing some big blues names to a music festival on Friday/Saturday, August 22 and 23, 2025.
Leading off the festival is nationally-known Buckwheat Zydeco Jr, who will perform starting at 4 pm on Friday, August 22. Other blues artists performing are: Jupiter Vinyl, Reverend Robert and Bones, Flat Broke Blues Band, Nick and the Snake Charmers, and Laura Rain and the Caesars. Check it out at historicathunderbayinn.com or call 906-345-9720.
Housing for Teachers
State Representative John Damoose, who represents the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula and northwest communities below the bridge, has introduced legislation that will allow school districts to build housing for teachers. School districts under this legislation could use their voter approved “sinking funds” that are currently reserved for construction of school facilities or technology upgrades.
Representative Damoose said he will push the legislation this Fall. It is currently sitting in the State Senate Education Committee.
What do you think about this proposal? Will it help with teacher shortages?
Federal Cuts to Public Radio and Television Hit Rural Areas Hard
Eric Smith, the highly respected former General Manager of Broadcasting and AV Services at Northern Michigan University, wrote us this week about this issue:
“One service provided by stations that is overlooked is the relatively silent role they play in delivering emergency notifications to the central Upper Peninsula. As you may recall from your tenure as NMU President, we spent years building an infrastructure that broadcasts emergency messages to the public. WNMU serves as the primary “LP1” messenger that receives alerts from emergency officials (county, state and federal) and distributes them to other radio, TV and cable broadcast outlets. It is a role that most small stations cannot afford to assume. NMU opted to fill this need as a service to the Upper Peninsula. It is now in danger of being shuttered as WNMU reviews its options for survival. Absent early alerts, the public could soon be at greater risk from floods, storms, wildfires and other wide-area emergencies if this service ceases to exist.”
A Big Hole Possible in Michigan Budget
According to the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the federal tax cuts law causes a $1.1 billion “hole” in Michigan’s budget next fiscal year. Potential big impact on local and state services to Michigan citizens. Check it out at http://crcmich.org.
From Beyond the Upper Peninsula:
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4.4 million Veterans live in rural America. Many are older. Many rely on Medicaid.
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37 million Americans live in poverty.
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The US Department of Agriculture released a report that says “it is estimated that it costs an average of $234,610 to raise a child from birth to age 17–even without the cost of college. Just adjusting for inflation brings this estimate up to $322,000 in 2025.” – Century Foundation.
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Michigan High School student to college numbers are down:
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53.4 % of the class of 2024 enrolled in college, down from 62.2% in 2019.
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Quotes That Make Us Go Hmmm
“It is always darkest …before it turns pitch black.” – Senator John McCain.
“What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think about what we are doing.” – Hannah Arendt.
“Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group…then to hell with them.” – Charles T. Munger.
Books Recommended By Our Readers
Poor Charlie’s Almanack–The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. Edited by Peter D. Kaufman. 2023.
Talk To Us
Keep your raves, laurels, rants and darts coming. Send them to us at david@ruralinsights.org. We love to read them.
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Rural Insights connects policy, information, news and culture to raise topics and stories/information you might have not seen or overlooked. We bring you original writing from Rural Insights and other researchers, change makers, and storytellers, as well as our latest research and analysis.
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The housing for teachers is a temporary fix at best. Bring back a fixed income retirement plan. Teacher’s don’t go into education to become millionaires. They do it to provide a whole service to our least valued commodity “children”. It is sad to see so many folks against the betterment of our country’s future. Our democracy once was the envy of the world and how we helped the less fortunate. Not so much anymore. I say good luck to America of the old, but not this new one it only cares about what a cult and its leader wants….
The idea of teacher housing sounds nice, but the downside is that the school now owns more buildings to maintain and pay taxes and insurance on. The teachers will also likely be required to report the value as income and pay taxes on it. I think the cleaner, more efficient way would be to subsidize their cost of housing. This would provide more bang for the dollar. A simple transaction without all the baggage. Of course the teacher will still need to pay income tax,
The sinking fund would have to increase in size to allow it to be used for building housing for teachers. Also, if I’m not mistaken, sinking funds and increases in them have to be approved by voters. Hard to see any way to convince voters to increase sinking funds to pay for teacher housing, given the average voter’s already tight budget.
On the subject of lost federal funding, why do they always go after citizen services to make the cuts? Because that’s the best way to scare the citizens! The state needs to create a DOGE and find $1.1 million in waste and fraud to offset the loss.
Normally I would comment but today…if teachers were paid their worth to the communities there would be no need for subsidies. Unlike teachers I spent better than 50 years in a trade that allowed you to work as many hours as you could stay on your feet. Teachers on the other hand used to recieve a fixed salary and benefits. There were no options to work more/earn more without finding a second job,and many did. Why would you choose a profession that limited your advancement? Most starting teachers earn less than poverty level incomes.
Hmmm. 50 plus a year for 9 months work. Sounds fair to me. BUT. There needs discipline in schools and not alternate schools. Want an education? Behave. Want to be disruptive? Pat on the back, boot out the door. Teachers shouldn’t have to deal with spoiled, pampered hellions and thugs
DOGE is itself waste, fraud and abuse. Certainly nothing for the state to emulate. For instance, at the federal level DOGE claimed to have found massive fraud. But the DOJ has yet to bring indictments. That’s a clue to the bs from Elon, et al.
You aren’t paying attention. A couple weeks ago, a former USAID official and four or five contractors pleaded guilty to a half-billion dollars of ripping off the government. Look it up! There will be more. Trump has only been in office for seven months.
The cost of supporting the one hundred thousand illegal aliens in Michigan was one billion dollars. There’s your hole!
It’s funny this site is called Rural Insight and it’s ran by a university president. Haven’t seen anything but left wing hand wringing and leftist half-truths. Only thing rural about this is the name. Typical academic. Analyst one in the room. Knows about as much about farm and rural people as he does about education. And I don’t mean indoctrination.
Hmmm. First intelligent words I’ve read on the site or in comments.
Dear Brian I would love to see you in a classroom and then we can talk. You have missed somehow what Public Education provides these days. Sometimes one must walk in another’s shoes.