American government is at its best when lawmakers debate policies to benefit the public.

Elected officials, though they have different views and ideas, can come together to put the general interests of the public first and foremost.

The government exists for the people and to serve the people, all 336 million of them.

To achieve that, though, elected officials have to fight against the temptation to serve only the special interests of groups that influence politics. That is, to use the force of government either to woo new political allies or to pay off powerful friends.

That is favoritism.

And, unfortunately, there are too many favors being offered that benefit some people at the public’s expense.

Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, recently drew attention to that problem. She told a legislative committee that “we can’t pass basic, popular, critical legislation our constituents desperately require because some big-monied, unreported donor will shut off the supply of massive and unlimited contributions” to elected officials.

It’s unlikely that Nessel meant that as a dig against her own Democratic Party, which currently holds the reins of power in Lansing.

But the major laws passed by the current Legislature and Democratic governor reek of that problem, a type of favoritism that most would consider unAmerican.

The most obvious examples of that are policy changes whose only beneficiaries were unions. Although Michigan has long been considered the birthplace of the United Auto Workers and the union model more generally, the portion of workers who are unionized has been on a steady decline for decades.

Today, only one of every eight workers in Michigan is a union member.

Yet union policy priorities have prevailed in Lansing.

The Legislature implemented a new prevailing wage law, which requires taxpayers to pay union-scale wages on government construction projects. Supporters try to claim that those mandates for higher construction costs somehow save the state money or improve quality, but it seems more likely that their purpose is to simply reward unions for their political support.

Lawmakers also repealed the state’s right-to-work law. Now private sector employees working under collective bargaining agreements are forced to pay money to a union. Those private-sector unions were big supporters of the Democratic lawmakers who passed the law.

While unions will no doubt benefit from that compelled financial support, it will do nothing for the public at large.

Indeed, it is an encroachment upon their free speech rights, as the U.S. Supreme Court noted.

Michigan legislators also prioritized teachers unions, another fervent supporter of the Democratic political machine.

Under the guise of improving school quality, lawmakers tilted the bargaining table in favor of school unions, making it more difficult for district officials to efficiently and effectively manage their schools.

During President Barack Obama’s first term in office, there was bipartisan support for education reforms. Spurred by the president’s Race to the Top program, lawmakers tried to remove barriers so school districts could make use of better management practices. Those practices included merit pay, through which teachers receive more money when they do a good job, making personnel decisions on the basis of performance instead of seniority, holding schools accountable for their performance, and incentivizing schools to focus on teaching students how to master reading by the end of the third grade.

Democratic lawmakers quickly eliminated all those best practices and accountability measures.

The animus could have stemmed from a desire for more local control — the idea that we should defer to local elected officials more. But, more likely, those changes were about rewarding teachers unions, who are a key part of the ruling political coalition in Michigan.

Teachers unions oppose accountability measures and anything that weakens their leverage at the bargaining table. And some of the changes explicitly diminished the authority of local school officials to make decisions about how to manage their schools.

Unions weren’t the only ones cashing in on special treatment from the current Legislature.

New wind and solar mandates are likewise favors to Democratic coalition members.

Environmentalists have pushed for more wind and solar for a long time, regardless of their expense and lack of reliability. There are other ways to reduce carbon emissions without the expense and risks, but that is not what the Democratic environmentalists wanted.

Lawmakers passed about $4.6 billion in new select business subsidies. While those transfers can sound like an egregious quid pro quo, they are a little different from direct payoffs to important members of the Democratic political coalition.

It is more likely the response to a practical concern to do something about jobs.

But the recipients make donations and say nice things about the people who give away taxpayer cash.

The sweet spot for those corporate giveaways is for politically favored companies, like electric car and battery manufacturers.

Mandating prevailing wages, removing school accountability measures and local officials’ authority, mandating wind and solar generation, and massive corporate subsidies all benefit a small group of people at the expense of the public.

That is little more than political favoritism.

The nation and its states are supposed to support the general welfare, not the welfare of powerful constituents. That is vital and part of the U.S. Constitution’s preamble.

That the state exists for the people and to benefit the people is part of the American ideal.

Elected officials are supposed to avoid the temptation to use their power to reward their supporters.

James M. Hohman is the director of fiscal policy and Michael Van Beek is director of research for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.