Quarrelling as bitterly as ever, the members of the Michigan Legislature have left Lansing for their two-week spring vacation. They are no closer than usual to finding a way to solve the massive deficit staring at them, much less passing a state budget.
Sadly, there is nothing new about this. In fact, this marks the umpteenth time the legislature has left town with problems unsolved, and Michigan’s structural budget deficit as dire as ever.
Governor Jennifer Granholm says she is “frustrated” with legislative inaction. That feeling must be even stronger among the millions of Michiganders outside Lansing, who have been watching their elected representatives fail to get anything of substance done.
What needs to be done is perfectly clear: We need to reform our tax system and get rid of the Michigan Business Tax surcharge. We need to reform the structure and cost of government and the workings of our schools. We need to make sure that public employee pay and benefits are reasonable and in line with national averages.
Perhaps most of all, we need a strategy to revitalize our economy, to make it far more diverse and entrepreneurial.
We’ve needed all this for a decade now. But given today’s political climate in our state, what are the chances of getting it done?
Not very likely, I’m afraid.
Which leads me to this logical conclusion: Our political culture is broken. It simply cannot get anything substantial accomplished. The legislature – the people’s elected representatives – are supposedly the core of our democratic system of governance.
But today, many of our other public institutions are so tarnished as to be incapable of functioning effectively.
Yet we can’t just give up. We cannot just wring our hands and complain while things go to hell. Terribly important things need doing. And if traditional, politically-run public institutions can’t do the job, we’ve got to figure out other ways of getting it done.
Here’s one idea: Appoint somebody with the authority to manage without being hamstrung by the political process.
Look, for example, at the example of the Detroit Public Schools. For decades, DPS has failed in almost every way one can measure, from academic achievement to financial management.
Things got so bad that Governor Granholm finally appointed Robert Bobb emergency financial manager of the schools, with the power to make every financial decision within the system. Now, for the first time in years, financial discipline is being established. Corrupt administrators are being found out and fired. A management plan is coming into place. People are actually daring to hope that the system – which was arguably the worst in the nation – might finally improve.
Here’s another idea: Welcome with open arms philanthropic groups which want to prevent things from sliding. Examples abound:
Spearheaded by the Detroit-based Skillman Foundation and assisted by the Kresge Foundation and others, the $200 million Excellent Schools Initiative is drawing an excited response from parents, teachers and the business community.
The New Economy Initiative is a $100 million effort to develop a coherent plan to revitalize the Detroit area’s economy. A coalition of 10 local and national foundations, NEI is headed by Dave Egner, president and CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation.
Centered around Wayne State University, TechTown has grown from an incubator into an entrepreneurial engine that houses 170 start-up companies and graduates hundreds of entrepreneurs from its training program. The money — $10 million – comes from NEI and the Kresge Foundation.
Since many of these examples come from Detroit, it’s not surprising some Detroiters are grumbling about control being taken away from the people. Maybe so, but cities are creations of the state. And if elected officials – the instruments of the people – cannot get anything done, which is worse: A dysfunctional “democracy” or alternative ways to effectiveness?
Maybe the whims and grandstanding of elected politicians are an ineffective mechanism for getting things done. Maybe it’s better for government to specify the powers of a designated emergency financial managers and then step out of the way to let them do their jobs.
Maybe the philanthropic sector – itself the product of a once-thriving Michigan economy – has a better capacity to innovate and provoke change than cautious bureaucrats or self-serving politicians.
Maybe we need start examining how some institutions of our democracy have managed to make our state increasingly ungovernable. Maybe we should be starting to talk seriously about “mandated inexperience” of our term-limited legislature. Maybe we should be looking seriously at the way our partisan primary elections are encouraging extremists of both left and right. Maybe we should start looking at the redistricting process that gerrymanders a majority of our legislative districts to automatic control by one party or another.
And maybe, just maybe, we should be angry enough that we start demanding our public institutions be effective ….
… or get the hell out of the way.
7 Comments
I couldn’t agree more, Phil, with your observation that politics as usual is not proving to be an effective way to govern…. and examples abound at the local, state and federal level. It is my belief that we need a new model of problem solving, which focuses on finding workable solutions that will benefit the greater good. Of course, this means that self-interest, entitlement, and churning the politics of fear, discontent and discord would have to be abandoned.
In its place, we could hope to harness the creativity, cooperation and determination lying dormant within our communities. We might even discover community connectedness and a better quality of life on the way to solving our societal ills.
The real tragedy is that Michigan voters never wanted split government. In 2006 they voted for a Democratic governor, a Democratic state house, and a Democratic state senate by roughly the same margins. Only because of Engler-era gerrymandering did Republicans get control of the state senate. Let’s either go for a unicameral legislature and end this nonsense or give the governor the power to call for a joint session of the legislature to resolve a budgetary impasse. And there are solutions for gerrymandering that overturns the wishes of the majority of voters. Of course, this is why I am going to vote yes Nov. 2 for a new constitutional convention.
An alternative way of governing might be to first appoint an emergency finanical manager for the state just as Granholm did for Detroit schools. The next step would then be to dismiss our do-nothing politicians in Lansing (I already have but we still pay ‘em). Dismiss both the Republicans and the Democrats.
I agree with Phil Power’s comments voices like is clearly refreshing and need to be listen to and acted upon. We are at a crossroad and we need leaders to step up and stop protecting the status quo and rcognize the economic reality that our state faces.
As a candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives for District 5 I recall participating in a Community Conversation with the Woodward Avenue organization, in 2009. Therefore, I am one of the 10,000 voices that can be heard reverberating throughout the MDM vision.
As a knowledgeworker of the ilk that it will take to help turnabout this plummeting economy I offer my skill set-inclusive of my knowledge and abilities. I hold a BA Cum Laude in Government and History and a MS in Management.
As the literature booklet stipulates “The Center for Michigan being a 501(C)3 cannot endorse a political candidate but it is perfectly fine if a candidate endorses the Michigan Defining Moment platform,” and to that end, if you peruse my website below you will witness the inclusion of the MDM vision and the Business Leaders for Michigan planks that align with my outlook.
1.) Economic Growth & Quality Of Life,
2.) A Talented, Globally Competitive, Workforce, and an
3.) Effective, Efficient & Accountable Government
To this end Here is my top ten:
Burgess Foster Standing by to talk to the Detroit News/Free Press and Let it RIP about: Burgess Foster’s RPM Plan: Re-Engineering a more Productive Michigan!
1.) a Multi-year Budget for the State of Michigan the allay concerns with year-to-year haggling (Business Leaders for Michigan),
2.) Site Based Managed Schools (Great Lakes School Project), this will allow for non-centralized diagonal communication to supplant the hierarchial and obstrusive environ that chokes creativity and high performance,
3.) a UniCarmel Legislature, this will make government more accountable and make the goverment process more efficient capturing added value, by being able to pass legislation ready for signing by the governor faster,
4.) Redoing Terms Limits, this in tandem with #3 will make better use of limited resources that once saw six years of service in the House or eight years of service in the Senate to qualify for 10 years of benefits. I am advocating eight years in the House (with two four year stints) and twelve years in the Senate (with two six year stints), and quite naturally a Const. Conv.
5.) Stimulating the Michigan Economy, by encouraging home homers to think like Wall St.-that is more entrepreneurially to capture the Wall St. perks within Main St. Michigan by leveraging business write-offs at the home-level due to the formation of home based LLCs by the 100s of thousands,
6.) Merging DDOT/SMART and High Speed Rail from Detroit to Chicago via MSU, U of M-Ann Arbor, this will ensure a bi-modal regional mass transit to complement the high speed rail that is bound to get built to improve our infrastructure stability and to ferry investors, workers, and consumers between Michigan’s destination city-Detroit-and all points of high population centers in and around the State. For example, from Detroit to Lansing to Ann Arbor/Ypsi to Chicago—connecting all Carnegie Research one universities to the University of Chicago and its population center,
7.) Legalization of Marijuana/Decriminalization of Weed, this will free up resources by the millions statewide and divert those funds to the prosecution of violent criminals across the State,
8.) Automatic Expungement of a one time feloner’s record if they remain trouble free for five-seven years, this will return unproductive units in society back into the mainstream workforce without stigma,
9.) Reducing Legislative Expense Accounts by 15% and salaries, this is a result of Representative Rogers in the 8th District of Congress who says he supports a 10% Reduction in Federal Expenses for Staff-so I wanted to do better than so I espouse and will sponsor 15%,
10.) Reducing the number of Legislators from 148 to 74 (See #3)
http://www.BurgessFosterN2010.info
Phil is right. However the biggest problem rest with zero leadership in the Governor’s office. The Governor needs to lead this revival like Governor Christie of New Jersey. Take the reform to the people and expose the politicians of both parties that are holding up the process.
You complain there is no budget, however Granholm has shown no leadership outside of thretening a veto of a bill without REVENUE ENHANCEMENTS in other words tax increases.
How about we reduce the budget 5% a year across the board, until all the special interests like the MEA and state employee unions come to the bargaining table ?
Until there is reform there can be no new taxes. if we cave in they will NEVER agree to reform.
The problem with going to a unicameral legislature is that you eliminate one of the checks put in place by the founders of the republic.
Not only would I want to keep a bi-cameral legislature, but I would also want to have state senators elected similarly to how they were on the federal level prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment (either by city/township or county level government).
Having that body become more responsive to local governments would put the brakes on the increasing level of unfunded mandates that have been coming out of Lansing over the past few decades along with cuts in state shared revenue to local municipalities.
I would also like to see something stronger than Prop 14 enacted here in Michigan to eliminate the power of political parties, which have no place in government.