By John Bebow - August 29, 2008
Hyperpartisan legislators more concerned with political points than pragmatic policy...
A wasteful public employee personnel system...
Too many units of local government without enough collaboration...
Too many prison inmates in a correction system that takes too big a chunk out of the state budget...
Not enough attention to policies and reforms that improve the state's quality of life...
Those thoughts sound like something straight out of the Community Conversations of the Michigan's Defining Moment Public Engagement Campaign.
Instead, they are the terse words of John D. Wiley, chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is leaving office deeply frustrated by the same kinds of reasons statewide business and political leaders formed the Center for Michigan nearly three years ago.
Read Wiley's thoughts and you just might declare the grass greener on this side of Lake Michigan.
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To directly quote John D. Wiley, "Still, the hyper-partisan political environment at the state capitol is toxic. The first priority seems to be to repudiate, damage or block any proposal or position of the other party. The second priority is to push their own party's proposals and positions in unaltered form. The far distant third priority--to be avoided if at all possible--seems to be addressing any genuine state need that requires compromise."
This is not just Wisconsin's problem. It is Michigan's problem and I suspect the problem of all of the other 48 states as well. It is a huge problem at the Federal level. In the simplest terms, the problem is PARTY POLITICS - PERIOD! We all know this. We are all victims of it. It is the root of all our problems and yet no one seems to have a solution. Loyalty to a Political Party first and puting those it is meant to serve last is the most destructive of all policies. The very concept of party loyalty is, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours and the devil take the hindmost"
Find a way to eliminate PARTY POLITICS and our problems are solved.
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