Valentine's roses for governor and business groups

I realize Valentine’s Day was last week, but I’ve got two extra long-stemmed red roses to hand out today.

One goes to Governor Jennifer Granholm for taking the leadership reins at last, as expressed in her recent budget and reform proposals. Finally, she’s calling for cuts in state employee pay and benefits. Going against the grain of her long-time political supporters in organized labor cannot have been easy.

I’m hearing that public employee unions are furious. But the governor did it, and she claims if her proposals are adopted they’d save the state nearly $8 billion over the next decade.

The governor is also calling for changes in prison sentencing rules and parole practices that will lead to further reductions in inmate levels and more cuts in spending by the Department of Corrections. Reforming the parole system is inherently risky. Any time you release any sizable group of convicts, it’s virtually inevitable that at least one of them will do something awful.

But so will many other people this year who have no previous felony records. No policy will ever produce a perfect result. And any state that spends more on warehousing felons than on higher education for its young people is a state that has its priorities wrong.

And that’s precisely what Michigan has been doing. That doesn’t mean that the governor’s proposed budget is airtight or flawless. For example, it relies on balancing the books with nearly half a billion dollars in stimulus money from Washington.

The budget also assumes saving $100 million from passage of good-time release for prisoners. Both may – or may not – come to pass. And if they don’t … what’s plan B? Plan C?

Meanwhile, though it isn’t drawing as much press attention, the Granholm Administration is now negotiating new labor contracts with state worker unions. The next round of contracts won’t have much impact on this year’s budget, if they lock in another round of pay increases, it will perpetuate a vicious circle that will damage state government flexibility for years to come.

The governor isn’t the only one deserving a belated Valentine, however. My second rose goes to the business community for dogged pursuit of money-saving reforms in government at all levels.

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Detroit Regional Chamber, the Grand Rapids Chamber, the Michigan Manufacturers Association and the Small Business Association of Michigan have been beating the reform drum for years and years. And Doug Rothwell, now head of Business Leaders for Michigan (the successor group to Detroit Renaissance) has spent countless hours bargaining, negotiating, and just plain pleading with our political leaders to enact far-reaching reforms.

Fortunately, I’m convinced that these messages are getting through to the governor, and I hope they’ll resonate with House Speaker Andy Dillon and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop in time for serious negotiations before we get too far into this election year.

My overall sense is that this is beginning to happen, that some of the big picture items are now on the table. The governor finally has proposed spending cuts and reforms in the structure and cost of state government. And she has urged big reforms in our patchwork tax system that, as it stands, hurts our ability to attract business. Speaker Dillon has suggested pooling state worker health care benefits, something he says could save $900 million. Majority Senate Republicans have proposed a whole series of reforms and cuts.

The time has come for the Big Three to sit down together and hammer out a “grand bargain” to put Michigan on the road to big-time reform, and a sane plan to get our financial house in order.

The timing couldn’t be better. The preconditions include big and good ideas; a state financial crisis that won’t go away; and a state whose economy is still running on almost empty.

Plus, virtually everyone I see – everybody outside Lansing, that is – is sick and tired of all the partisan positioning rhetoric that passes for actually getting something done.

Ironically, virtually everybody I talk with – inside Lansing – says the odds are stacked firmly against any real reform.

It’s time for the politicians to pay attention to the people.

The window of opportunity in this political year is very narrow, maybe two-three months, before electioneering silliness crashes over us.

If our leaders can finally, actually get together this year and do something constructive to save our state, they’ll deserve red roses for years and years to come.

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Editor’s Note: Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics and a former chairman of the Michigan chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He is also the founder and president of The Center for Michigan, a bipartisan centrist think-and-do tank which is sponsoring Michigan’s Defining Moment, a public engagement outreach campaign for citizens. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of The Center. He welcomes your comments at ppower@thecenterformichigan.net.