Michigan is in a profound state of crisis.
And a few of us are finally are trying something new in an effort to do something about it. I’ll explain more soon, but first, here’s a hard look at reality. Most people don’t yet realize how serious our situation is.
Basic manufacturing, the traditional core of our economy, is hemorrhaging jobs — jobs that will never return. Our largest employers — Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., and much of the automotive supply chain — are losing market share, and money. Some, like Delphi Corp., are flirting with bankruptcy.
The city of Detroit and the Detroit public schools are on the brink of insolvency. Our unemployment rate tops the nation, month after month. And our family income has plummeted.
Today’s economic crisis is quite different from the periodic tough times we’ve faced in the past. It’s the result of uncontrollable changes in the way the world economy works.
This has been aggravated in the case of the auto industry by a cost and labor-management business model that simply can no longer be sustained in the era of the global village.
Nobody who understands what is going on thinks this crisis can be resolved simply by an upturn in auto sales. Instead, the state needs to adopt a far-reaching and broadly acceptable economic policy agenda to help us get through our time of troubles, and to set in place the groundwork for a better economy and a brighter future for us and our families.
Sadly, however, Michigan’s political system has proven largely paralyzed, preoccupied with partisan squabbles, and unable or unwilling to develop comprehensive solutions to our problems.
How come?
Simply, Michigan politics today are dysfunctional for three reasons:
* First, partisanship. The coming election is succeeding in bringing out the worst in everybody. The Republican-dominated Legislature is hellbent on making sure nothing happens to help the state that Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm can claim credit for, regardless of what happens to the rest of us in Michigan.
Yet the governor’s office isn’t much better. When not consumed by political paranoia, it is fixated on micromanaging the various departments of state government for Granholm’s political advantage.
* Second, ideologues. Traditionally, Michigan politics depended on moderate civic leadership that, when all was said and done, would work across the partisan divide to develop and implement practical solutions to problems. But over the past decade, ideologues — particularly of the hard right, but also the semi-socialist left — have hijacked the political system.
* Third, well-funded single interests, coupled with term limits. Aggressive and wealthy interest groups buy “face time” with legislators through their campaign contributions.
And term-limited lawmakers lack the experience, information and perspective to resist.
Moreover, knowing they’ll soon be booted out of their present positions, they’ve got their eyes fixed on the next job they want to run for. What that means is that holding the hand out for campaign contributions has become Lansing’s most highly developed reflex.
The overall result is a growing alienation between most voters, who occupy the middle of the road, and an increasingly partisan and ideological political class. This has contributed to the public perception that at our time of crisis our political system is essentially broken.
What we’re getting these days from our political leaders is an odd combination of harsh rhetoric and failure to do anything other than pussyfoot around our greatest problems.
This helps nobody.
So some of us have decided to do something about it. We’re starting a “think-and-do tank,” which we call The Center for Michigan. You can learn much more about the center atwww.thecenterformichigan.net. Briefly, however, it will have two basic missions that feed upon and reinforce each other. It will assist in developing a broadly acceptable, high-impact, practical strategic agenda for the rebirth of our economy. It will also work to make our politics more civil, less ideological, and more effective by re-energizing Michigan’s bipartisan civic leadership and countless thousands of moderate grass-roots voters.
The center will have a definite stance in the sensible center. It will be nonideological, muscularly moderate, and anything but weak. The center is not interested in fighting the battles of the past — management vs. labor, city vs. suburb, white vs. black, east side vs. west side. Instead, it is aimed at rallying moderates who have brains, courage and backbone.
The center’s first initiative was a conference held this week, co-sponsored with the Center for State, Local and Urban Politics at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
A cross-section of Michigan’s civic, business and labor leadership gathered to consider “Where Do We Go From Here?” in attempting to develop a broadly acceptable economic agenda for the state.
As one of the founders of the center, I am saddened and appalled at the economic disintegration of what was once — and can and should be again — one of the most beautiful, rich and successful states in the union. Our situation is dire and brings to mind the famous observation that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.
