No matter how much in one-time emergency stimulus flows Michigan’s way, Washington cannot save Michigan from financial disaster. The state can only save itself.
Detroit Free Press Editorial Page Editor Ron Dzwonkowski nails this point in a column this week…
(S)hame on state leaders in Lansing if the stimulus funds deter them from doing the work they need to do to fix the state budget. A windfall from Washington is just that, a one-time thing, no matter how big.
For the long haul, the state will still need to address its structural deficit, this annual problem of obligations exceeding income. That means, as state leaders have often talked about but never really done, a big-picture look at our tax structure, the true obligations of state government and the true expectations of the people of Michigan for their government. This means a look at the size of our penal system and nature of the laws that send people there, the number of local governments and school districts in Michigan that require state support, and the level of support the state provides to its university system to keep higher education accessible to all.
It means looking at the need for a fulltime Legislature; at the ranks, pay and benefits of public employees and at Proposal A, which shifted most of school support from local property taxes to the state sales tax.
It means asking about government in Michigan the very question Obama asked about the federal government in his inaugural address: “Not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” And where it doesn’t, having the guts to say we don’t need it and we don’t need the public dollars to pay for it.
This is a tall order of business, but what better time to take it on than now, when the people are coming around to the idea that the good old days won’t be back in Michigan? If there is any opportunity to be found in our long running economic crisis, it will be in finding the political will and popular support to restructure government so that one-time budget fixes are no longer needed, so that the budgetary problems of the last decade are never replayed in Michigan.
3 Comments
When are we going to look at the size of our population- all 10 million of us? That’s alot of people to take care of.
Population is the bottom line to every major problem on this planet and no one is talking about it. Ten million people in one state is unsustainable. Nothing will change for the best until our numbers are dramatically reduced- and I don’t mean sending them to other states to be their problem. I mean limiting the size of households. Three children per family will mean eventual poverty for all. Two children will only maintain the status quo. One child per family will reduce our troubles by half- if it is not too late. And if we’re not sure about that we should seriously consider a moratorium on child birth. Having children is not a right. It is a privelidge which we have abused.
Snip snip.
Thomas Malthus would be proud of Bob. I’m sure he knows that there are some 36 million people in California, now that is crazy due to the growth curve.
I argue that, if anything, Michigan’s economic development means we need more people. As this country has grown, it has become richer. It’s a demand-side story, but I think history brings this out well if you consider the record.
As it stands, we’re on the brink of a Michigan that risks losing people and economic activity – not pretty.
John, I was going back and reading some of the articles from the center and I believe this nails the problem in Michigan reght on the spot. We have leaders in Lansing that are either ignorant to the facts about what they do or are completely spinless to stand up for what is necessary to turn this state around.