Let’s just step back, take a deep breath and consider the following. Our state government is in the worst financial mess that almost anyone can remember. This isn’t just about politicians.
It has major implications for all of us. For our schools, for our colleges and universities, for our medical care, and for our state’s future. We are heading towards some kind of catastrophe.
The only question now seems to be how large the disaster will be and how long the pain will last. And yet, there seems to be far too little sense of urgency among our elected leaders, even though we hire them to prevent such messes and fix them when they happen.
There seems to be far too little leadership, period, especially perhaps on the part of the governor of this state.
And there seems to be far too little sense of responsibility to inform us properly on the part of the state’s media.
Let’s look at Jennifer Granholm. Nobody asked her to be governor. She campaigned long and hard for the job.
Last year, she was re-elected by a landslide. She promised leadership. Well, where is it? The vast majority of us do not understand the crisis, or how or why the state is in such a hole. Nor do we have much idea what will happen if we don’t fix it.
Nor do we understand why a tax increase might be better for them than further cuts. Granholm does understand all those things. She is a superb communicator. Even her enemies say she is one of the best in politics. So why hasn’t she used her skills to communicate the reality of the situation to Michigan?
Why doesn’t she ask for, or buy, half an hour of television time and do her best to make us understand the situation? She has a responsibility to do that. She has a political obligation to try to persuade us to follow her lead. That might indeed be hard.
But that’s what leaders do. Getting people to do the easy thing is never difficult. Getting them to make sacrifices is leadership.
Instead, the governor has State Budget Director Bob Emerson do her dirty work. It was he who had to propose the two penny sales tax on services that went nowhere.
Late last week he announced that if the budget standoff isn‘t resolved by May 1, the schools will lose $90 to $125 a pupil for the rest of this year. That would guarantee that many schools will close in financial near-chaos. Mark Deldin, superintendent in Chippewa Valley, put it best. “The tragedy continues,“ he told the Macomb Daily. “School boards are left to deal with the legislators’ inability to lead.”
Yet this new crisis was almost entirely eclipsed in our largest newspapers by the released confession of the man whose wife was chopped up. We’ve got something bigger than a budget crisis going on. And when I think of our democracy and our future, I get scared.
Just maybe, the reason that Governor Granholm doesn't campaign for higher taxes is because tax increases are so thoroughly and massively unpopular among voters. In a very closely-divided state, perhaps Governor Granholm knows that she could send her party into minority status for years to come with one stroke of a tax-increasing pen.
While Mr. Lessneberry likes to repeatedly remind us all tht Governor Granholm won re-election in what he calls a "landslide," Michigan's great tax-cutting Governor John Engler won re-election twice, by real, true, serious landslide victories. Governor Engler walloped Howard Wolpe in one of the worst mismatches in Michigan gubernatorial history. Then, in an electoral exclamation point, Governor Engler thrashed, keelhauled, annihilated, humiliated, and utterly destroyed the outlandish vanity campaign of Geoffrey Fieger, Esq.
Tax-cutting sure seemed popular. Maybe it still is.
By the way, in a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal pointed out that for overall tax burdens on its citizenry, Michigan's state government is still among the top dozen highest-taxing states in the nation.
And we are UNDER-taxed?
Posted by: Anonymous | April 16, 2007 at 08:06 PM
The nonpartisan Citizens Research Council has quite clearly demonstrated that the state's abysmal budget crisis is due not only to the malaise of the Big Three based economy, but a an outdated, four-decade old tax structure that continues to ignore the service economy, which now makes up half the state's economic activity. Forty years ago, when the tax structure was based primarily on an industrial economy, the service industry was an afterthought. Even if ONLY cuts and no tax increases did not devastate essential services, AND the strategy succeeded in spurring economic growth beyond anyone's wildest dreams, the structural problems would STILL NOT SOLVE the crisis. That's the Council's analysis, not that of tax-and-spend liberals. Now, perhaps REAL statesmen and women, with the best interests of the state in mind and not simply that of ideological constituencies, should lead, rather than pander. That might mean the Gov. will take the political fallout, and it might mean the anti-tax zealots need to compromise to fix a broken system. That's what leadership is. If Anonymous would consider a bigger picture view of the state's budget situation, rather than solely the opinion of the WSJ editorial board, they'd conclude like most reasonable persons that Michigan is in the middle of the pack when it comes to taxes paid, and that there is currently NO TAX being levied on half the state's economic activity. Surely a levy on that ignored sector might allow an offset on high taxes that plague other sectors of the economy, AND raise enough revenue to restore essential investment in road, health care, education and natural resources = things that matter as much, if not more, to economic vitally than simply low taxes. But, the narrow ideologies of inexperienced legislators these days don't seem to allow for that sort of Vision Thing. Which brings me to term limits....nevermind.
Posted by: Hugh McDiarmid Jr. | April 17, 2007 at 12:18 AM
Hilarious. Hugh is right. Not even the Detroit News editorial page is dumb enough to keep arguing that we're a high-tax state, and the service sector has grown over the four decades without providing anything for the common good.
We cut taxes like a frat boy on a drinking binge. Eventually, you have to sober up, wipe the barf off your shirt, and evaluate how much you've destroyed while you were blotto.
Posted by: Eric B. | April 17, 2007 at 01:04 PM