Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Power Source - 5/16/2008

Here’s what the majority Democrats had to say when they passed this energy bill package last month.

“The Michigan House of Representatives today passed a comprehensive, long-term energy plan that will create thousands of jobs now for Michigan workers, keep electricity affordable for consumers and businesses, and ensure that our state has the safe, reliable power supply necessary to achieve major economic growth.”

Welcome to the wonderful world of doublespeak, Funny, but the House Democrats seem to have failed to mention that they also agreed to change the rate structure so that residential customers will pay a whole lot more and businesses a whole lot less.

True, this bill does set targets for renewable energy. But when I read the bills, I was unable to figure out just what penalty the utilities will have to pay if they don’t meet the renewable energy targets.

When I talked to the governor’s special energy advisor about this, I got a lot of doubletalk. And I came away utterly convinced that if any penalties are assessed, the utilities will cheerfully be able to pass them on to the consumers. They will also be allowed to propose rate increases that will automatically take effect if the state public service commission doesn’t stop them within a certain time period.

However, it gets worse.

These bills are now before the state senate, which, unlike the House, is still controlled by the Republicans. I have a hunch that they will fight to make any renewable energy targets strictly voluntary.

And you just know how fast these big utilities will move to spend money to make any change that they don’t have to make. Especially now that these bills also newly enshrine the CMS Energy and DTE Energy’s near-monopoly status.

What these bills are really designed to do is please the big two utilities, while maybe, at best, giving them a gentle nudge in the renewable energy direction. I’ll bet they drag their feet.

What is needed is a bill with teeth. Set a schedule for realistic renewal energy targets, and prescribe a system of rewards for making them and penalties for missing them. The penalties need to be real, and not something that can be passed on to consumers.

Something, say, requiring state government to open the field up to new competitors hungry enough to get it done. We also need to be honest. The governor has talked about renewable energy creating 19,000 jobs in the near future.

Skip Pruss, her energy advisor, talked as if most of these jobs would be created in tool-and-die shops. He sees an avalanche of orders for windmill parts from other states hot to get in on the renewable energy craze.

Call me a cynic, but I’m not convinced.

If we want renewable energy, we need to push for it. But not via a bunch of bills basically designed to create a safe monopoly for two energy companies who are still going to build coal-fired plants.

We can do better. Starting by insisting that our politicians be more honest.

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Essay: Finally, A Solution

Last week, Michigan Democrats finally came up with a sensible solution to the mess they made of their entire presidential process.

As sensible, that is, as could be managed at this late date.

Under this proposal Hillary Clinton would get 69 delegates, Barack Obama 59. The remaining 29 so-called super delegates could vote however they wanted to. The state party will take this to the Democratic National Committee May 31. If the national leaders approve the plan, Michigan will get to go to the convention after all.

There is still one hitch: After that plan was announced, a Clinton spokesman rejected it. Three weeks ago, that would have prevented this plan from even receiving a hearing. But there is a growing sense that it is time to get on the right bus.

Most of Michigan’s top Democrats – Governor Jennifer Granholm, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Congressman John Dingell – got on the wrong, or at least losing, one. They gambled on what they saw as a sure thing and endorsed Clinton very early. Now, it looks more and more like they will have to make nice with a nominee they did their best to defeat.

Think of it: Michigan has managed to achieve the dubious distinction of being the only state in the nation where nobody was allowed to cast even a write-in primary vote for the man who now seems the almost certain nominee. This week, as a matter of fact, is the first time that Obama set foot in our state since last summer.

Like other candidates not named Clinton, he took his name off the ballot in Michigan, after the national Democratic Party said the primary was illegitimate and wouldn’t count. But later, when it was clear that each side would need every last delegate, the Clinton position was that the primary should count – though that wasn’t what she said in January. Her forces insisted on dividing the delegates according to the popular vote, in which, in a very tiny turnout, Clinton got 55 percent and uncommitted got 40 percent. But the Obama forces said no way. They said the only split they would accept was an even one.

For a long time, it has looked like this meant Michigan was going to be shut out of the action. But after Obama did so well on May 6, they came up with a face-saving compromise that split the difference, and doesn’t materially change the dynamics of the race.

By the way, two final things should be said about the January 15 primary. Clinton did indeed win it. But the vast majority of Democrats also didn’t bother to vote, because they thought it wouldn’t count.

My guess is that this will go through and Michigan will get to go to the convention. But there’s something I hope nobody forgets. Michigan Democrats tried to break the rules this year. Thanks to their stupidity and stubbornness, they thereby made themselves – and our state – virtually irrelevant in the most exciting nomination battle anyone can remember.

Let’s hope they remember that, next time.

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Interview: Mark Brewer - 5/15/08

Michigan Democrats have been struggling for months to come up with some way to have a delegation seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.  Last week they came up with a solution they will present to the national party on May 31st.  But will it fly?  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry put the question to Mark Brewer.  He’s chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. 

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Essay: Nightmare Scenario - 5/14/2008

Imagine this: It is mid-October and the electoral math is starting to gel. Barack Obama and John McCain are locked in a close race.

Most of the states are breaking along familiar lines, but the economy has given the Democrats a boost in a few formerly red states. But to seal the deal, Obama needs to carry Michigan.

That hasn’t been a problem for a Democrat in recent years, so long as they get a big turnout in Detroit, and stay competitive in the suburbs. But this year, Detroit means Kwame Kilpatrick.

Polls show the mayor has a near-universal negative rating in the suburbs. Republicans have been working the Kwame issue as hard as possible, crafting appeals that range from the sublime to the openly racist. The Internet is flooded with cleverly altered pictures that seem to show Obama and Kilpatrick together, wearing dashikis.

“Soul Brothers,“ one caption reads. Posters appear: “If you like having a black mayor, you’ll love having a black President.”

Naturally, the Republicans deny responsibility for them, but they are having an effect. Then, his trial approaching, an increasingly desperate Mayor wants to meet with the Democratic presidential candidate. Obama would rather appear holding a chunk of raw plutonium. But there is a veiled threat behind that request.

Meet with me, or the turnout in Detroit may not be as large as you need or want. Obama knows that without Michigan, he may not be able to win the presidency. He also knows that he can kiss white votes good-bye, in Michigan and maybe elsewhere, if he is seen as being in bed with Detroit’s indicted mayor. What can he do?

What can he possibly do?

***

That scenario, or a similar one, has been flickering through the minds of Democratic strategists for weeks. Some are now urging Gov. Jennifer Granholm to do the right thing, and remove the mayor.

She has the legal right to do so. As they see it, that would be a win-win situation for virtually everybody. The city could get back to something like normalcy, and go back to trying to compete for new jobs and convention business in this difficult economic environment.

The former mayor could concentrate full-time on trying to defend himself. And the city would have a mayor people, including a candidate for president, would cheerfully be willing to be seen with.

That all sounds lovely. Except, it is very unlikely to happen.

And it probably shouldn’t happen. Not yet, anyway. Kwame Kilpatrick has, by any measure, disgraced and damaged his city.

But unless its citizens or its council remove him, he is entitled to his day in court, even if he thereby proves further that he cares about nothing and no one except himself. For the governor to remove him arbitrarily would set a very bad example for the future.

This state and its largest city have endured a lot, including fires, riots, and invasions. We’ll survive this too, in the end. But it would be nice if sometimes, it was just a little bit easier.

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Essay: Population Trends - 5/13/2008

There are probably a few heroic women, born towards the end of the baby boom, who will have another child. But not many; the youngest of them are now 44. To be sure, a few male boomers will go on getting into difficulty with women of succeeding generations.

But for all intents and purposes, my generation is done having children. The great demographic pig-in-the-python has moved on to running for president and worrying about Social Security. Those of us who are white weren‘t much on breeding anyway.

We had fewer babies than most other generations, with the result that while there are still 75 million of us in this country, there are only about 40 million or so members of Generation X.

I hope President Obama or Clinton pushes through a Constitutional Amendment both doubling and protecting our Social Security and Medicare before the younger generations replace us in Congress. John McCain is too old to be a boomer, and as a mere former POW, can have no idea how hard our lives could be.

Seriously, though - population trends have fluctuated greatly throughout history. There are relatively few native-born members of John McCain’s generation, kids born between 1930 and 1945.

They came into a world in the grip of our nation’s worst economic depression, followed by the world’s most terrible war.

First daddy had too little money, and then he was gone for four years. Now, once again, we seem to be barely replacing ourselves, especially in Michigan. But I am not all that worried about the numbers themselves. True, there is reason to be concerned about the steep drop in the number of very young children in Michigan.

Frankly, they aren’t here because the jobs aren’t here. If we employed their parents, they would come. I haven’t looked up statistics for Detroit in 1930, but I’ll bet the demographics are way out of whack. It was a good old medium-sized town in 1900, with about 285,000 people - a little smaller than Toledo today. Then the auto factories arrived. Thirty years later, the Motor City had more than six times as many people - well over a million and a half.

That’s not because the population took fertility drugs. It is because people poured in from the rural South and Eastern Europe. They wanted good jobs working in the plants.

Those jobs are disappearing now, and people by the hundred thousands have been drifting away. That’s left us with empty buildings and too many sprawling and now unnecessary schools.

There’s no doubt that we need to get our groove back. Some would say we do that by slashing tax rates to the bone to lure businesses in. That might have worked in 1908.

Worked to attract unskilled laborers, that is. The high-tech, highly skilled jobs of the future will be created by people who demand a decent infrastructure. We have to spend the money to build it, before they will come. Henry Ford knew that.

I wish those running our state today knew it too.

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Essay: The Ethanol Craze - 5/12/2008

Depending on whom you talk to, corn-based ethanol is either the future, or the biggest con job since the perpetual motion machine. Nobody doubts any more that we need to do something different. The first time I ever saw a solar cell was in seventh-grade science class.

The teacher told us that by the time we grew up, our cars would be powered by these. I think the electric battery was supposed to get us through cloudy days. Sounded great to me. However, that was in the fall of ... 1963, and I have yet to see a solar-powered car.

As far as the solar powered future is concerned, I am running out of time to enjoy it.

The fact of the matter is that we still don’t have an agreed-upon replacement for gasoline. General Motors is once again working hard on an electric car. All the automakers are working on hybrids of some kind. Stan Ovshinsky, the now-retired founder of Energy Conversion Devices in Troy, is betting the future will be hydrogen. Others are betting on corn-based ethanol – at least as a transitional fuel. Then there is so-called cellulosic ethanol, which we first heard about when George W. Bush suggested making fuel out of switch grass.

In Illinois, a company called Coskata says it can make ethanol out of everything from table scraps to old tires. And their arguments were convincing enough to get General Motors to invest. The one thing all these people have in common is that they know the world’s fossil fuel reserves are running out.

Gas and oil are getting more and more costly, and nobody has a clear-cut solution as to what to do next. Actually, these are things we’ve known for decades, but never did anything about them.

Some say the oil and automotive industries did their best to make sure nobody did anything about them. Well, that’s changing now. We may not have one common fuel, at least not for awhile.

And we do need to experiment with as many alternatives as possible. But while I am no engineer, I have serious doubts as to whether corn-based ethanol makes sense.

Our sensible neighbors to the north get it. Monday, the Ottawa Citizen ran an editorial highly critical of the whole idea.

Noting that rising global prices and increasing food shortages have sparked recent riots in Haiti, the newspaper said “Food supply is a complex thing. But it is becoming clear biofuel production is playing a role in shrinking that supply.”

The image of peasants starving so we can fill up our Lincoln Navigators with ethanol-based fuel is not charming. The Ottawa paper suggests refocusing biofuel research towards algae. That sounds good. Making gasoline out of mosquitoes would sound good, too, But whatever we do has to pass two tests:

Will it work? And perhaps more importantly, what damage would it do to the environment and the ecosystem?

We are in a process of transition, and here’s something else they didn’t tell us back in seventh grade.

Whatever we do, it won’t be easy.

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Essay: State of the State - 5/9/2008

When I read Charlie Ballard’s state of the state survey this morning, a few things never mentioned in it popped into my mind.

First of all, it seems clear that anyone who wants to win Michigan this fall better stop talking about silly side issues, and start addressing our state and our nation’s serious economic problems.

So far the Democratic candidates have spent a lot of time squabbling about who was most against Iraq. Meanwhile, we’ve paid vast attention to a retired preacher whose words have since been repudiated by the candidate who used to go to his church.

Ballard’s survey, which is one of the most accurate in opinion polling, indicates what voters think of those issues. The answer is: Not much. Only seven out of every thousand feel that foreign policy is a top issue in this campaign.

And only two in every thousand think that race relations and diversity should be on the front burner. What about the so-called ‘moral issues” that seem to surface every election season?

Well, they are of concern to precisely one half of one percent of Michigan’s population. We are facing tough economic times this year, and our hearts are in our wallets.

Two thirds of us think the top issues are either jobs or the economy. When you throw in taxes and budget issues, that rises to about eighty percent of us.

When you look at these numbers, it is hard to see how any Democratic candidate for president could possibly fail to win Michigan this fall. A solid majority think George W. Bush has done a poor job.

They don’t much like Jennifer Granholm either, but she isn’t running. What they really worry about, however, could be best summed up by the title of Charlie Ballard’s last book:

Michigan’s Economic Future.

Four out of seven of us say we are worse off than a year ago. Less than one in every four of us thinks we are in better shape. We still are hopeful about the future.

Americans are traditionally the most optimistic people on the planet. But we aren’t starry-eyed. Forty-four percent of us think we’ll be better off this time next year. Thirty-five percent say worse off. And that’s the most pessimistic they’ve been since this survey was started. Voters are going to be looking for a president who can help us get out of this pothole, and avoid bigger ones.

Twenty-eight years ago, I covered another presidential campaign that looked like it would end in a dead heat. Then the candidates had a single debate. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” the challenger asked, “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores?”

Days later, the man who said those words carried 44 states, including Michigan. Today, we once again know the answer to those questions.

For the rest of this year, voters are going to be looking for someone who can make them feel better off four years from now.

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Essay: Repellent Ruling - 5/8/2008

Since the 1960s, conservatives have been whining about liberal judges who they say, “legislate from the bench.“ That is to say, judges who make up new laws on their own, and then pretend what they want is somehow implied in or required by the constitution.

My liberal friends won’t like what I am about to say, but that is  in some cases an intellectually valid argument. I am totally in favor of what is called a woman’s right to choose. 

But I think it is really a stretch to find that the Constitution requires the complex trimester ruling of Roe vs.  Wade.

However, if any of the so-called strict constitutionalists support what the Michigan Supreme Court did yesterday, they are utter hypocrites. Yesterday, in a completely partisan ruling, our elected high court ruled that no unit of government could provide health benefits to same-sex couples.

Regardless of how you feel about that, here’s the complete text of the Michigan Constitutional Amendment their ruling was based on, an amendment passed in 2004.

To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.

Not exactly a literary masterpiece, but its meaning is clear enough; it says marriage can involve only a man and a woman.

But it says nothing whatsoever about health care.

As I understand the logic of it, what the court did yesterday was imply that units of government, including state universities, cannot extend any health care benefits to anyone who is not married to one of their employees.

Logically, then, my seven-year-old goddaughter should lose her  health care. Her father works for the State of Michigan, and he is only her father, not her husband. You would say that is absurd.

And you would be right. But so is denying domestic partner benefits based on this amendment.  Sometimes judges who are struggling to interpret the Constitution go back and read ancient documents and letters to try and discern what may have been the founding fathers’ original intent in framing some passage.

Well, in this case we only have to go back four years. Those campaigning for this amendment told audiences, over and over again, that all it was meant to do was ban gay marriage, that it wouldn’t touch anyone’s benefits.

They may have been lying, but that is what they said.

The root of the problem is that a flaw in our state constitution has given us a Supreme Court that is largely a collection of partisan hacks. They issued a ruling on our presidential primary earlier this year that was so blatantly unconstitutional a federal judge threw it out as soon as it landed on her desk. But unless we change the system or elect better judges, we can expect more of the same.

So, dear voters, I guess that leaves it up to you.

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Essay: Inflation - 5/7/2008

If you really want to know how bad inflation is, you could do one of two things. You could talk to distinguished economists and bankers like Dana Johnson, and read official government reports.

Or you can talk to someone on a fixed income who has to drive a lot. Or go to the closest grocery store, and talk to the parent who is doing the weekly shopping for the wife and kids.

You are likely to get two vastly different impressions. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t Weimar Germany, where you had to take a wheelbarrow full of cash to the store to get a loaf of bread.

It isn’t even Argentina in the 1980s, where I watched people run out and buy merchandise on their lunch hour in case the value of their money melted to nothing by nightfall. But there is a problem with inflation in this country. It is growing, and those suffering the most are those who least can afford to do so. Which is usually the case.

To some extent, inflation hits everybody differently. When we measure inflation, we normally use the consumer price index, which is based on an attempt to create a so-called “market basket” of goods and services reflective of what the average consumer might buy.

In some areas, particularly electronics, we are actually seeing deflation. In 1950, a small black and white TV with a fuzzy picture cost about five thousand dollars in today’s money.

And you don’t have to be very old to know that I-pods and big-screen, HDTVs cost less now than just a very few years ago.

Housing is cheaper too. Which is not a good thing if, like most middle-aged Americans, your single biggest asset is in the value of your home. Oh, you are fine for now, unless you need to sell it.

Then, especially in Michigan, good luck. Where inflation is steepest these days is in food and energy prices. Those tend to be fixed and unavoidable costs for most people, especially in Michigan, where we have decidedly inferior public transportation.

Poorer people pay a higher percentage of their total income for both food and fuel. That means their incomes are shrinking.

The kind of inflation we are seeing now hurts the poor more than it does the rich -- and especially the poor whose incomes don’t automatically rise with inflation. Crash programs aimed at increasing ethanol production could harm some people more than it helps them.

Hurt them by driving up food prices. Few people have noticed, but Costco and Sam’s Club are quietly limiting the amount of rice customers can buy. They worry about coming shortages.

Alan Greenspan, the most famous chair of the Federal Reserve in history, said this week he now fears the economy is once again prone to a new round of inflation. When he speaks, you can bet his successor, Ben Bernanke, is listening. If you expect the feds to cut interest rates again in the near future, you may want to think again.

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Essay: Ousting the Mayor - 5/6/2008

Almost nobody familiar with the horrendous mess in Detroit thinks the mayor ought to stay in office. The ranks of his defenders have shrunken to paid stooges like Sharon McPhail, who used to refer to Kwame Kilpatrick as a “thug” before he put her on the payroll.

But the report saying that city council has the right to oust him is extremely unlikely to produce that result. Thanks to the city’s vague and poorly written charter, Kwame Kilpatrick could apparently appeal any vote to remove him in court, and delay it for months.

That would not only further paralyze city government, it might even run the risk of creating sympathy for the self-indulgent man in the mayor’s office. But should the mayor lose his job?

Well, let’s look at the basic facts. We know the mayor fired a deputy police chief because he was doing his job, investigating alleged wrongdoing. Two other good cops were also tossed over the side. What specifically the mayor was worried they would find out isn’t clear, but he was clearly having an affair with his chief of staff. He lied under oath about that, by the way.

He also lied about firing the police officers.

The officers then sued him and the city, and won. And when the mayor found out the attorney for the cops had the goods on him, in the form of the infamous text messages, he urged city council to give them $8.4 million dollars – more than the actual verdict.

He did that in a failed attempt to prevent city council - or anyone else - from knowing what had really happened.

That’s the scandal in a nutshell. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer quit his job after merely being accused of using his own money to visit a prostitute. Detroit’s mayor would have been gone months ago if he had any regard for the city he has embarrassed and looted. One thing that is clear, is that he’ll have to resign if convicted of a felony.

He’s been charged with multiple felonies by the Wayne County Prosecutor. At this point, it probably makes more sense for the criminal process to play itself out before the council gets involved.

However, attorney Bill Goodman’s report illustrates that Detroit not only needs a new mayor, it badly needs a new charter.

The way in which a mayor can be removed needs to be clear. Additionally, the way Detroit elects a city council needs to be changed. Currently, they are all elected at large.

That means they are mainly elected on name recognition. So Detroit has a council that includes two relatives of a famous judge, the lead singer from Martha and the Vandellas, a former failed congresswoman, and the bizarre wife of a current congressman.

And under the current charter, the mayor has so much power that a council member is powerless to get a street light fixed.

Nobody likes a disaster, but they do sometimes present an opportunity to rebuild. If Detroit doesn’t hear opportunity knocking this time, I don’t know if it ever will.

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