Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Special Commentary: The Week That Was

One of the stars of the original Star Trek TV series was a cranky medical officer named Dr. McCoy. Every so often, they’d beam down to a new planet and he would examine some creature that usually looked something like a rubber saxophone crossed with an accordion.

“It’s life, Jim,” he would tell Captain Kirk. “But not as we know it.”

That’s sort of how I felt this week, as we watched the twin dramas of the state budget crisis and the sudden United Auto Workers strike.

The budget crisis has been building for years. It was clear on Memorial Day that the train wreck we are in now was coming, even though your lawmakers have had months to head off disaster.

But even though I anticipated this, part of me still can’t really believe it is happening. If you need any further proof of how crazy this all is, you have only to look at Detroit’s newspapers.

Both of them have screamed at both parties in front-page editorials, telling the governor and the legislature to do their jobs and balance the budget. Today’s headline in the Detroit News says simply “Just Get It Done.” The Detroit Free Press has two editorials dripping with contempt for our elected non-leaders.

The main one begins “Welcome to the Banana Republic of Michigan.” I have never seen our mainstream print media talk to politicians like that before. And yet, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. They don’t seem to be listening.

Last night the governor and her nemesis, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, took turns addressing us on television. What I saw is what I am sure most people saw. Two politicians being politicians.

“Like you I have been angered by these months of inaction. But tonight I am hopeful,” the governor said.

That’s nice, but she’s been hopeful for five years now. Where’s the beef?

Mike Bishop said “Michigan’s problems are not partisan.” Then he spent the rest of his five minutes haranguing the governor to sign his partisan political emergency budget. Except that he did tell us, as Richard Nixon did in his Checkers speech, that “my wife and I are a lot like you. We have kids. We balance our family budget.”

There was nothing about the huge financial problems our state government faces beyond the immediate budget crisis.

I haven’t a clue how all this will end, but I do want to tell you about something encouraging that happened this week. I winced when I heard that the UAW was staging a nationwide strike against General Motors.

I thought this was a case of history repeating itself as farce. I feared the battered union might take itself and the weakened automaker over a cliff. But two days later there was a sweeping, forward-looking settlement.

The experts say it may set a new precedent that may finally give our signature industry a real chance to compete.

Isn’t it too bad we can’t send Ron Gettelfinger to the state legislature for the weekend?

Hear Audio Story   

Essay: Perfect Storm - 9/28/07

What’s going on in Lansing reminds me of one of those frightening movies we used to watch back during the Cold War about the US and the USSR destroying mankind in a nuclear holocaust.

Inevitably, as the crisis escalates, both sides realize how truly insane this all is, but they just can‘t help themselves as they move, step by step, closer to Armageddon.

Well, welcome to financial ground zero. Just as we know that nuclear war is bad, everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that a government shutdown would be a very bad thing for our already troubled state. Here’s what Doug Rothwell, the president of the business group Detroit Renaissance had to say about it:

“A government shutdown would be a very unfortunate move at this point, given all the other problems Michigan is encountering with the transformation of the auto industry and the effects of the economy. It would further undermine the image of Michigan as a place to do business both for companies already located here as well as those we are trying to attract.”

Doug Rothwell’s comments are valuable because while he sees things from a business perspective, he is a thoughtful moderate.

But frankly, the best perspective I’ve seen comes from a man who has been here before, former Gov. James J. Blanchard. Yesterday, he said “I’m afraid that some of the legislators need to have a shutdown before they will muster the courage to vote for a financial recovery plan.”

That doesn’t mean Blanchard wants a shutdown.

He said “all that would do is continue the chaos, making the deficit larger and the problem worse. It would hurt the image of the state, drive up borrowing costs, reduce services and reduce people’s confidence in state leaders. This is not the result of high unemployment or auto layoffs, which are tragedies in themselves.”

Rather, “this budget crisis is a man-made tragedy that can and should be solved by men and women of good will.”

Twenty-five years ago, Blanchard was a young congressman who had just been elected governor. He came into office facing a deficit as bad as this one -- and unemployment and inflation that were considerably worse. He asked the legislature to do a very hard thing.

He asked them to temporarily raise the state income tax from 4.6 percent to 6.35 percent. The lawmakers did so and everyone remembers part of what happened next. Angry voters recalled two state senators who voted for the tax increase.

That’s why so many lawmakers today are weak-kneed about doing the right thing. But here’s the part they don’t remember.

The tax increase worked. The deficit was paid off. The tax rate went back down. The economy got better.

The voters were mad at Blanchard, too. But when he ran for re-election, he won with a modern record 69 percent of the vote.

Sometimes doing the right thing pays off. Let’s hope Lansing remembers that, before we disgrace ourselves before the nation.

Hear Audio Story   

Interview: Bill Ballenger - 9/28/07

With the clock ticking towards at least a partial government shutdown this weekend, lawmakers will continue to meet today. But so far there is no indication that a solution to the budget impasse is at hand. Pundit, journalist and former legislator Bill Ballenger has been watching Lansing for nearly forty years. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about the situation.

Hear Audio Story   

Essay: Brave New World - 9/27/07

UAW President Ron Gettelfiinger was roundly condemned by just about everybody when he called a nationwide strike against General Motors on Monday. “Is he nuts?” people asked.

The industry is in trouble. General Motors is far weaker than it was. The United Auto Workers union is a shadow of its former self.

Strikes no longer make any sense anyway, not in this economy, and not with Toyota now well-established and happily ready to take every last sale away from General Motors and Ford.

What people thought was that the UAW was stubbornly refusing to see economic reality. That the union was willing to risk destroying the automaker, and itself with it, rather than recognize that the world of 2007 is far different than the world of 1970, the last time there was a national strike against General Motors.

Yet it was clear to me by the next morning that Gettelfinger was crazy, all right. Crazy like a fox. I heard that in the voices of the strikers. They were pleased and happy and immensely proud of their union, because they perceived it was doing something. It was fighting for them. Most had never been on strike before.

You could hear the pride quivering in their voices. They were the UAW, damn it. They knew the glorious history of their union. They knew about the sit-down strikes in Flint. Many of them had seen the famous pictures of the Battle of the Overpass in 1937. There they were, a few plucky union organizers, handling out leaflets at the Ford plant in the Rouge, being attacked and beaten.

Their tiny union had been reviled and ridiculed by the company and the economists and the press back then too, right up until the day Ford gave in and recognized the union. The strikes of later years had concluded with the workers winning benefit after benefit.

Then the lean years had come. New contracts meant concessions and givebacks; layoffs and buyouts. There are only a fifth as many UAW members working for General Motors now as there were during that great two-month strike in 1970.

And yet Monday they went on strike, which was, intentionally or not, a brilliant move. Suddenly they had a mission, and a leader.

Two days later, it was over, and they had a contract. Some say they could have gotten the same deal without a strike.

Maybe so. But these workers don’t think so. And if they had avoided a strike, it wouldn’t have been the same. For two days, they relearned who they are and shared in a great tradition.

This strike was so short, it did harm to nobody. What it did was restore morale to a labor movement fighting for survival. All right, we have to run our own retiree health care program? No problem, we’ll get it done. For two days, they had once again been in it together.

And they got it done. Maybe, just maybe, the union movement isn’t dead after all.

Hear Audio Story   

Interview: Sean McAlinden - 9/27/07

The United Auto Workers union reached what’s being called a historic deal with General Motors yesterday. That was just two days after the union began a nationwide strike against GM. Economist Sean McAlinden is an expert on the motor vehicle industry and the Michigan economy. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about how the deal may change the domestic auto industry.

Hear Audio Story   

Essay: Shutdown - 9/26/07

Most people don’t understand very much about how state government works. We don’t know where the money for various programs comes from or how much we need to spend on prisons.

That’s why we have a legislature. We send representatives to Lansing and pay them $80,000 a year to figure that out for us.

But in talking to a lot people in recent months, I’ve discovered that most of us do understand something. Which is, that our lawmakers need to do their jobs. They need to agree on a budget and keep the state running.

Nobody outside politics is very interested in the daily spectacle of Senator Mike Bishop and Governor Jennifer Granholm whining and blaming the other for the state being about to go over a cliff.

They need to fix this right now. What I would like to see is the governor come on television and explain to us how the state got in this mess in the first place - which is what she should have done in February. Then she should explain her plan for getting us out of the mess, and explain how the new taxes she wants would be used.

After that, a panel of three of the best reporters in the state would ask her hard questions. Such as: The tax on beer has been two cents a bottle since 1966, when you were eight years old.

Why don’t you stand up to the lobbyists and try to raise that to a dime? That wouldn't even match inflation since then, but would raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the state.

Then I would like Senator Mike Bishop to face us. He maintains that the state budget can be cut by a billion dollars.

All right - now instead of hiding behind empty “waste, fraud and abuse” rhetoric, honestly tell us what we are going to lose.

Explain this to parents struggling to send children to college: You evidently think it would be better for them to pay thousands of dollars in added tuition than for the average person to pay an extra five bucks a week in state income tax. Why is that?

Are your policies really aimed at the average citizen? And why do you think making life harsher for foster kids is far better policy than putting a realistic tax on a bottle of beer?

I have met a few idiots who think it would be a good idea for the state to shut down. Nihilism is an intellectually pleasing philosophy... for fifteen-year-olds. But the rest of us have too much at stake.

Twelve years ago, a Republican legislator drunk with power and miffed at the chief executive, did shut the government down for a few days. The federal government. His name was Newt Gingrich. And for him, it backfired, big time. The next year, President Clinton was re-elected easily, and Newt was soon out of office entirely.

There’s a lesson there. Let‘s not feel we have to repeat it on a smaller stage.

Hear Audio Story   

Interview: Rick Pluta - 9/26/07

While negotiations to solve the state budget crisis continue, a government shutdown will become a reality unless the two sides reach some sort of an agreement by the weekend. But what would shutting down the state government mean? And are state workers ready for it? Rick Pluta covers Lansing for Michigan radio.

Hear Audio Story   

Essay: Perfect Storm - 9/25/07

Economist Patrick Anderson knows something about disasters. He’s a former state budget official who was at the World Trade Center on September 11 and barely escaped with his life.

He is a cautious man not given to wild exaggeration. But yesterday, when asked about what‘s happening now, he told the Detroit News what was upon us was “nothing short of a disaster for Michigan, if you combine the strike with a government shutdown.”

“It really is the perfect storm,” he said.

Who could have imagined this? The worst breakdown of Michigan state government in half a century combined with an auto strike right when the state and the industry can least afford it.

Native Detroiter Lily Tomlin years ago had a line that sums it up exactly. “No matter how cynical you get, you can’t keep up.”

What’s happening now seems like a ghastly parody of the Michigan of my youth. There were auto strikes back in the 1950s and 60s, some of them long ones. They were hard on the workers, and the company being struck had to absorb losses.

But when it was over, everyone went back to work with better contracts, and the automaker soon rebounded, both in profits and market share. After all, a Chevy guy was a Chevy guy.

He was highly unlikely to buy a Ford, even if he had to keep the old hunk of tin running a few more months. And vice-versa.

As for buying foreign, give me a break. Foreign cars meant an original Volkswagen beetle. Haul the family around in that? I don‘t think so. There hasn‘t been a nationwide auto strike in decades …

Until now.

Once again, autoworkers have thrown down their tools and struck the nation’s biggest automaker, as they did in September 1970. But it is a different world. There are now seventy-three thousand United Auto Workers union members who work for GM. Back then, there were more than 425,000.

That strike lasted for more than two months, and ended in part because shareholders were horrified that GM posted a third-quarter loss for the first time since 1946. Today, our domestic automakers have been losing billions every year.

More than half the cars sold in the nation are made by foreign corporations. Almost half the nation’s auto workers are not UAW members today, They work for companies like Toyota and Honda.

Every day this strike lasts means more market share for those companies, and a few more sales lost by a stumbling giant that has been losing market share steadily for more than thirty years.

Every day this strike lasts means less money for the state of Michigan, which is so strapped for cash the government may shut down at the end of this week. In fact it will, if our squabbling legislators can’t agree to raise taxes.

Our past is dying and threatening us with a stillborn future. And if you aren’t deeply worried, you aren’t paying attention.

Hear Audio Story   

Interview: Donald Grimes - 9/25/07

Michigan’s state government is facing a possible shutdown because of a massive budget deficit. And yesterday the United Auto Workers union went on strike against General Motors, the state’s biggest employer. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with Donald Grimes about whether the strike makes the state’s financial situation worse. Grimes is a researcher at the University of Michigan who specializes in economic forecasting in the state.

Hear Audio Story   

Essay: State of Paralysis - 9/24/07

These days, the huge financial crisis facing state government has finally gotten everyone‘s attention. After ignoring this potential disaster for months, we are now vigorously debating just about every aspect of the question. Should we raise taxes? If so, which taxes?

Should we cut services, and if so, which ones? Should we privatize the prisons? Raise taxes on beer, for the first time in our lifetimes? Cut support to our great colleges and universities?

These are all things we should be arguing over - though this conversation should have started last year, not last week. This debate is entirely healthy. But there is also something going on that we need to talk about, something repellent, anti-democratic, and evil.

And that is, the threat to recall any legislator who votes to raise taxes. This is an attack on representative democracy, an invitation to mob rule, and should be exposed for what it is.

Our entire system of government will break down and fall apart if lawmakers are threatened with being removed from office every time they cast a vote somebody doesn’t like. We do indeed have the right to remove them from office if we don’t like the way they vote.

The way you do that is through elections. Members of the state house of representatives have to run every two years anyway.

Everyone else can be removed after four years. We send these folks to Lansing to make difficult decisions, some of which are bound to be politically unpopular. That’s how representative democracy works. And as the founding fathers knew, representative democracy is the only kind of democracy that can work.

H. Ross Perot once had the nutty idea that people could sit at home with an interactive device and we could all pass laws together. So, do you feel confident that you know exactly where we should set agricultural subsidies? How about tariff rates with Taiwan?

I haven’t a clue and haven’t the time to find out, so I have to trust people we send to Washington to do that for me. I often vote for people with whom I disagree on some issues if overall I trust them to do a good job. But today, Lansing is being held hostage by a little demagogue who drives around towing a pink plastic pig.

This guy vows to try and collect signatures and remove from office anyone who votes to raise taxes. He is a Macomb County commissioner who has spent his adult life working for government.

Yet he wants to effectively destroy our traditions of elected government. And he has terrorized the lawmakers, in part because our laws make it ridiculously easy to stage a recall.

What’s needed is for the lawmakers, whether they support new taxes or not, to stand up to him, take him on, and tell him to take it back to Macomb County. Otherwise, the bell may be tolling for them too soon, over some other single issue.

And if that happens, it is curtains for all of us.

Hear Audio Story