Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Dollars and Sense - 10/31/07

A camel, they used to say, is a horse designed by a committee. So you knew that when the final Michigan budget emerged from the legislature this week, the question had to be, “one hump or two?”

Whatever else it is, this budget is a humpy, and lumpy creature. The lawmakers finally got it balanced, or so they say, via a messy process that included a small income tax increase, a smattering of new sales taxes on things like escort services, and budget cuts.

The lawmakers didn’t touch their health care or other perks, surprise surprise, but they did close two key state police crime labs that police rely on to process everything from fingerprints to ballistics and DNA evidence. Mark Dobias, a witty and intelligent criminal defense lawyer in Sault Sainte Marie, was incredulous they closed the one in Marquette, which serves the entire Upper Peninsula.

His e-mail asking me if this was really true was labeled “Halloween in Lansing.” He had a hard time believing the legislature did that, because it means that some police departments in the UP may have to send evidence four hundred or more miles away.

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard says this means it will take longer for warrants to be issued, which means some criminals will get extra time out on the street to commit more crimes.

When I assured Dobias that they were in fact closing the Marquette Lab, he suggested the Capitol building be used to remake various horror movies, starting with the Fall of the House of Usher.

I’m sure some of the legislators think they have been through a horror movie the last few weeks. I’m sure this wasn’t much fun. That doesn’t bother me; they asked for these jobs, and are paid better than most high school teachers for considerably less work.

What bothers me is that some of the ones I talked to think they did a good job. They didn’t. I would give them a C minus at best. Oh, they did better than last May, when they stole from future tobacco settlement money, costing the state half a billion dollars.

But they failed to come up with a rational budgeting formula, based on an honest assessment of our needs, priorities, and revenues. They really have little idea whether their ragbag of service taxes will balance this budget. My guess is that future revenue projections will still show them running a deficit.

And when that happens, there will be no choice but to cut further later this fiscal year. The place where politicians find that easiest to do is usually higher education. This budget gives both higher and K-12 education a one percent increase.

That sounds nice, until you reflect that inflation is about 3.7 percent. That means they‘re actually cutting education to start.

Which will further cripple our ability to compete. We are on track to elect a new governor and virtually an entirely new set of state officeholders in 2010. Let’s hope Michigan can wait that long.

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Interview: Chris Christoff - 10/31/07

After weeks of wrangling, the state legislature has finally, almost, completed passing a series of budget bills to fund Michigan’s government. But the process was painful; last month there were tax hikes. This week, the lawmakers had to cut about $435 million in state services. Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau Chief Chris Christoff has been watching it all. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Oil Crisis - 10/30/07

David Sandalow’s book Freedom from Oil is an intriguing look on how we can deal with the coming oil crisis. I say coming, because it is mathematically certain that oil will become astronomically expensive. And then we will run out of it.

Most Americans would agree this is true, but don’t really believe it will happen in their lifetimes. If it does, they vaguely think science will have a convenient substitute ready to go.

Well, they may get an unpleasant surprise, sooner than we think. That‘s because of China, the fastest-growing oil consumer in the world. We still use nearly twice as much, but China is catching up fast.

Their economy is booming, and they have four times as many people as we do. That has to mean less oil available for us, soon.

Lots of books have been written about oil before. Some of them are overly sensationalist, and others by people who don’t have a credential or a clue how government or science work.

David Sandalow has both sets of credentials. He is the Brookings Institution’s energy and environment scholar, and has a long background in government.

He has been both a former assistant secretary of state, and a member of the National Security Council’s senior staff. He also has something very rare these days: Bipartisan respect.

Not only have both Bill Clinton and Al Gore written blurbs praising this book, it has an admiring foreword by Senator Richard Lugar, a conservative Republican from Indiana.

Freedom from Oil does three things in a remarkably short amount of space. Sandalow discusses why we are so dependent on oil and profiles nine people, from a general in Iraq to a race car driver, who are calling attention to the need to end oil dependence.

But the main theme is crafting an energy policy for a newly elected president. The recommendations here range from massive federal funding for mass transit to tax credits for biofuels.

Sandalow’s President would have the government buy “plug-in-hybrid” cars for official use, and promote a steep rise in the gasoline tax, with rebates for poor and energy-efficient families.

Virtually everything here sounds right, with one possible exception. Sandalow puts more faith in ethanol than most experts think is justified. But his other policy recommendations make perfect sense. Or would, in a sensible world.

Americans have a history of responding to crises at the last possible minute, or after the dam bursts. As noted here, elected officials who ask us to sacrifice tend to be former elected officials.

Freedom from Oil ends with the President giving his speech calling for a change in our way of life, followed by a statesman-like speech from the leading senator of the other party, pledging to work together. The problem is that right now it is hard to imagine the parties working together, in Washington as in Lansing. And until we get to that point, the oil time bomb is sure to continue to tick.

Hopefully we’ll grow up. Before it’s too late.

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Interview: David Sandalow - 10/30/07

Can anything really be done about our dependence on oil? Americans are 96 percent dependent on oil for their transportation needs, a figure that has changed little in decades.  David Sandalow thinks we can change this. In his new book Freedom From Oil, he outlines a scenario for how the next President could take some major steps to end what he calls our oil addiction. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Saving Our State - 10/29/07

A reporter recently asked Phil Power why he was devoting his time, energy and fortune to what he calls his “think and do tank,” the Center for Michigan. Phil barked, “I’ll be damned if I’ll sit around with my hands in my pockets while my state goes to hell.”

You have to admire that. Incidentally, Phil Power’s decision in 2004 to sell his newspaper chain and start his nonprofit Center for Michigan was a bad thing for me personally.

At the time I was vice president of his editorial operations, and had no desire to work for the company to which he sold his newspapers. But I am glad he did. Michigan is in a lot of systematic, long-term trouble. Most people understand that the state has economic problems, but they don’t know exactly what is going on, or why.

That’s what the Center for Michigan is all about. Power has assembled some of the brightest minds and most accomplished people in the state to try and figure out how to get beyond where we are stuck.

These include moderate Republicans and Democrats. Leaders like Paul Hillegonds, the former legislative leader and now energy executive, Mark Murray, now the president of the Meijer stores; former Gov. William Milliken and former Congressman Joe Schwarz.

It would be relatively easy to get these people together and write a series of sensible, even brilliant position papers on what the state’s politicians should be doing and where our economy should be going.

But papers like that are written all the time, and they end up gathering dust. The Cherry Commission wrote one on education. Many center members helped write one on Michigan’s economic crisis for the governor last winter. But few people read them.

What Phil Power is trying to do is much harder. He wants to get a large cross-section of people involved. He wants them not to just buy into his ideas, but come up with their own. Ideas about how to move the state away from our dying, brawn-over-brains manufacturing economy.

Most of all, he wants to develop a vision for what the Michigan of the future might be and should be, and move us towards it.

The Center for Michigan will support virtually any vision that is in line with its three key principles. They are 1) a talented, globally competitive work force 2) a vibrant and great quality of life, and 3) an efficient, effective and accountable government.

You’d think those ought to be something just about anybody could buy into regardless of politics. The key is getting people engaged, getting them to think they can make a difference.

Phil Power happened to be on the steps of the University of Michigan’s student union on an October morning long ago, when a candidate named John F. Kennedy presented a new idea called the Peace Corps. “Every man can make a difference,” Kennedy was fond of saying. “And everyone should try.”

That’s what the Center for Michigan is doing, and we should be too.

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Interview: Phil Power - 10/29/07

Are you happy with the Michigan economy and the quality of leadership in the state? Former newspaper publisher Phil Power isn‘t either, and he‘s trying to do something about it. What‘s more, he wants you to help. His Center for Michigan is launching a “Michigan‘s Defining Moment“ campaign. And he’s holding a series of community conversations to get it done. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Autonomous - 10/26/07

So let’s assume the contract between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers is in fact ratified.  The new Chrysler, now once again a stand-alone, fully American company, has everything it needs to compete.  Everything, that is, except a foreign partner, and --

Lee Iacocca.

I don‘t exactly mean Iacocca himself, who is still alive, although well into his 80s, and reportedly frail. But they need somebody to do for Chrysler what Iacocca did back in 1979.  They need a charismatic leader who can drum up both a patriotic feeling for the corporation itself, and interest in its products.

That’s really what saved Chrysler back in the early 1980s. When it hit rock-bottom and asked for those federal loan guarantees, Chrysler was one mismanaged mess. They didn’t really have foreign competition to blame; they largely did it to themselves.

Worse, their cars were mostly unappealing and not very good. The company was really saved by Iacocca, who had been trained as an engineer, but had long since evolved into a super salesman. Most of his career had been at Ford, where he was known as the father of the Mustang. But he made one crucial mistake.  He got into a power struggle with Henry Ford II. What he forgot was that the guy whose name is on the building always wins.

When Chrysler hit the rocks, Iacocca had just been fired from Ford, was mad as hell, and had something to prove.  And did he ever. He came on TV in a million commercials, and asked the American people to be his partner in saving this historic corporation. Better cars -- the so-called K-cars --were coming, he promised.  He won the public over and saved the corporation.

Eventually, Iacocca overdid it, and outlived his usefulness. He started writing autobiographies, thought about running for President and started promoting himself more than the corporation.

But he was as necessary in 1980 as Winston Churchill was in 1940. The company needed a human face, someone with credibility in the automotive world who could also touch common people.  More than anything else, that’s what he did for Chrysler.

Now the company is in need of that again. Chrysler has risen from the ashes more than once, and escaped German captivity. People need to be reminded that it is once again a totally American company. Chrysler needs to promote its storied history, which includes race cars, Jeeps and the immortal Dodge Main, and eccentric old Walter P. Chrysler himself.

Bet you didn’t know Chrysler was a railroad guy who built up Buick before starting his own car company. The Chrysler corporation also has a pretty nifty museum out at its Auburn Hills headquarters, but does little to let the world know about it.

Chrysler needs good cars and trucks, but they also need someone to tell us the story line of who they are, and where we’ve been together. We’ve known for a long time that people don’t just buy transportation, they buy romance.

Now, it’s Chrysler’s turn to give us some.

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Interview: David Cole - 10/26/07

Barring a last-minute surprise, UAW workers now seem all but certain to ratify the contract their leaders negotiated with Chrysler. But what are the automakers' long-term prospects? And what lies ahead when the union turns to the troubled Ford Motor Company?  David Cole is an expert on the restructuring of the auto industry; he is chairman of the Center for Automotive Research.  Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry spoke with him. 

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Essay: Clean Air - 10/25/07

There is an old saying that we never think about the air we breathe unless there is something wrong with it.

Trouble is, that’s not good enough. You have to take care of the air, or by the time you notice something is wrong with it, it may be too late.

That’s why miners used to take canaries down with them, and that is also why we have laws against air pollution.

Frankly, air quality is something that has gotten better in our lifetimes. If you drive through a 19th century cemetery in Detroit, you’ll see tombstones that have been blackened from coal that everyone then burned for heating. But even after that stopped, we had major air pollution problems. Here’s what an air quality expert told Michigan’s last Constitutional Convention, back in 1961:

“A great many people in the Detroit are half-sick or below par physically because of the contaminated air they breathe.”

According to the Michigan Environmental Council, that man, Eugene Sloane, added that he sometimes used a gas mask on his commute to Detroit from his home in the suburbs.

People began to get more and more outraged over the issue of bad air, and finally one man did something about it. Actually, two men. The first was Governor George Romney, who in 1964 pushed for one of the nation’s first state air pollution laws.

The second was Bernard Bloomfield, a quietly effective man who virtually invented our state’s air pollution program. Michigan, especially Southeast Michigan, was a pretty foul place to breathe in back then. We had foundries and cement companies burning millions of tons of coal with a high sulfur content.

It was common in those days for auto salvage yards to burn old tires. Half the state’s population lived in areas where air pollution was way over what has now become our national standard. Armed with a new law and a small but dedicated staff, Bloomfield went to work.

Del Rector, one of his aides, later went on to become air pollution chief himself. He told the Michigan Environmental Council “We spent a lot of our early efforts in the field, visiting pollution sources. We would always give them a reasonable amount of time,” to get their house in order, he remembered, but if they didn’t, Bloomfield could and did sue.

Well, those efforts worked. Some heavy polluters shut down their operations; most, however, installed the required air pollution equipment. Michigan’s air got much cleaner very quickly.

By the time Congress passed the Clean Air Act of 1970, Michigan was ahead of virtually every other state, and was easily able to quickly come into total compliance.

Tragically, Bernie Bloomfield didn’t have long to savor his success. He fell ill with lung disease. He was only 49 when he died a few months later. He left us vastly cleaner air and also a professional and competent air quality program.

We owe it to his memory and to ourselves to keep Michigan’s air clean, and not to let today’s politicians screw things up.

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Interview: James Clift - 10/25/07

Nobody has talked much about air during Lansing’s budget battles, but clean air costs money too. And the division of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality that looks after air is losing money. If it doesn’t get permission to raise its fees, it will be seriously in the red by the end of the fiscal year. Attorney James Clift is policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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