But being responsible, especially in what might be called our new post-prosperity age, means we should act responsibly in public life, too. Sometimes that indeed means not spending money you don’t have. Politicians love to denounce other politicians for that.
But sometimes being responsible means spending money. It means living up to your obligations and paying for things that need to be paid for, even when that is politically unpopular.
And sometimes being responsible means making the right choice, even when that might get you defeated.
Yesterday, a couple things happened in the legislature that really illustrate how screwed up our system is. Now, unless you’ve stayed constantly indoors since about 1975, you know how bad Michigan roads are. A special state transportation task force is proposing to increase the gas tax by the tiny sum of three cents a gallon to fix the roads. Personally, I think any sane person would be eager to pay thirty cents a gallon if we could get rid of roads that look like minefields, and bridges that drop concrete down onto our cars.
But the lawmakers seem to be afraid of three cents. Yesterday, the state transportation director, Kirk Steudle, spoke to a joint session of the House and Senate transportation committees.
One member apparently charged that the proposed increase would “break everybody’s back.” That was a little too absurd for the transportation director, who noted that this new tax would cost the average motorist between 22 cents and 58 cents a week. “(The price of) half a pack of gum will break everybody’s back?” Steudle said.
That prompted an unusually candid response from State Rep. Marty Knollenberg, a Republican from Troy, who said. “I think all of us up here agree we need more money for roads.” But then he added, “the problem is the funding mechanism. Did the task force consider the political heat us legislators might take?”
Kind of a sad day when a member of the party of Abraham Lincoln is afraid of facing the reaction to a three-penny gas tax.
But you can say this about Knollenberg. At least he was candid. What normally happens in government, all levels of government, is that problems are just ignored until they explode.
Yesterday, something else was revealed that is a lot scarier than potholes. John Axe, a key financial expert, told a senate subcommittee that the health care systems for city and county retirees all over Michigan are terribly underfunded. In many places, such as Wayne County, there is no, or almost no, money invested.
The county just pays the bills as they come in. But that’s getting harder. “At some point, retirees may not get paid,” he said.
What we need is leaders who will make the tough decisions necessary to give us a future, and make them now.
Let me know if you find any, will you?
These might be some good questions:
What ARE the retirement and health care benefits of a County Worker in Wayne County? What are his or her co-pays and deductibles? Are those benefits and co-pay responsibilities comparable to workers in the private sector? Are county workers in the County of Wayne getting retirement and health care benefits that are more gold-plated than even the gold-plated benefits of the UAW? Would it be a good starting place to examine what exactly those benefits are? Are Wayne County workers treated differently from Kent or Oakland or Shiawassee County workers?
Posted by: Anonymous | June 03, 2009 at 05:41 PM
I don't think that 3 cents per gallon of gas is not alot but then again on the whole it is alot. I have seen gas prices rise again and again and I have heard the politicians say they need more money for roads etc but I don't ever see the roads improve or last very long after being repaired. What does happen to the road tax? The roads get beaten up by heavy trucks and we have to repair them again and again. First we need to limit the weight on the roads and fix the road properly. Make them last for good and not for a year or two and then have to repave them and give our tax monies to contractors who don't have any liability as to how they repair roads.
Posted by: Kenneth Phillips | June 03, 2009 at 07:08 PM
I think the basis for all these problems is that the wages and benefits of Americans is just going down WAY too fast and seems to have no bottom. This is leading to people of different viewpoints just "going after each other", out of frustration and fear. It doesn't seem to me to be a generally good policy for those who have less, to be attacking those who may have a LITTLE more (as opposed to a lot more). I think we can all agree that ALL Americans deserve to get more than they are NOW getting for their work and we need to look at why we are in this deplorable mess now. I don't think we can blame unions, union workers or similar "whipping boys", for all our problems. This doesn't even make any sense, since now that union workers number an ALL TIME low, the situation for workers not in unions is getting even worse. So the logic of getting rid of all the remaining unions and their benefits, as being a coarse of action that would make things better for others, simply makes no sense and is a ridiculous argument to make. It hasn't in any way been born out of the evidence of the last decade. Indeed, the evidence is that abolishing unions does no good in even slowing the decline of wages and benefits of other workers (not even short term). We are just going back in time to the end of the 19th century! Our only hope is for the government to go back and adopt policies closer to those of post WWII and that we actually encourage the formation of new unions (having reasonable and realistic goals) and, this time, have unions for all types of service workers and technical workers. In my opinion, the world "got flat" WAY too fast, and I don't know if we can make it round again, but wouldn't that be closer to reality and better for us here in the US and around the world? After all, lowering wages in the US, also, hasn't seemed to have raised the wages of those elsewhere, all that much (an has lowered wages in Europe as well). And, if Americans stop buying even cheap stuff from China, it's not going to help them either. It would be far better for China to sell us more expensive things, that could be paid for by Americans making more money. A sure recipe for inflation? - maybe, but it didn't worry us much after WWII and the path we are on now doesn't seem to working all that well. We the average wage in the US end up being $5.00/hr within the next decade? I don't see any reason, right now, why it couldn't end up there.
So instead of forming circular firing squads, average workers need to start banding together to find real solutions to the decline of the American worker. Simply trying to survive and look out for oneself, will not lead to any improvements to this sad trend. It will just continue to be a "race to the bottom" and I think those in the third world can easily beat us in this kind of race (but maybe its just their turn for greater prosperity - if that's what it will turn out to be).
Posted by: George | June 04, 2009 at 12:33 PM