For nearly an hour, in an effort to show the good things she had done during her seven years in office, she told us about some company in Eaton Rapids that was able to stay in business making wind turbine parts and how a man who lost his job in St. John’s went back to school and now works in alternative energy, etc.
Those are worthy and true stories and deserve to be part of the record, but the reality is this. The governor’s final state of the state speech came at the end of what was a long and busy day, and I suspect few normal people had the energy to listen to an hour’s worth of this on a work night. To be fair, the governor did acknowledge how bad things are. Right at the start, after the obligatory nod to our men and women in uniform, she told us what most of us already knew.
“The old Michigan economy is gone.” We‘ve lost a million jobs that aren‘t coming back. Everyone knows that the economy needs to diversify, and she proceeded to spend most of her final state of the state speech explaining and justifying the steps she and her administration have taken to get the job done.
Did she do the right things? We certainly need to hope so, and that her policies did set us on the path to a economically revitalized Michigan. But we won’t really know for years.
What we do know, however, is this: We have to get through this year first. “The budget process is broken - it’s a last-minute, crisis-driven disaster,” she said. Truer words were never spoken.
Governor Granholm wisely said that things couldn’t go on like this, and that the lawmakers needed to get their stuff together and balance the budget as soon as possible.
Nobody would argue with that, in theory. She also said she would “draw the line” against more education cuts, and vowed to restore the Michigan Promise Scholarship.
Now here’s the problem. What she did not tell Michigan last night was that what she wants to do will take new taxes of some size, shape or form. The lawmakers all know that.
And the Republicans have vowed to prevent any kind of tax increases. They will argue that any new taxes are always bad.
This was the governor’s one chance to convince all of us otherwise. To persuade us we need to spend a little more now to give our children and ourselves a future.
But she was unwilling to do try to that. Instead, she told us she would let us know later, when the cameras are off.
I don’t know how she expects to succeed then. Seventy years ago, in a far worse crisis, Winston Churchill told his people, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,“ and inspired them to save western civilization.
Today, our task is to somehow rebuild Michigan’s shattered economy. Last night, it seemed to me that a little dose of Sir Winston‘s grim eloquence might have been exactly what we needed.
I find it odd that the protests last night say in the LSJ today say that they are made at big government and want lower taxes and not to have cuts in education. This is a common two Santa Clause thinking. More services, less taxes. Everyone can't live in the magic word of some republicans and democrats. Services cost money, and you have to choose one side or the other. No one likes taxes, but people like to pay for what they get. If lower taxes are wanted, maybe it should read cut program 'x'. Saying cut big government does not work either. These are all talking points that sound good, but in reality do nothing but divide people.
Posted by: Nathan F, Lansing | February 04, 2010 at 02:48 PM