Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: The Budget - 2.17.11

Governor Snyder presented his budget today, and people were stunned and surprised. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks they shouldn’t be.

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Well, the governor’s budget has landed, and people are shocked. They shouldn’t be. This is what we bargained for. This budget is, in part, a legacy of the last thirty years.

Starting with Ronald Reagan, we’ve been told repeatedly that taxes were bad. Not that they were sometimes too high, but that they were bad, period. So we cut them, and cut them again.

However, we didn‘t want to give up any of our precious services, and our politicians were afraid to ask us to sacrifice. We could have avoided huge pain now by sacrificing moderately years ago. Sort of like brushing your teeth so you don‘t get cavities.

But we were addicted to sugar, and didn‘t want to pay for dental insurance. So, it’s now multiple root canal time, and we are going to pay out of pocket. What‘s worse, the state and the nation are out of laughing gas.

Governor Snyder is a businessman, and thinks our best hope for the future is slashing business taxes in an effort to attract jobs and job creators. To his credit, he said so when he was running. The Democrats really failed to articulate an alternative.

We’ve known that there was this enormous deficit, and that the budget had to be balanced. For years, we’ve had a governor and a legislature who tried to ignore the laws of arithmetic. They knew there wasn’t enough money coming in, and that a day like this would come.

However, they also knew they were term-limited, and could avoid responsibility by stalling. So they used up our reserves and pushed the problem down the road. When President Obama gave the states stimulus money to invest in the future, Michigan’s lawmakers just threw it at the deficit.

That is not what they should have done. They should have raised the state income tax on people like me who are still working, perhaps from the present 4.35 percent to 5.5 percent or so. We would have barely noticed it, and today the state would be much better off. I still think they should do that, instead of much of what Governor Snyder is going to do instead.

But we’ve been told that “taxes are bad,” so often that we believe it. So our roads are crumbling and our schools are falling apart, and we’d evidently rather have that than raise taxes.

However, bills come due. Most of us will pay more taxes now of one kind or another, including those who can’t afford it. The budget ends tax credits for lower-income Michiganders, and taxes both private and public pensions. This governor evidently believes that government shouldn’t try to pick winners or do social engineering in the marketplace, so tax credits for things like battery development, the film industry and brownfield reclamation will end.

He’s also going to slash spending for schools and universities, gambling that this won’t destroy the next generation’s prospects for the future. The legislature will certainly quarrel with some of this, but I haven’t seen anyone offering an alternative.

You get what you pay for, but in the end, you do have to pay. We weren’t willing to pay for years, and now, we largely can’t.

That’s what got Michigan to this budget today.

Essay: What We Should Ask - 10.20.10

Michigan gubernatorial candidates Rick Snyder and Virg Bernero are making a lot of promises, but Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says there’s one big question they haven’t answered.

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Last night I presided over a fascinating meeting in Grand Rapids, the second in Michigan Radio’s “Issues and Ale” series designed to stimulate public discussion.

The main event was a look at this year’s campaign advertising by two members of the “Michigan Truth Squad,” John Bebow, director of the non-partisan Center for Michigan, and Susan Demas, perhaps the best columnist in Lansing.

They are doing their best to analyze as many spots as possible and rate them on their truthfulness. You may not be surprised to learn that most of today’s ads bear only a passing relationship to reality.

In fact, Dr. Grins’ Comedy Club was the perfectly appropriate place for this. But what I found even more interesting than the truth squad were the questions from our large and very aware audience.

The very first question was extremely perceptive. A gentleman noted that Michigan was facing a huge budget crisis next year, and that whomever takes over as governor will inherit a deficit of at least $1.6 billion dollars. So how are they going to balance the budget?

What’s more, either Virg Bernero or Rick Snyder would immediately make that figure worse -- if they keep their promises. Bernero wants to get rid of the 22 percent surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax. That may be a good idea from the standpoint of attracting business, but would add to the state budget deficit.

Rick Snyder, the Republican, wants to abolish the Michigan Business tax entirely, and replace it with a six percent corporate income tax. That would make the deficit worse still.

The gentleman in Grand Rapids knew that the state budget has to be legally balanced by the end of next September. So, why isn’t either candidate telling us how they would manage that?

That’s the question we all should be asking them.

Both candidates are in fact fighting hard to avoid giving you an answer, and especially to avoid giving you an honest one.

That’s because they fear the truth will lose them votes. What they are going to have to do is either raise taxes or cut services drastically and dramatically raise the cost of things like college tuition. Most likely, they’ll have to do both.

The math is simple. There are no other choices, but they don’t want to tell us that. Once upon a time, we had great leaders who called on us to sacrifice for the common good.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Working class Americans taxed themselves to better educate their children. Nowadays, politicians tell us any tax increase would be terrible. We tell them, “Keep cutting government, but don’t you dare give me any less than I get now.“

Something’s got to give. Nearly half a century ago, my unreformed fifth grade teacher made us learn simple math. If I got my times tables wrong, I was whacked with a ruler.

I haven’t the foggiest notion of what old Miss Hutson’s politics were. But I am sure that on hearing their fuzzy math, she would have taken the ruler to both Snyder and Bernero.

And I think the rest of us just might deserve it as well.

Essay: Silver and the Screen - 9.23.10

The Senate Fiscal Agency now says that the film tax credit is a net drain on the state budget. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry believes it’s more complicated than that.

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State Senator Nancy Cassis of Novi has long been an severe critic of the Michigan film tax credit. She feels strongly that the state shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers. That businesses should succeed or fail on their own merits. Historically, there’s a lot to be said in support of that idea. What if, say, in 1900 the government had provided tax subsidies to those who made buggies, and not these hooligan newfangled automobile manufacturers. That might have badly hurt our economy. Last Friday we got some new evidence that supported those who think the film credit is a glitzy negative. A new report from the non-partisan Senate Fiscal Agency said that the film credit has been a drain on the Michigan budget. They estimated that the film credit will cost our cash-starved state $111 million dollars in the year starting next month. Earlier, there was some awareness it was losing money, but supporters thought this was just growing pains. However, the fiscal agency report couldn’t envision any situation in which this could turn around, and these tax credits add to state revenues. That would appear to be a death sentence. Our state is poorer than ever. Right now, lawmakers are struggling to close a projected budget deficit for next year. Deep-sixing the film tax credit would appear to be the right thing to do. As you may know, I’ve been talking for years about how the state needs to learn to live within its means. And yet on this, I disagree. This may sound like a contradiction, but I think we need to keep the film tax credit in place. That’s because in the words of the old women’s rights song, we need bread, but we need roses too. We need something exciting in our everyday lives, and what could be better than running into a movie star, or seeing them filming in your neighborhood? Economically, the situation also isn’t as bad as all that. First of all, the amount of the loss is disputed by other studies. And even the Senate Fiscal Agency agrees the film industry has meant a net gain of $78 million for the private sector. Mark Adler, the director of the Michigan Production Alliance, told a Senate finance committee hearing that it takes time to build all the supporting infrastructure necessary for the movie business. When this happens, the losses will be lesser, or even vanish. I do know this. There is something immensely valuable, even if intangible, in running into Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson on the street. There’s something wonderful about recognizing Detroit neighborhoods in a wonderful movie like Gran Torino. Over time, I think this may even be financially valuable in a way we can’t measure, if it helps change the image of Detroit. Right now, much of the nation sees Detroit the way Mayor Dave Bing actually described it the other day -- as a hellhole. Now, true, this could be a mixed blessing. The one show which consistently opens with a magnificent view of the Detroit skyline is an HBO series called Hung. It concerns the adventures of a suburban coach who supports himself by having sex for money. The show opens with him walking down various Detroit-area streets and stripping off his clothes. I suppose there’s a metaphor there somewhere.

Essay: Stories to Tell - 4.3.09

A new study from Michigan State University says the film industry grew in the state last year, and added 65 million dollars to our economy. Michigan Radio's Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has some stories that would make great blockbusters.

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I often criticize our lawmakers in Lansing, but they did one thing very right last year. They passed a package of tax incentives aimed at luring Hollywood to Michigan.

And guess what: it worked. Michigan's film industry grew exponentially. According to an economic study at Michigan State, this added $65 million to our economy last year.

This year, despite the recession, the net positive impact is expected to double again, and keep growing after that.

I have seen at least one of these films: Gran Torino, with Clint Eastwood, a good movie set largely in Highland Park and Detroit.

But it got me thinking that Hollywood is missing out on the real opportunity. Not only has Michigan become a good place to make movies, we have a whole set of amazing true stories that have never been told in film, and which could be real blockbusters.

Let me suggest just three of them.

The first would be the story of a kid named Billy Durant. He was a shiftless high school dropout from Boston who drifted to Flint, where he shaped up and became a successful manufacturer of horse-drawn buggies. Then, one day, he is approached to run a new company that is making a newfangled invention, horseless carriages.

The company is called Buick. He rises to the top, and cobbles together a new company he calls...General Motors.

A few years later, he is ousted from power. He picks himself up and starts a new company called? Chevrolet. He rises to the top, wins back control of GM, and merges Chevy with it.

Four years later, he is ousted from power again. He returns to Flint, where the man who created General Motors spent the last quarter century of his life running...a bowling alley.

My second movie is about an eccentric inventor who rose to become the richest and most famous man in the world, whose apple of his eye was his only son, a brilliant and artistic lad.

Yet when the boy grew older and formed his own ideas and identity, dad turned against him, hounding him to his eventual death at age 49. Before his son died, the old man made it clear to him that he preferred the company of a brawling, coarse security guard.

In the end, his widow and his grandson face him and the goon down and take back control of the firm. The title of this movie? Henry and Edsel Ford.

Finally, the story of our first terrorist suicide bomber. He was a farmer who for still unknown reasons spent months packing dynamite into the local elementary school in Bath, Michigan. On May 18, 1927, he blew it up, killing dozens of children and teachers.

Then he drove up to the school, called the superintendent over, and blew his car and everyone around sky-high. He left behind a mysterious sign saying "criminals are made, not born."

Now how could anyone fail to make gripping movies out of stories like those? Okay Hollywood, I gave you the stories. Now roll 'em.