Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Detroit Symphony Orchestra - 4.5.11

Striking musicians with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra reached a tentative agreement to go back to work. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about their historic importance.

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While historians debate just when and why Detroit began to decline, it’s much easier to say what its high point was:

July 28, 1951. That was the official two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Detroit’s founding, and the city was at its peak.

Detroit had nearly two million people. It was rich, vibrant and strong. President Harry Truman came all the way from Washington to speak -- a rare occurrence then -- and the city then celebrated with a five-hour long parade. And there was other good news, too.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra was being revived. Founded when the city had less than two hundred thousand people, it had been disbanded during the Great Depression. But now it was back, and on October 18th, it thrilled fans with its first concert.

Everybody knew then that to be a truly world-class city, you had to have a world-class symphony orchestra.

Back in the jazz age, Detroit had one of the nation’s best orchestras. They had been the first orchestra to have a concert broadcast on the radio. They were regulars at Carnegie Hall. And for eight years, they were broadcast regularly to a nationwide audience.

Then hard times came, and people forgot how important a symphony is for a while. Some people evidently lost sight of that again last year, when the symphony’s season was destroyed by a six-month long strike caused by money problems.

The symphony has huge debts, big deficits, and a shrinking donor base. Everyone agreed the musicians had to take a massive pay cut, but the question was, how massive?

While I am not an expert on cultural economics, it is clear that neither side did much to help their public image during the work stoppage, and management’s handling of public relations was especially bad, as one board member admitted to me.

The trick now is to not only bring the patrons back, but increase and enlarge the base. The orchestra now probably will be able to make a deal with the banks to whom it owes $54 million in real estate loans. But that’s a temporary solution. What the symphony really needs to do is convince the public to begin coming to their concerts and donating to keep this cultural resource. Anne Parsons, the president of the symphony, thinks the only way to do that is through community outreach. It’s hard to disagree. These days, three-quarters of the metropolitan area’s population and ninety percent of the money is outside the city limits.

My guess is that the symphony’s future involves realizing that the modern definition of Detroit is not the city limits, but the four million people who live in the metro area. They may also need to broaden their idea of programming. Purists may like to think that it is all about traditional classical music. But that music itself was avant-garde once upon a time. There’s an old saying that the railroads lost their way when they forgot that they were really in the transportation business, and couldn’t afford to be tied to a nostalgic model.

If the Detroit Symphony Orchestra takes that to heart, the odds will increase that it will revive, and hopefully, in the long-term, thrive.

Essay: Defying Age - 3.25.11

Governor Bill Milliken, who occasionally advises Michigan’s current governor, turns 89 tomorrow. That has Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinking about the question of age.

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Former Governor Bill Milliken turns eighty-nine tomorrow. When I talked to him a couple weeks ago, he said, after discussing the current Michigan budget, that I keep getting his age wrong.

“I am actually fifty-three,” he said, before bursting into laughter. Talking to Milliken always perks me up, because I am thirty years younger than the man who I always think of as “the governor.”

And I certainly hope I still have a sense of humor at his age, though by that time I may well want to give up talking about state budgets. I find it very encouraging that there are a great many people who are now living to tremendous ages, and enjoying life.

A week ago, I went to visit former Attorney General Frank Kelley in Florida. He had me hop into his convertible and we sped towards Marco Island, where we had lunch with a tough old Massachusetts politician, Francis X. Bellotti.

Kelley is eighty-six; Bellotti is about to be eighty-eight and looks sixty-five. The two Franks talked about old wars and about John F. Kennedy, who both knew. “When you saw him, you didn’t just think he should be president. You thought he was the answer to everything wrong in the world,” said Bellotti.

Later, on the drive back, Kelley sighed. “It’s hell getting old,” he said. “How would you know?” I wanted to ask.

Now, most of the college students I teach would find the idea that people in their eighties could be interesting, let alone fun, hard to believe. To amuse myself last fall, I stuck an extra credit question onto a midterm. “What is the biggest reason you’re glad you aren’t me?” I asked. The smartest students replied something like …“because now I don’t have to grade thirty midterms.”

But a distressingly large number wrote something like, “Well, sorry to say this, but you are old, and I‘m not.”

One even wrote, “because I‘m at the beginning of my life and you are near the end of yours.” I suppose he thinks I should set a date with the embalmer. On the other hand, there’s Michigan Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly, who legally cannot run for re-election next year because judges in Michigan can’t be re-elected after seventy.

I can tell you one person who thinks that law is unfair: Justice Kelly’s mother, who still lives by herself, but who finally retired from her job as a reading tutor and gave up driving three years ago.

“I could still do it, but at age one hundred I thought it was time to stop,“ she told me last summer.

These folks all still have active, interesting lives. I like talking to them, partly because they can shed perspective on things happening now. They’ve been around for a few budget crises and economic downturns, and I think today’s politicians would be well advised to pick their brains on what to do about them.

Frank Kelley, who served longer as a state attorney general than anyone in American history, reminded me that he can legally serve one more four-year term.

“I think I’ll run next time, when I’m 90,” he said. I think he was joking. If I were the current attorney general, I’d certainly hope so.

Essay: Devastation - 3.23.11

Yesterday, official U.S. Census Bureau figures showed that Detroit’s population had fallen more than anyone had expected. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about what the numbers mean.

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Detroit expected to get grim news from the U.S. Census bureau. But the results are, in fact, far worse than expected. They paint a picture of urban devastation unlike any in our nation’s history, a snapshot of the depopulation of a major American city.

Consider this: Since the Republican National Convention in 1980, Detroit has lost half a million people. In the thirty years before that, it lost even more -- another seven hundred thousand.

For years, the term “white flight” had been synonymous with what was happening. Today, it’s mostly about black flight. The black population of Detroit declined by more than one hundred and eighty-five thousand people during the last decade.

What that indicates is that the middle class of both races has given up on the city, in large part because the schools are perceived as being so bad. There have been a number of stories in recent months speculating that, for the first time, the census would find that the percentage of Detroiters who are white was increasing.

Optimists believed that the city was attracting a new generation of young urban pioneers, who were returning to Detroit from the suburbs, living in lofts and creating an artistic and urbane lifestyle.

The census shows that this was a complete fantasy. Sure, there may be a few kids doing those things. There are also a few people who vote for the Socialist Workers’ party. But both groups are statistically insignificant. Nearly half of what white population remained in Detroit in 2000 vanished over the next decade.

There are now only about fifty-five thousand people in Detroit who identify themselves as white. Sixty years ago, when the city celebrated its 250th anniversary, that figure was one point six million.

That means that more than ninety-five percent of the white population has disappeared. That’s not to say that Detroit’s troubles are solely due to the fact that the whites left. In fact, one-quarter of the black population left over the last decade as well.

But the disappearing Caucasians and the census returns from the suburbs tell another story that most of us don’t want to hear: Integration just doesn’t seem to work, at least when it comes to where we choose to live. My friend, the columnist Desiree Cooper, wryly defines integration as that period of time between when the first black family moves in and the last white one moves out.

The census seems to indicate that is sadly true. Southfield, nine percent black in 1980, is seventy percent black today. Highland Park, once a mostly white enclave, is now ninety-three percent black. Twenty minutes away are Oakland County communities like South Lyon, where blacks are still less than two percent of the population.

Michigan’s largest single city is now largely a ruin, with a population barely more than what it was a century ago. Economically, it is hard to see how Detroit can be viable on its own. Nor can I see how our state can prosper until we do something about this.

We need, plainly, some model for metropolitan government. Where we may choose to live doesn’t really matter. That we all have at least minimal functioning services does. That’s essential, if we are ever to be a prosperous state again.

Essay: Devastation - 3.23.11

Yesterday, official U.S. Census Bureau figures showed that Detroit’s population had fallen more than anyone had expected. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about what the numbers mean.

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Detroit expected to get grim news from the U.S. Census bureau. But the results are, in fact, far worse than expected. They paint a picture of urban devastation unlike any in our nation’s history, a snapshot of the depopulation of a major American city.

Consider this: Since the Republican National Convention in 1980, Detroit has lost half a million people. In the thirty years before that, it lost even more -- another seven hundred thousand.

For years, the term “white flight” had been synonymous with what was happening. Today, it’s mostly about black flight. The black population of Detroit declined by more than one hundred and eighty-five thousand people during the last decade.

What that indicates is that the middle class of both races has given up on the city, in large part because the schools are perceived as being so bad. There have been a number of stories in recent months speculating that, for the first time, the census would find that the percentage of Detroiters who are white was increasing.

Optimists believed that the city was attracting a new generation of young urban pioneers, who were returning to Detroit from the suburbs, living in lofts and creating an artistic and urbane lifestyle.

The census shows that this was a complete fantasy. Sure, there may be a few kids doing those things. There are also a few people who vote for the Socialist Workers’ party. But both groups are statistically insignificant. Nearly half of what white population remained in Detroit in 2000 vanished over the next decade.

There are now only about fifty-five thousand people in Detroit who identify themselves as white. Sixty years ago, when the city celebrated its 250th anniversary, that figure was one point six million.

That means that more than ninety-five percent of the white population has disappeared. That’s not to say that Detroit’s troubles are solely due to the fact that the whites left. In fact, one-quarter of the black population left over the last decade as well.

But the disappearing Caucasians and the census returns from the suburbs tell another story that most of us don’t want to hear: Integration just doesn’t seem to work, at least when it comes to where we choose to live. My friend, the columnist Desiree Cooper, wryly defines integration as that period of time between when the first black family moves in and the last white one moves out.

The census seems to indicate that is sadly true. Southfield, nine percent black in 1980, is seventy percent black today. Highland Park, once a mostly white enclave, is now ninety-three percent black. Twenty minutes away are Oakland County communities like South Lyon, where blacks are still less than two percent of the population.

Michigan’s largest single city is now largely a ruin, with a population barely more than what it was a century ago. Economically, it is hard to see how Detroit can be viable on its own. Nor can I see how our state can prosper until we do something about this.

We need, plainly, some model for metropolitan government. Where we may choose to live doesn’t really matter. That we all have at least minimal functioning services does. That’s essential, if we are ever to be a prosperous state again.

Essay: Shortchanging the Future - 3.21.11

A Macomb County Commissioner is leading a petition drive against the governor’s proposal to tax pensions. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says there is a little more to the story.

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Macomb County Commissioner Phil DiMaria is angry about Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposal to tax pension income, and he’s doing something about it. He’s launched a statewide petition drive to oppose the tax, which is key to the governor’s proposed budget.

DiMaria, who has been on the county commission for twenty years, thinks the governor is badly out of touch. “He’s rich. He’s never going to be an old person who has to pinch pennies to try and get by, try and buy milk and bread,” he told me yesterday.

“This isn’t any shared sacrifice. This is one more assault on the middle class so he can give business a big tax break.”

The response so far has been overwhelming, DiMaria said. He’s gotten requests for petitions from as far away as Petoskey and Chelsea. His goal is not to put anything on the ballot. He just wants to collect as many signatures as possible and then use them to try and sway the governor and the legislators.

DiMaria, who is a sixty-year-old Democrat, knows the odds are against his being able to change the governor’s mind, but he may have an easier time with some of the freshmen Republicans in the legislature who would have to face angry voters next year.

I asked DiMaria if he realized that the governor’s proposal would exempt the first $41,000 from taxes. He did, but he doesn’t think any pension income should be taxed.

But what DiMaria doesn’t usually tell people is that he is not exactly a disinterested party. He already collects one pension from the Oakland County city of Troy, where he was a police officer for thirty years. When he leaves the county commission, he will be eligible for a second government pension, on top of the first.

In other words, whatever other motives he may have, he doesn’t want to pay taxes on his income. I asked DiMaria how he felt about the governor’s proposal to drastically cut education funding, and he said he was against that too. “How’s he going to get new business without people properly educated to run these jobs?“ he said. But you don’t see DiMaria, or anyone else I know about, trying to get people to sign petitions to save education.

And that disturbs me. DiMaria and I grew up in a Michigan where our parents had survived the Great Depression and World War II, and in many cases were struggling to get by. Yet they voted to tax themselves to build new schools so their kids could get a proper education. They wanted us to have more chances than they had. Today, adults seem more selfish. It’s as if our slogan was, “we’ve got ours, and we’re hanging on to it. If you are trying to get through school today, that’s tough, kid.”

I suppose I should be on Phil DiMaria’s team, since I am getting steadily closer to pension age myself. But I don’t understand why pension income should be treated differently from any other income. And I am pretty sure that if we think our comfort more important than the next generation’s future, Michigan isn’t going to have much of a future, no matter what sacrifices any governor’s budget should happen to bring.

Essay: Sins of the Fathers - 2.22.11

The state of Michigan has ordered Detroit public schools to adopt a deficit-reduction plan that will result in an average class size of more than sixty students. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about what this really means.

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Something happened this week which will, unless something changes soon, have the effect of finishing the job of effectively destroying the Detroit public schools. And maybe, Michigan’s future.

The state department of education has ordered Detroit to put in place a financial restructuring plan that would close half the district’s schools within two years. That would result in an average high school class size of sixty-two students.

That would make anything resembling education all but impossible. As a conservative columnist for The Detroit News said recently, that’s not a classroom, that’s a holding pen.

Detroit’s schools have been dying for a long time. Parents who care about their children‘s future have been fleeing the district in droves. Back in 1999, they still had 175,000 students. This fall, that had shrunk to seventy-four thousand. That’s a loss of nearly ten thousand a year. The district is expected to lose another sixteen thousand over the next three years.

What happens to the students who are then left is anybody’s guess, but it won’t really be education. Not a lot of education seems to be happening now. Fewer than half graduate from high school,, and many of those who do get diplomas are barely literate. Whose fault it is that the Detroit schools are in such a state has been argued over endlessly. But what baffles me is that the rest of us don’t feel compelled to do something about it, both out of human compassion and sheer self-preservation.

Think about this. Detroit is being populated with hundreds of thousands of desperate young people who are not going to be employable at any conceivable legal, twenty-first century job.

How can that be good for our state? How can that leave the rich people in the Grosse Pointes, some of whom live only blocks from urban squalor, feeling secure?

We live, sadly, in two worlds in this country: The white world and the black one. Several weeks ago, I talked about how the West Germans pitched in and spent billions to build up East Berlin after Communism fell and the wall came down.

I said it was baffling that we weren’t willing to do that here. I immediately heard from an elderly white woman I know. “Tain’t baffling,“ she said. All Germans were white.

Incidentally, this woman is about at politically liberal as they come. She lived and worked in the city until about a year ago, when the sheer cost and difficulty got to be too much.

Now, deeply pessimistic, she worries that the answer to Rodney King’s famous question -- can’t we all just get along -- might be no, primarily because of the way white Americans treated black Americans for generations after slavery -- “brutalizing and ghettoizing them and keeping them in “separate but equal ignorance.“

That, she fears, as led to hatred and rejection of our culture on the part of much of black America, and a lack of interest on the part of white America in whatever happens to blacks.

“Politically incorrect?“ she said. Perhaps. But true, nevertheless. I don’t claim to be a sociologist or an economist, but I do know this. That unless we solve the problem of Detroit, Michigan has no chance of serious prosperity in any scenario we can foresee.

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: Michigander: The Backstory - 2.11.11

A new poll yesterday revealed that most Michigan residents prefer to be called Michiganders. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks you should know the rest of the story.

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I realize there are a few other things going on today, such as the mess in Egypt, and the aftermath of President Obama’s historic trip to Marquette, where they gave him a Stormy Kromer hat.

There’s also a major story the media missed last night. Governor Rick Snyder spoke briefly at a Michigan State University political leadership forum in Livonia, remarks that included a sensational announcement.

Mr. Snyder said he would remain in office until the Lions appear in the Super Bowl. Which means he pretty much declared himself governor for life. The Lions last won a world championship the year I entered kindergarten, a year before Governor Snyder was born.

Maybe that’s an approach Hosni Mubarak should have tried, telling his people that the second the Lions won, he’d be history.

Anyway. I need to get on to the really important story of the day, which is the new poll by Resch Strategies that showed that by a margin of fifty-eight percent to twelve percent, citizens of this state prefer to call ourselves Michiganders, not Michiganians.

Well, of course we do. But I have to say our reporting of this story left out something important, which is why this is so.

The term Michigander was actually coined by Abraham Lincoln, who was, in addition to his greatness, by far the funniest politician of his day. Here’s how it happened.

The date was July 27, 1848. Lincoln was a freshman congressman from Illinois who was both pretty obscure and a lame duck, since he wasn’t even going to be renominated.

Lewis Cass, on the other hand, was a big deal who was the Democratic nominee for President that year. Lincoln was a loyal member of the Whig party and an opponent of the Mexican War.

Cass, who had once been a general, supported the war, and Lincoln made a speech attacking him and his fellow Democrats. He accused them of trying to tie the tail of a great military reputation “onto the great Michigander,“ meaning Cass.

The name stuck. For one thing, Cass was in his mid-sixties, considerably stout and, I have to say, sort of looked like an old mean goose. Go look at a picture of him if you don’t believe me. Cass, who had been favored, lost that election, thought that was more due to the fact that he was running against an authentic military hero, Zachary Taylor, than to Lincoln’s witty slur. There’s also sort of a Michigan curse in presidential elections: He was the first of three Michiganders nominated for President. The other two, Thomas Dewey and Gerald Ford, also lost.

Dewey lost twice. But the name Michigander caught on. The story did have a semi-happy ending. Cass went on to become Secretary of State when the Democrats got back in power.

When James Buchanan refused to take a strong stand against secession, Cass resigned. He went back to Detroit and worked hard to raise troops to put down the rebellion. Though he was old enough to be Lincoln’s father, he survived him by a year.

I was born close to where Cass lies buried, and an autographed picture of him is framed over the desk where I‘m writing these words. Michiganders, after all, should stay loyal to their flock.

Essay: Michigander: The Backstory - 2.11.11

A new poll yesterday revealed that most Michigan residents prefer to be called Michiganders. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks you should know the rest of the story.

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I realize there are a few other things going on today, such as the mess in Egypt, and the aftermath of President Obama’s historic trip to Marquette, where they gave him a Stormy Kromer hat. There’s also a major story the media missed last night. Governor Rick Snyder spoke briefly at a Michigan State University political leadership forum in Livonia, remarks that included a sensational announcement. Mr. Snyder said he would remain in office until the Lions appear in the Super Bowl. Which means he pretty much declared himself governor for life. The Lions last won a world championship the year I entered kindergarten, a year before Governor Snyder was born. Maybe that’s an approach Hosni Mubarak should have tried, telling his people that the second the Lions won, he’d be history. Anyway. I need to get on to the really important story of the day, which is the new poll by Resch Strategies that showed that by a margin of fifty-eight percent to twelve percent, citizens of this state prefer to call ourselves Michiganders, not Michiganians. Well, of course we do. But I have to say our reporting of this story left out something important, which is why this is so. The term Michigander was actually coined by Abraham Lincoln, who was, in addition to his greatness, by far the funniest politician of his day. Here’s how it happened. The date was July 27, 1848. Lincoln was a freshman congressman from Illinois who was both pretty obscure and a lame duck, since he wasn’t even going to be renominated. Lewis Cass, on the other hand, was a big deal who was the Democratic nominee for President that year. Lincoln was a loyal member of the Whig party and an opponent of the Mexican War. Cass, who had once been a general, supported the war, and Lincoln made a speech attacking him and his fellow Democrats. He accused them of trying to tie the tail of a great military reputation “onto the great Michigander,“ meaning Cass. The name stuck. For one thing, Cass was in his mid-sixties, considerably stout and, I have to say, sort of looked like an old mean goose. Go look at a picture of him if you don’t believe me. Cass, who had been favored, lost that election, thought that was more due to the fact that he was running against an authentic military hero, Zachary Taylor, than to Lincoln’s witty slur. There’s also sort of a Michigan curse in presidential elections: He was the first of three Michiganders nominated for President. The other two, Thomas Dewey and Gerald Ford, also lost. Dewey lost twice. But the name Michigander caught on. The story did have a semi-happy ending. Cass went on to become Secretary of State when the Democrats got back in power. When James Buchanan refused to take a strong stand against secession, Cass resigned. He went back to Detroit and worked hard to raise troops to put down the rebellion. Though he was old enough to be Lincoln’s father, he survived him by a year. I was born close to where Cass lies buried, and an autographed picture of him is framed over the desk where I‘m writing these words. Michiganders, after all, should stay loyal to their flock.

Essay: State of Desperation - 2.9.11

Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry and Detroit News Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley had a discussion this week on the state of our state -- and found themselves in surprising agreement.

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Earlier this week Wayne State University’s Alumni Association invited me and Nolan Finley, the editorial page editor of the Detroit News, to have a frank discussion with their members.

The theme was “Michigan at a Crossroads,” a look at the challenges facing our state today. I think some people expected a bitter debate. After all, Finley runs an opinion section which is profoundly conservative. My reputation is that of some sort of moderate liberal, though I prefer to think of myself as a common sense pragmatist with a bias towards things that work.

But people expected a verbal slugfest, they were disappointed. Oh, Nolan and I have our differences. I think a graduated income tax would be a good idea; he doesn’t, and I‘d be comfortable with a higher level of taxation, if the revenue were to be used for the right things, like education, roads and bridges.

Fifteen years ago, our views probably would have been far further apart. But now, Finley and I were virtually united in recognizing that the first thing we all must do is understand how big our predicament is. Michigan is engaged in a race to the bottom, in more categories than anyone would care to count. We’ve gone from being a relatively rich state to a poor one.

Still, we have to somehow get competitive for the jobs and growth industries of the future. And that’s hard to do when we have crumbling roads and bridges and crippling deficits.

That’s even harder to do when school systems are failing, and when cities fail to meet their obligations and slip into emergency financial manager status, the equivalent, in the political world, of bankruptcy and receivership. Treasurer Andy Dillon said recently that five communities soon won’t be able to pay their employees.

This may be only the tip of the iceberg, and speaking of icebergs, there are other monstrous ones ahead. We both agreed that one of the most uncovered stories in this state is the fact that state pension funds have a staggering $15.5 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities.

This happened, in part, because of profound irresponsibility on the part of both political parties, something made all the more possible by term limits. A politician who knows he won’t be around, has lots of incentive to push the problem down the road.

Having seen the damage term limits have done, Nolan and I would repeal them in a heartbeat. There’s another elephant in the room we took on that nobody wants to talk about: Detroit.

Mayor Dave Bing is an intelligent and honest man. Yet he, like Robert Bobb at the Detroit Public Schools, has an impossible task. Detroit is no longer viable as a city. Its tax base is too small; the vast majority of its remaining citizens are poorly educated -- most lack even a high school diploma -- and poor.

We agreed the best solution would be for the legislature to merge it with Wayne County -- or even better, make the tri-county area one megacity. Consolidated government has saved other cities.

We need it here. Our old way of life is disappearing forever.

Now, it‘s time to forget the old categories, and as Henry Ford spurred us to do a century ago, invent something new.