by Tom Shields
July 16, 2009

The Michigan we once knew is dead.

There. I said it.

The Michigan we once knew is dead.

The facts today — 15.2 percent unemployment; 730,000 Michiganders looking for work.

By 2010, economists say, 950,000 jobs will have been lost in the prior decade, heading toward a million. That’s 20 percent of the Michigan workforce — gone. You have to wonder if those folks will ever recover.

In the blue-collar neighborhood of Detroit where I grew up, everyone had a job.

Dads worked in places they simply referred to as the shop, the plant, the factory, or the garage. They all wore those blue shirts with their names stitched above the pockets — names like Walt, Bob, Roy, Bill, Joe.

Moms stayed home or worked part time, at least until the kids were through elementary school.

When kids graduated from high school, most went directly into the workforce because that was the quickest path to independence, a new set of wheels, and a place of one’s own.

In Michigan, it seems there has always been an opportunity to work if you’ve wanted to. There have been good times and better times, with only short blips of tough times.

Things have changed.

Houses in the old neighborhood are now great starter homes for young professionals, the kind of people economists say are needed for a vibrant economy. The problem is that today, young professionals are twice as likely to be looking for work as blue-collar workers. Of the 950,000 jobs lost, only 135, 000 were manufacturing jobs. The rest are white-collar jobs.

Some economists say Michigan needs a better-educated workforce to reverse the state’s long-term economic slide, noting that in states where education levels are higher, incomes are higher. It’s the “if you educate them, the jobs will come” theory.

While that may sound good on paper, how many decades before Michigan becomes a top-ten educated state? Are we that naïve to think other states will sit back and wait for Michigan to catch them?

A couple of months ago, I was sitting in the Big House as my son graduated from the University of Michigan. Speaker after speaker apologized to graduates for their unfortunate circumstance of graduating into this horrible economy. At one point, my son text messaged me saying how depressing it was. Here were 10,000 of the best and brightest ready to go out make their mark in the world, and all that can be offered was an apology.

Before announcing the federal stimulus package, the president’s chief of staff was quoted as saying that we should never waste a crisis.

Michigan is at a crisis point like never before in modern history. And since it appears the governor is incapable of leading on this or any other issue, the legislature has another opportunity to change the political and policy climate of our state.

In 2007, the legislature blew an opportunity to remake state government when it “fixed” that budget crisis with $1.5 billion in new taxes, and rewriting the business tax to favor an old economy instead of the new. Since that debacle, Michigan has lost 300,000 jobs.

Faced with a budget deficit for 2010 of more than $1 billion, the legislature will get that rare second chance this summer. Relying on the last of the Obamabucks, a patchwork of superficial budget cuts and tax increases to balance the books, along with an economic policy of bribing one “green” business at a time, will never succeed in piling those million jobs back into Michigan. And wallowing in our unemployment numbers won’t solve a thing.

In 1991, John Engler used that year’s budget crisis to change the political climate in Michigan when he completely reformed welfare. It sent a message to the rest of the country that Michigan was serious about turning itself around.

The people of Michigan are desperate. They are ready to try something new. They are ready to take that road less traveled because it can’t be worse than the one they are on.

Michigan needs a long-term, a short-term and a right-now strategy. And there’s no better time to do it than the summer of 2009. If the legislature uses the current crisis to make bold fundamental changes that put rebuilding our economy ahead of preserving the size, scope and structure of government, then just maybe we can start pumping new life into a new Michigan.

Tom Shields is founder and president of Marketing Resource Group (MRG), a Lansing-based political marketing and public relations firm.