Can the Candidates
Do the Job?

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
March 5, 2010

Herewith a point of argument that includes a prediction: if the professionals involved in government — that is, the people who work in and around state government, be they bureaucrats, lobbyists, policy analysts, reporters and others — were the only ones who could vote in the 2010 gubernatorial election, Michigan’s next governor would be John “Joe” Schwarz.

In fact, it is arguable that if those persons were the only ones who could vote in the election, Mr. Schwarz, former state senator, former member of Congress, former Republican candidate for governor, would win in a walk.

And in light of the surprising announcement Thursday night that former Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee was dropping out of the Democratic race barely more than a week after he got in, that prediction seems even more…predictable.

That prediction is not a knock, well not a hard knock, against any of the other remaining candidates running for governor: Republicans Attorney General Mike Cox, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Ann Arbor business executive Rick Snyder and Sen. Tom George (R-Kalamazoo) or Democrats House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Twp.), Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Salem Twp.).

But it is an expression of the frustration the professionals in government have endured, and the hope they have that whoever is elected governor in November knows what the hell he or she has to do and, even more importantly, how to get it done.

The field for governor should be set now. Others could still get in the race (and with Mr. Kildee’s exit some top Democrats might hope another name could emerge), but after the angst of the last several months that seems unlikely.

In the past two weeks there have been about a half-dozen major developments in the race: Mr. Kildee got in for the Democrats (to the relief of top Democrats worried about a Bernero/Dillon race), Mr. Dillon confirmed he was running, Mr. Dillon showed strength in new polls and so did Mr. Hoekstra and Mr. Snyder, and then to the surprise and some anguish of Democrats, Mr. Kildee got out.

The other development: Mr. Schwarz formed an exploratory committee for governor, to run as neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Until Mr. Kildee’s departure, Mr. Schwarz’s decision was probably the biggest surprise. Mr. Schwarz had been seen wavering on a possible independent bid. Earlier in the year he had said he was about 70 percent certain to run. By last week that had fallen to 50 percent certainty.

So his decision to establish an exploratory committee came as water in the desert for some people. There are lots of professionals eager to help his campaign, should Mr. Schwarz decide to run (which he has not yet).

Politics, and by extension government, is one of the few areas where professionalism is scorned by the public. Nobody wants his or her heart surgery performed by an amateur surgeon; nobody wants someone whose flying experience is limited to model airplanes piloting a 747 across the Atlantic; nobody wants a baker who has only made cookies with a Kenner Easy-Bake oven whipping up the daughter’s wedding cake; but nobody wants professional politicians trying to make government work. (Check out the reception Christopher Reeve’s character enjoyed when he defended professional negotiators in the film The Remains Of The Day, one of the few times the arts pay any tribute to the skill running a government can require.)

Yes, in a democratic republic we are all politicians because we are the government, and it is important to ensure that the viewpoints of all are included in the governing process. But there also have to be people who know how the law works, what the processes are, how to balance the books, how to make sure the cops show up when called and the inspectors find the nasty bugs whipped up in the peanut butter.

Talk to the people involved in government and it is striking how unenthusiastic they are about the candidates running for governor. They are not critical of each person’s intelligence. They worry somewhat about their different viewpoints, but they also know that whether from the right or the left, the person in charge tends to moderate, so eventually the new governor will lead more from the middle of the bird than from one of the wings.

But what the professionals worry about is: can any of these guys do the job? Can they figure out how to break down the partisan barriers that block so many things from taking effect? Can that person work efficiently — in other words, when he or she makes a pronouncement, will the bills or executive orders be ready to go in short order and not months? Can that person set an agenda and, as much as anyone can in a leadership position, stick to it? Can that person manage the different and sometimes competing elements of government so that the state advances by whatever measure one uses to determine advancement?

And can that person knock heads together when needed and still keep people talking to each other so resolutions are reached?

The fact that so many professionals, before Mr. Schwarz got in and Mr. Kildee got out, were interested in either Mr. Snyder or Mr. Kildee for governor should tell one something, at least about the other candidates. Mr. Snyder is backed by buckets of top business executives, who see him as a moderating influence outside of the bloodletting that goes on in government. Similarly, Mr. Kildee was seen as having effective governing cred that could have played well to the Democratic interest groups. But Mr. Kildee’s departure leaves the large middle ground of Michigan voters to consider Mr. Snyder. But Mr. Snyder is also a largely unknown quantity. The question remains, can he do the job?

Mr. Schwarz is a known quantity. He has become an independent because he disagrees with the direction (whichever direction that is) the Republican Party is heading. But he refuses to become a Democrat (in fact, Democrats tried hard to get him to switch parties and he declined). If Republicans now label themselves Reagan Republicans, Mr. Schwarz is a Lincoln Republican, a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, an Eisenhower and Rockefeller and Vandenberg and Milliken Republican. In other words, he is the kind of Republican many Republicans now reject by simply saying, “They weren’t conservatives.” (Maybe not, but boy could they govern.)

Nobody among the professionals has any doubt that Mr. Schwarz could do the job. Which is exactly why if the election were left to them, Mr. Schwarz would now profitably be measuring the drapes in the executive office for when he moves in next January.

But the election is open to all, and it is a fool’s errand to say who will win in November. The likely winner will come from one of the two parties, and right now the GOP has the edge. Everyone expects the primaries and the general election following to be so vicious that the public will feel comfortable voting only if the polling booths are in shower stalls. Right now, the thinking is that Mr. Schwarz’s presence could affect the outcome, but how is unknown. He could rob voters from both camps, so which benefits from his presence is a cipher.

And with a more limited Democratic primary, Mr. Schwarz might cut a larger figure in a general election, should he have the money needed to run a competitive campaign.

But he could also force the other candidates to do one of two things: try to measure up more to Mr. Schwarz as a knowing, competent candidate: or move farther to the fringe, pointing to Mr. Schwarz as one more example of the kind of politician trying to steal the public’s money and rights.

The one thing professionals hope for, and are worried about, is the election will come off as an amateur hour.

John Lindstrom is publisher of Gongwer News Service. For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.

Experience Still Counts

by Tim Skubick
March 5, 2010

Everything you read these days about the political climate out there is bad news for anyone who even remotely resembles a career politician.

The anger is palpable, as citizens are mad at Republicans and Democrats. End of story.

Not so fast.

In the latest TV7-Detroit Free Press survey of the governor’s race, somebody apparently forgot to tell voters about the anti-incumbent mood.

When EPIC-MRA asked voters for their choice for governor, in what they call the blind question with no information about the candidates, each one of the candidates scored low.

But then respondents were read a short bio of each candidate, and on the Democratic side each of the four contenders is, without a doubt, a full-time politician with years of experience. So you would expect their numbers would go south once voters knew who they were.

They went north instead.

House Speaker Andy Dillon moved from 17 percent to 24 percent. Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith doubled her support from 7 percent to 14 percent. Former Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee got a two-point bump to 14 percent, and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero gained five points to 13 percent.

Grasp the essence of these numbers. When voters found out the extensive political background of each, they were more likely to vote for them.

Now, the pundits don’t want to declare the anti-politician/anger thing dead, because it is a wonderful story line. But the numbers don’t lie. If, indeed, the rancor was out there, the quartet running for governor would have been voted off the island.

Instead, their career-politician resumes were applauded. However, it should be noted that the numbers might have changed had there been a true non-politician in the mix.

The same phenomenon was at work on the GOP side, but the impact was not as dynamic — suggesting Democrats may be more forgiving of their career politicians than the Republicans of theirs.

The guy who benefits the most from having his bio read to survey takers is Rick “The Nerd” Snyder. At a paltry 12 percent in the blind-poll question, he jumps to 22 percent. All of that may be traceable in part to the millions of dollars he is spending on campaign commercials, so the jump is not unexpected.

West Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra gets a slight boost, from 27 percent to 29 percent, while Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard gets a tiny, one-point hike. The only candidate to take a hit after his bio is read is Attorney General Mike Cox, who falls from 21 percent to 18 percent after they find out who he is.

However, the outsider factor really comes into play when you look at the hardcore GOP voters. When they find out Snyder is not a career pol, he leapfrogs to first place with 31 percent of the vote.

It should also be said that the vast majority of citizens are not tuned into this race yet.

Eighty-two percent of voters have no idea who Virg Bernero is; 72 percent scratch their heads to identify Dan Kildee, which is really unusual in that his uncle Dale has been in Congress for a million years. You would expect some slopover from Dale to Dan, but that was not reflected here.

Dillon, despite a ton of state Capitol media coverage on an almost daily basis, is still unknown by 66 percent of the citizens. And despite all of his appearances on the FOX television news channel, 44 percent wonder what a Pete Hoekstra is.

All this will change, of course, when the TV commercials begin. You can hardly wait for that, right?

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s Senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

Tim Skubick Extra Extra… (A weekly bonus only for Dome readers)

Virg on the Verge?
The caller was direct: I have it from a reliable source that the UAW is going to endorse the mayor of Lansing.

Wow. The “Virg” on the verge of a mondo endorsement.

Actually, the caller was a day late. On Tuesday another source sent along the same story.

That prompted a call to the man. When his recorded voice came on the line, this message was left: “I’d like to run the story that the UAW is going to endorse you. Give me a buzz.”

A short time later the return call came. “What have you heard? I have not heard anything,” the excited Virg Bernero reported.

The buzz is all over town and, of course, it is not official until it is official. But even the thought of landing such a plumb blessing is good news for Bernero, who desperately needs this to jumpstart his fundraising efforts.

The union would do him a huge favor by trotting it out now, and how ironic. At the time that Lt. Gov. John Cherry truly needed the UAW’s help late last year, the union stiffed him. And as Paul Harvey often said, “Now you know the rest of the story.”

Any Democrat would give almost anything to have the financial and grassroots support that comes with a UAW tap on the head.

But just having that, while important, does not guarantee a win.

Ask Larry Owen, who got lots of union support when he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor years ago and ended up losing the nomination to a guy named Fieger (as in Geoffrey). The UAW proceeded to stiff Fieger, and you know the rest of that story, too — John Engler wins a third term.

There are some who will see this pending endorsement as an effort to wedge another labor Democrat out of the race, namely Dan Kildee out of Genesee County. Kildee and others buy into the theory that he and Bernero would divide up the mainstream Democratic vote, and the Blue Dog and more conservative labor folks would hightail it to Andy Dillon, thus handing him the nomination.

Kildee is not about to be scared off by one endorsement, but he did concede the other day that if Bernero gets it, “It does change things.”

Oh yeah. It sure do. (sic)

Finger on the Trigger
He has cocked the gun, but not pulled the trigger. Yet this is the closest Joe Schwarz has come to running for governor as an independent candidate.

When we last visited the former state senator/GOP congressman, he was in the midst of deciding what to do about this bid as the state on Sunday watched the U.S. lose in O.T. to the folks north of us.

“I’m inclined to run,” he revealed on Monday morning and, lo and behold, by Tuesday afternoon he cocked the gun by forming an exploratory committee. He won’t actually pull the trigger unless the exploration produces money, supporters and his guts to take a risk…all of these are unanswered questions at this read.

Yet a possible independent bid for governor has the town talking. Schwarz actually followed the advice of what passes as his kitchen cabinet. A majority of them told him, “You’ll never know unless you try.”

A Schwarz candidacy potentially hurts Democrat Andy Dillon and Republican Pete Hoekstra the most.

Schwarz no longer considers himself a Republican because he is way too moderate for those who own the party. He’s out of step with Right to Life; he’s willing to work with Democrats to get things done, which puts him at odds with the Tea Party crowd, which loathes any compromising of their principles; and he’s open to a tax hike if elected.

In other words, Schwarz has appeal to the sensible center of both the GOP and Democratic parties, who are the very same voters both Hoekstra and Dillon need to win their party nominations.

Schwarz has seen recent “fresh data” suggesting he would siphon more votes from his former party while at the same time attracting some Democrats, too. That’s why he has a shot, albeit a long shot, at winning this thing.

He says the time has never been better for an independent party candidate to tap into an electorate that is fed up with incumbents and career politicians. Dr. Schwarz is a career politician, but maybe with the “I” for independent after his name, voters will not automatically rule him out.

Dillon’s Bouncy Launch
He looks the part, but his campaign does not…at least not yet.

Democratic candidate for governor Andy Dillon does look like a governor. All he needs is the votes to be one.

However, his campaign for governor that’s designed to deliver those votes is not exactly hitting on all eight cylinders…more like four.

Dillon needed to make a good impression in Lansing, where the political press corps thrives on politics and is capable of picking apart even the smallest flub. He might get away with this stuff in Grand Rapids or even in Detroit, but the Lansing visit should have been a flawless performance.

It was not.

His news conference was scheduled for 11 a.m. The appointed hour came and went as the press secretary told everyone it would be 11:15 instead. No sweat there. Former Gov. Jim Blanchard was always late, but he had the job. Dillon was auditioning for it. Huge difference.

At around 11:20 or so, still no Dillon, and his worker bees finally showed up with the sound system and the big Dillon for Michigan backdrop. They scrambled to get it all set up. Good thing the star was late.

“He’s in the building,” a flustered yet relieved media secretary Ken Coleman was able to tell all the scribes.

But instead of heading to the news conference, Dillon took a side trip to a meeting of business executives who happened to be in the building at the same time.
He dropped in to say hi, said he was running for governor and left for the news conference. It was now approaching 11:40.

En route a local reporter stopped him in the hallway. A seasoned campaign machine would have told her politely to get lost and go upstairs with the other reporters. But Team Dillon just stood there with the clock ticking off even more time while she asked some inane questions about something or other.

Finally, after five minutes or so, Coleman intervened: “Last question.”

Dillon, now some 45 minutes tardy, made his way to the news conference.

Asked afterwards about the delay, Dillon said the 11 a.m. time was when the media were supposed to be in place. Nobody said that before, and Dillon protested that he had been on time.

Close but no cigar.

Symbolism is everything in politics. His Lansing launch was not very pretty, and some of his inside circle knew it.

Dillon has time, despite this pratfall, to whip these folks into shape. If he doesn’t, he can forget about being late like Gov. Blanchard.

Call the Doctor

by Jack Lessenberry
March 5, 2010

As a young doctor working in Laos during the Vietnam war, Joe Schwarz spent a fair amount of time saving people in impossible situations.

“One weekend I took off six legs of tribesmen who had stepped on land mines laid by the Pathet Lao and Vietnamese. And most of these people were not combatants — they were village people. They would go out to check the dry rice or poppies and step on a land mine. Then they’d lay there for two or three days till someone could get the word out to Air America, and they’d send a chopper and bring them to our place.”

Dr. Schwarz was on track to becoming Battle Creek’s best-known ear, nose and throat specialist, but he also had taken a year of general surgery, and made do. He took off legs, delivered babies, did whatever else he could to show that Americans were decent people.

He served a hitch with the Navy, then spent more time there with the Central Intelligence Agency. When he came back to Michigan, he built two careers, in medicine and politics.

Today, he’s trying to decide whether to take on one of the toughest cases of all — his home state of Michigan, which has not only the worst unemployment rate in the nation, but also what he cheerfully characterizes as a “fractured, screwed-up, term-limited, irrational, quasi-logical, and absurdly dysfunctional political culture.”

What he is thinking hard about is running for governor as an independent, something that would require collecting 30,000 signatures. He is forming an exploratory committee to test the waters. Now 72, he says he’d serve a single term to try to get the state back on some sort of rational track.

Winning election as an independent would be a daunting task. Then again, anyone who spent a few years voluntarily dodging land mines and bullets in Vietnam and Laos is used to daunting tasks.

Once upon a time, John Joseph Henry Schwarz would have been seen as a dream candidate by the GOP, the party that was his natural home. He was Battle Creek’s mayor, then became a champion of higher education during 16 years as a staunch Republican in the state Senate. He masterminded John McCain’s upset primary victory in Michigan in 2000; ran for the GOP nomination for governor; served a term in Congress.

He is a defense hawk and tough on government waste. But when he ran for re-election in 2006, he was targeted as a “liberal” by the right-wing Club for Growth. In the end, he lost the primary to a former Bible salesman. Twenty years ago, that would have been beyond imagining. But despite experience and credentials, Schwarz is largely unacceptable to those who now run the GOP.

Why? For one thing, he believes abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” He strongly supports stem-cell research and thinks “in the United States of America, people should have a right to health care.”

And he believes that it is better in a crisis to raise taxes than to destroy the infrastructure of a state. “Especially the universities. You don’t tear down something you have worked so hard to build.”

Yet, increasingly, that’s not how Republicans see things. But he isn’t at home with the Democrats, either. “I am sort of a center-right guy, and the parties have gotten so polarized that I think maybe 40 percent of voters don’t feel they have a home in either one anymore.” Polls show some evidence that he is right. If he could win 40 percent of the vote, he could indeed be elected governor as an independent. That might not be as revolutionary as it sounds. In recent years, other states have elected independent governors, including Maine, and most famously, Jesse Ventura in Minnesota.

But could that happen in Michigan? The governor’s race is open, and both parties have strong fields of contenders.

Republicans are favored, if only because of the unpopularity of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat. But that could change — and polls show the GOP-controlled state Senate is even more unpopular.

Schwarz may face another hurdle. Maverick candidates are often charismatic campaigners who later flop at governing. The good doctor was actually a master of legislative coalition building and compromise, though not without a few yelling matches. But he has never been a very effective campaigner. He’s not a spellbinding orator, doesn’t promise things he can’t deliver, and doesn’t suffer fools as gladly as other politicians feel they must.

“I believe an experienced independent could be an asset this year,” he told me, and maybe even win if the voters are in the mood for common sense. But then he added, cheerfully, “what the hell do I know?”

Veteran journalist and national Emmy Award winner Jack Lessenberry teaches at Wayne State University, serves as Michigan Radio’s senior political analyst and writes regularly for several publications. He also serves as The Toledo Blade’s writing coach and ombudsman and is host of the weekly television show Deadline Now on WGTE-TV in Toledo.

Round-the-Clock Reporting

by Susan J. Demas
March 1, 2010

After the third call and the seventh text message within 10 minutes Friday night, my boyfriend confiscated my BlackBerry.

I was done with work – technically – but my editor got wind that House Speaker Andy Dillon was formally announcing his gubernatorial run in a couple days. So I tracked down the Democrat and a few of his advisers and passed the information along for a story.

After that, my ever-patient beau, who no doubt was rethinking his decision to get involved with a woman with five gigs and one daughter, calmly carried my phone into the next room and deposited it on a dresser.

“You’re done,” he announced and kissed me. “You have to eat dinner, clean off your car. You have to take a break sometime, right?”

He was right, of course. What he didn’t know was that my phone would still beep, chime or ring if anyone was trying to get a hold of me anyway. Luckily, for the sake of our relationship, it did not for the next hour.

Alas, this is the reality for reporters nowadays. The 24/7 news cycle means you’re always on call. And the ever-shrinking (paid) media market means that one job usually isn’t enough to sustain oneself, especially as a single mom.

Fortunately, technology means that I keep normal office hours and do quite a bit of work at home. One of my most productive periods of the day is after I read to my daughter and tuck her into bed. A little coffee and I’m good to go until 1 or 2 a.m.

Snow days have become impromptu “Take Your Child to Work” days. Thanks to my very understanding bosses at MIRS, my daughter is very familiar with my workplace (her artwork graces the office walls of several of my co-workers). And she loves traipsing around the Capitol – especially if I promise to take her to the fourth floor so she can stare down the levels of the gold leaf-etched rotunda.

I think it’s good for my daughter to see what I do all day and get a glimpse at how the government operates (or doesn’t).

But I can’t say that the experience of Meg Stapleton, who this week quit her job as Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman after reporting that her two-year-old is “now resorting to hiding my BlackBerry,” failed to resonate. So, too, did Sen. Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to bow out of the attorney general’s race to spend more time with her two girls.

Obviously, journalists aren’t alone in this juggling act – nor is it exclusive to women. One male press secretary I know routinely stays home with the kids when they’re sick and another doesn’t take any weekend phone calls – just texts and e-mails. A third just quit to stay at home with his toddler.

The idea of taking a vacation without a cell phone and laptop in tow is a foreign concept today, lest your employer realize that he can function without you. It’s a struggle to carve out a life outside of work, especially in politics. This appears to be the new normal.

This year looks to be a particularly manic one for political reporters, what with a sea change election and yet another $1.7 billion budget deficit. My colleagues and I have joked that there are really three main stories we’ll be writing during that time: we don’t have any money; they’re this close on the budget; and some candidate said something nasty about another candidate.

Of course, the name of the game is reporting these stories quicker than anybody else and taking a fresh angle on them. Gone are the days of hitting the midnight deadline for the print edition or getting a prime spot on the 11 o’clock news. With the Internet, people are much savvier and demanding media consumers who clamor for round-the-clock coverage. Thus, the breaking news alert was born – and not just in case the president is assassinated. No, if his dog bites a Secret Service agent, we’ll put that headline in neon lights, too.

As I’ve said, this approach has a human cost. It’s not like journalists are paid any more for this extra work (indeed, in this market, they’re often asked to take a cut).

But has it improved political news? Not really. So much of news in the Internet age is circulating the same story thousands of times over on different news, blogs and aggregator sites. What happens if there’s an error in that story? Too bad. You can correct it, but that probably won’t reach nearly as many sites and the mistake will likely be repeated ad nauseam, especially if it provides a helpful talking point for one side or the other.

That only helps smudge the media’s credibility. Rumors, gossip and straight-up falsehoods have found new life in cyberspace — and sadly, the line between that and actual news seems to be blurring. How many newspapers and TV stations now routinely report on something stupid posted on Facebook or Twitter for God’s sake?

Why? It’s easy to do. Reading a 2,000-page health care bill is hard. But what poses more value to readers? With so many sites and endless space online, think about the in-depth reporting and investigative pieces that could be done. That’s not to say that they don’t exist, but they are far more rare than they should be.

With the media’s rapid evolution, it’s hard to say what will come next. But this is the Information Age, after all. Let’s hope that the next big change will be a little less style and a little more substance.

Susan J. Demas is a 2006 Knight Foundation Fellow in nonprofits journalism and a political analyst for Michigan Information & Research Service.

Hard Times for Public Education

by Stephen A. Jones
March 1, 2010

Recently, the students in one of my classes read Studs Terkel’s book Hard Times — an oral history of the Great Depression, featuring the recollections of people who lived through it.

The thing my students found most remarkable about the book was how many people described incidents of profound generosity despite great deprivation — people who had almost nothing helping those who had even less. Many of my students expressed doubts that Americans today would be so generous and helpful to each other. I told them we never really know what we’re capable of until we are tested.

Well, we’re being tested now, and one of the most important questions on that test is how we will provide for the education of our children. The economic hardship we currently face, especially in Michigan, is forcing us to reassess our priorities: are we committed to providing a good education for all our children or shall we abandon our system of public education altogether?

Before I go further, some disclosure: I currently teach history at Central Michigan University and for 10 years I taught English at a Detroit high school. I come from a family of teachers and I believe in education — particularly public education — fervently and unrepentantly.

That said, it seems to me that for a couple of decades America’s public schools have been under attack. Often that attack has been driven as much by ideology as by the actual performance of our schools, and the assault has encouraged a mindset that sees public education as fundamentally flawed.

Certainly there are problems in the public schools, especially in urban centers like Detroit. But if you listen to the policy makers and reformers, you could be excused for believing that our schools’ motto should be: Where am I going and why am I in this hand basket?

But how then are we to explain these phenomena: educational attainment levels for the total population have been rising for at least 20 years, ACT scores are as high as they have ever been, and college enrollment is at record levels. Nationally, high school dropout rates are at record lows — 9.3 percent in 2008, compared with 12.4 percent in 2000 and 17.3 percent in 1970. The percentage of high school graduates — ages 18 to 24 — enrolled in college is up about 40 percent since 1970 and nearly 8 percent since 2000.

So what is the crisis in public education? The problem is that in many places (mostly urban areas) many students (mostly from minority groups) are not achieving as well or persisting in school as long as most of the nation’s students.

Explaining the source of that problem and devising a solution for it, however, are neither easy nor simple — although some appear to think so. For the last decade, poor performance in urban schools has been defined largely as a curricular problem, hence the obsession with the Procrustean bed of standardized tests.

Once, while I was administering such a test, two young men in the room simply quit after three hours of virtually non-stop testing and refused to answer any of the questions in the final section. They could have marked random answers and improved their scores but they would not. As a colleague put it: “We’re not testing what they know, we’re testing what they’re willing to do.”

Lately, it has become fashionable to blame teachers, as they did in Central Falls, Rhode Island, where the administration fired all 93 teachers and staff members at a “failing” school. The teachers had agreed to take on extra duties and work extra hours but had the audacity to suggest that they should receive additional pay for the additional work.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan added insult to injury by praising the decision to fire the teachers. And the Central Falls massacre is likely to be repeated in other cities around the nation. Duncan’s aides were in Detroit late last month to discuss a plan that would provide nearly $136 million in federal money to Michigan to help low-performing schools.

In return, those schools would have to adopt one of four federally approved reform models, among which is the approach adopted in Central Falls.

But the problem facing our “failing” schools is not essentially one of either curriculum or personnel. The real problem is environmental.

Environment in this context needs to be examined in at least a couple of ways. First, it is no secret that such societal problems as poverty, crime and substance abuse are not limited to cities, but they are concentrated in ways that put large numbers of inner city students at a disadvantage, relative to their counterparts in suburbs, small towns and rural areas.

Meanwhile, teachers and administrators have been required in recent decades to add responsibilities to their workload without a comparable increase in resources. They have been asked to do more with less while officials in Lansing and elsewhere have pandered to voters’ basest instincts by promising — and delivering — repeated tax cuts.

State support for public schools was cut this year by $168 per student. It may have to be cut another $268 per student for the 2010-2011 school year to erase a projected state budget deficit. And yet, Republicans in the legislature have been adamant that they will not even consider increasing taxes.

Environment also means the schools’ physical facilities. The school I taught in was built in 1931 and showed its age. One year, I was in a classroom where if it snowed heavily outside there were flurries inside.

But environment is also emotional and psychological. Many of the students I had did poorly on standardized tests, but not for a lack of intelligence.

On the contrary, they were smart enough to perceive that the schools were organized and operated not for their benefit but to suit some political agenda or satisfy someone’s idea of economic efficiency. They saw no benefit for themselves. Quite understandably, many students chose to withdraw psychologically even when they remained physically in the classroom.

That is not a problem that will be solved by giving more tests or firing more teachers. It will be solved by making a real commitment to our public schools — all of our public schools.

When we refuse to make devastating cuts to school budgets — even if it means paying more taxes in tough economic times — we tell our children that we care more about them than we care about our wallets. We show them that we are willing to sacrifice for their well-being.

When we shun the temptation to turn schools over to for-profit management organizations, we tell our children that they are not a commodity for sale to the highest bidder.

When we support teachers by reducing class size so they can teach differently and more effectively by spending more time with each student, we give our children what they most need but what they have been getting less of by the year — the attention of caring adults.

Maybe my students are right to be pessimistic. I hope not, because the logical conclusion of current education “reform” trends has already been portrayed with disturbing accuracy in another book with the same title: Hard Times, by Charles Dickens.

Pick up a copy. Let me know if you’d like to go to a school full of teachers and administrators like Thomas Gradgrind. Generosity of spirit is not what Dickens’ Hard Times is about.

Stephen A. Jones is a Detroit resident and assistant professor of History at Central Michigan University. He is co-editor with Eric Freedman of African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History (Congressional Quarterly Press).

The Rodney Dangerfield of Higher Ed

by Tom Watkins
February 26, 2010

Our community colleges are the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education. They just “don’t get no respect” — respect that they deserve and continue earning every day.

Community colleges are the grand entranceways to enhancing knowledge and skills, giving individuals a boost up life’s economic ladder while strengthening our communities. Given the troubling, tumultuous, transformational times we are now living in, our community colleges are truly a life saver for many.

Stopping at restaurants as I crisscross the state, I often ask servers whether they are in college. A lot of kids boast: “Of course! I attend U of M (or MSU, Wayne State, Oakland, K-College, Madonna, Northern, Grand Valley, Davenport or Marygrove, to name a few). But often, if they are attending community college, they will look away sheepishly and respond in a soft voice: “I’m just going to community college.”

“Just?” I tell them to lift their heads proudly, since they are attending an educational institution that cares deeply about them. They are being taught by instructors who are focused on teaching what they know best, and students are saving themselves and their families a ton of cash.

“Too often, community colleges are treated as an afterthought — if they’re thought of at all,” President Obama said in a speech at Macomb County Community College last summer. The president proposed sinking $12 billion into revamping our country’s community college system.

This ambitious and much-needed plan would invest $9 billion in grant money to boost academic programs and raise graduation rates, plus another $2.5 billion to upgrade school infrastructure. It would also fund open-source e-learning courses so that schools don’t have to build more classrooms to admit more students. (See my 2005 Wayne State University report on the value of e-learning: Exploring E-learning for Michigan: The New Education (R)evolution).

While this good news of financial help for community colleges was delivered in Michigan by the president of the United States, the soaring rhetoric has yet to translate into money. Legislative bills are still winding their way through committees in Congress. The original request for $12 billion has been cut to $9 billion in a House committee and not yet taken up in the Senate. And when you spread $9–12 billion over 10 years and 1,200 community colleges across the nation, it seems more like a down payment than the bonanza community colleges urgently need.

Community colleges make a significant difference in Michigan and the United States in helping prepare students and employees for our hyper-competitive, disruptive, and technologically driven global economy, where ideas and jobs can now move across the globe effortlessly.

We can thank educational leaders and community college boosters such as state Sens. Mike Prusi, Glen Anderson, Ron Jelinek, Wayne Kuipers and Mike Nofs, and state Reps Fred Miller, Tim Melton and John Walsh, as well as members of the Michigan Community College Caucus for their support. In the last Michigan budget cycle, community colleges were one of the only areas not reduced, and we’ll be fortunate to repeat that again this year. Yet we all know that may be difficult when costs such as health care, utilities and pensions continue to rise and tax revenue has flatlined.

Thirty years ago, on average, Michigan’s community colleges received nearly 50 percent of their funding from state appropriations and another 25 percent each from property taxes and tuition. Today, the state’s contribution is less than half that — 20 percent — while the other 80 percent is derived from property taxes and tuition, according to Mike Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association.

In the face of the downsizing of Michigan firms, community college enrollment is now rising at all 28 institutions across the state. Timothy Meyer, chancellor of Oakland Community College, Michigan’s largest community college and the 26th largest in the nation, attributes the increase to several factors, including Michigan’s poor economy.

“Ironically, and unfortunately,” Meyer said, “enrollment is often countercyclical to the economy — when the economy goes down, enrollment increases.”

What Meyer did not say is that while need and enrollment are up, support for these educational gems is depressed. Community colleges are supported by state appropriations that have declined or been flat and property tax revenues that are threatened by serious declines in property values. Making up the difference for the loss of revenue from state and local property taxes by adopting huge tuition increases is unrealistic, especially in the depressed economy Michigan currently finds itself in.

The Wayne County Community College district plans to turn away up to 10,000 students this spring because it doesn’t have the resources to meet demand. This “should sound an alarm across Michigan,” blared a recent Detroit Free Press editorial. The editorial went on to call on the governor and legislators to “give community colleges the priority they deserve.”

Another reason for investing in our community colleges is how responsive they are to local needs by providing re-education for laid-off workers. These colleges are also agile in providing classes on demand by employers.

It has been argued that our country’s university system stands on tradition — change for it is like turning an ocean liner. In contrast, community colleges respond like a speedboat in providing education to meet immediate community and business needs.

Lansing Community College President Brent Knight demonstrated the agile, creative thinking of community college leaders in his recent state of the college speech. He made an offer almost unheard of in higher education: training with the guarantee of a job at the other end or your money back. President Knight explained, “Why spend money and take time to learn when you may not get a job?”

While only applying to four short-term non-credit training programs for high-demand occupations — pharmacy technicians, customer service call center workers, certified quality inspectors and home technology integration technicians — the “money-back guarantee” sends a strong message to students.

Other recent innovations include:

• Macomb Community College tapped a new source of funds — to the tune of $5 million — to retrain unemployed people for new careers in the defense industry.
• Kellogg Community College’s Legacy Scholars program ensures that students who enter the local school districts in 6th grade and graduate are guaranteed a two-year scholarship to attend KCC. It is a partnership between the K-12 schools, parents, students and the college to prepare students for academic success.
• Jackson Community College, due to an aggressive recruitment and retention action plan, has the highest minority enrollment in the college’s history.
• Grand Rapids Community College reports applications for the fall semester are up 65 percent. The jump can be attributed to three things: the economic slump, a simplified application process and waiving the application fee.
• GRCC also has launched its new iPhone app to make the college’s information as close as a student’s fingertips. The goal is to expand the app to real-time information to assist students in such practical tasks as finding a parking space or finding out when the next bus will arrive.

My support for community college education is personal as well as professional. I am a product of Michigan’s excellent community college system with degrees from Michigan State and Wayne State built upon the solid education I received at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn. I would not have had the exciting and rewarding career I enjoy without the educational foundation provided by the excellent instructors at Henry Ford — they are there to teach, and they do so with passion, excellence and hands-on experience.

As Michigan’s economy evolves, many of our residents are using community colleges as the means to tap into change. Gone are the days when one could leave or drop out of high school, enter an auto factory and emerge with a middle-class income. Michigan’s community colleges carry a heavy load and will continue to do so as Michigan transforms itself from a “heavy lifting” state to one with a knowledge-based economy.

Community colleges are essential to Michigan’s ability to move from the state that “put the world on wheels” to the state that provides the education and skills to all its citizens to compete as we reinvent ourselves.

We cannot and will not compete with developing nations on low-wage and low-skilled jobs. Our future depends on skilled, knowledgeable and flexible workers who can pivot rapidly and stay ahead of our global competitors. That workforce is being prepared today by a community college near you.

Kevin Carey, research and policy manager at Education Sector, an independent, Washington non-partisan think tank that is devoted to developing innovative solutions to the nation’s most pressing educational problems, had this to say in Washington Monthly magazine about the value of our nation’s community colleges:

• Community colleges now represent a huge slice of the higher education pie: 43 percent of college freshmen begin their education at two-year institutions.
• Community colleges have taken on the toughest job in higher education, teaching lower-income students. Fifty-four percent of community college students receive a Pell Grant (the main federal need-based financial aid program).
• Community colleges will be a linchpin to jump-start our economy. Today’s students/workers need to be able to learn continuously, think critically and adapt to a changing economy.

Because of their accessibility, affordability, and ability to provide reasonably priced continuing education, community colleges meet the needs of a significant portion of America’s population.

Many Michigan Community College faculty I spoke with emphasized that their colleges are not “step down” junior colleges of yesteryear that only took students rejected by their big brother, four-year universities. Community college campuses across the state boast multiple high school valedictorians among their student bodies.

At a time when national data suggest that one of every five students at our finest and more costly universities requires developmental and remedial assistance to graduate, the value of a quality, less-costly community college education comes into sharper focus.

Perhaps former President Bill Clinton captured the value of our local community colleges best when he reflected, “If community colleges had yet to be invented, there would be a mad rush to do so today.”

So give your local community college the respect it deserves. Better yet, enroll yourself or a family member now to pursue a two-year technical degree or certification, begin the quest for a four-year degree or take a class for self-improvement.

Even Rodney Dangerfield would respect you for your efforts.

Tom Watkins is an education and business consultant in the U.S. and China and served as Michigan’s state superintendent of schools from 2001-2005. His “Bridge to China” cover story appeared in Dome in September.

Truth in Advertising

by Tim Skubick
February 26, 2010

When the Snyder for Guv guys were fact-checking their notorious Nerd commercial, they missed one huge error. The announcer claimed that business guy Snyder had a Ten-Point Plan that the typical career politician would not understand.

Turns out, every politician will understand. That’s because much of the Snyder blueprint contains some of the very same verbiage career politicians have been uttering for years.

The Snyder education reform paper, for example, contains such insightful revelations as, “The state needs to adapt by aggressively working to develop a populace that is better trained and prepared to compete in a global economy.”

Or how about this one: “Michigan’s high school graduates should be prepared to succeed at the next level of instruction and in their careers.”

To be fair, he does deserve credit for issuing a series of white papers on how he would change government. While others are searching for the pithy 10-second soundbite, Snyder is grinding out pages of here’s-what-I-would-do material. Good for him — and for you if you read them.

But frankly, there isn’t a ton of specifics on how he would do all this. Or as Walter Mondale wondered years ago, where’s the beef?

His campaign, which gets paid to defend him against critical media pieces, contends there will be more beef down the road and, get this, “the level of detail on most of these is something that candidates shy away from.”

The reason they shy away from details is that if you don’t give any out, you can’t be held accountable later on for not delivering on your promises.

For a guy who sells himself as a non-career politician, he sounds an awful lot like…dare we say…a career politician.

Snyder also glosses over stuff he apparently does not want to address. In the section on states that are doing well on education, he highlights Minnesota for making a “strong commitment to education and investments that have yielded formidable results” and his data is spot on. What he forgot or did not want to point out is that Minnesota has one of the highest tax rates in the country. Geez, someone running in a GOP primary sure as heck wouldn’t want to admit that a high-tax state was actually successful…unless, of course, he or she wanted to lose.

In another shot at career politicians, Snyder laments that lawmakers put off to the “last minute” finalization of the Race to the Top state legislation to qualify for more federal aid for schools. That’s an uninformed charge. Lawmakers wanted time for input from all the interested parities and did not want to jam any reforms down anybody’s throat. It’s called a democracy.

He also wants to “reverse recent trends of under-investing in universities…” Don’t we all, but where is the next sentence on how he proposes to raise the money to start the reversing?

In fact, you would expect that as a seasoned business guy he would be meticulous in costing out each of his recommendations and then explaining how he would raise the bucks.

But even he admits he did not do that, saying it was “premature” to figure out how to pay for this stuff. So, voter, it looks like you will just have to trust Mr. Snyder. Go ahead and vote for him, and if he is elected he’ll be glad to fill you in on the details later on.

The last guy who ran for governor and said that was Dick DeVos. And he, last time we checked, is still selling closet organizers.

Bottom line: Mr. Snyder gets high marks for issuing these documents, which do contain some food for thought, but his Ten-Point plan is not the grandiose blueprint for change that his commercial makes it out to be.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

Tim Skubick Extra Extra… (A weekly bonus only for Dome readers)

Darn Good Debate
The audience loved it. And rightly so. It had humor, dramatic differences were apparent, both guys demonstrated some passion, and no mud was slung or hostages taken. In other words, it was a darn good debate.

Credit Mike Cox and Pete Hoekstra with putting on a good performance in front of a bunch of independent insurance agents over in Grand Rapids the other day.

It did not start out to be a mano a mano meeting, but it turned out that way when Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and Ann Arbor Rick “The Nerd” Snyder both bailed out.

So for the first time, the media got a peak at the two front-runners in the GOP primary.

They both would go after state government employees to squeeze them for more concessions, starting with a scheduled 3-percent negotiated pay raise for unionized workers.

Kill it, A.G. Cox and West Michigan Congressman Hoekstra said. Then Hoekstra added, I’ll see your 3-percent cut and raise it by another 5-7 percent, for a grand total of a 10-percent cut in the take-home pay of state civil servants.

Cox says he’s already seeking a 5-percent rollback for those in his office, and he would extend that to everyone else if elected.

But then the sharp contrasts emerged.

• The federal bailout for the banks.

Cox would have voted no. Hoekstra voted yes, saying he had no choice because “no one knew what would happen” if Congress did nothing. “It saved the financial system,” he argued.

Cox, who did not have to vote, said the bailout was wrong regardless of what the consequences might have been.

• “Race to the Top” school reforms to win federal funds to help failing school districts.

Hoekstra would have vetoed the thing. Cox would have signed it.

“Race to the Top. Hell no,” Hoekstra declared, delivering the soundbite of the debate and bringing instant applause from the audience. He is loath to let the feds dictate education policy to the state.

Cox sees thousands of failing school kids in Detroit and elsewhere and he believes Race to the Top is a way to unfail them. Sure he was for local control, but this federal program he likes.

So the audience actually got to see some clear distinctions between the two. That’s what good debates do — which is something those gawdawful TV political commercials will never do.

Ditch the Blackberries
Ya gotta wonder how many of the players in this town are rejoicing that this is the last state budget cycle involving the Three Amigos — Jennifer Granholm, Andy Dillon and Mike Bishop. Enough already, some folks must be thinking, as the trio has produced tons of drama, rhetorical ruffles and flourishes, but not much cooperation as they provided “leadership” on deciding how to spend your tax dollars.

In fact, in 2007 they managed to pull off something that had not been done in recent history: an abbreviated state government shutdown. And here was part of the problem: much of the chatter between them was not face to face, but key pad to key pad via their text-message machines.

During the height of the march toward a government shutdown in 2007, the governor disclosed, she was texting her two “friends” at least six or seven times a day — and that number seems low.

Yes, texting is expedient.

Yes, texting beats smoke signals.

But what texting prevents is the ability to read the other guy’s body language, eye contact, pitch of the voice and a host of other non-verbal signals that could enhance the negotiation process.

The instant communication between two parties sometimes means the third party is left out. You probably had the situation where Bishop and Dillon were complaining how difficult it was for them to deal with her, and maybe she confided to Dillon that she and Bishop were not hitting it off. And by the time they sat down in the same room at the same time, all this back-channel back-biting had probably elevated the rancor between them so that grinding out a compromise was even more contentious and challenging.

Years ago, somehow, lawmakers and governors managed to iron out budget difficulties with no cell phones and no texting exchanges. They did it the old fashioned way, by meeting, talking and giving and taking.

Since the relationship between these key players is not so hot to begin with, maybe they can agree on something up front: let’s chuck these texting crackberries into the Grand River.

And since they are addicted to those things, it’s unlikely they’ll do it…but they should.

Blues vs. Browns
It’s one of those hush-hush sort of things in the law enforcement community; the less said the better. But there is no denying the fact that a turf war is always at the ready when it comes to state troopers, sheriffs and other local police officers.

Years ago the troopers’ union published a statewide survey that showed the state cops were more widely respected than any other agency in the state. The in-your-face stuff was not well received by others who wore a badge. But the story goes beyond that.

When it comes to crime fighting, the Who-Is-In-Charge and Who-Got-The-Bad-Guy first is a constant internal game between all the cop shops.

Now comes one that threatens to strain relations just a tad more as the governor has opened up a can of budget worms. She wants to save state trooper jobs by reallocating (a.k.a stealing) $2.2 million from secondary road patrols, which is money going to local sheriffs and others.

The secondary road patrol fund goes back 30 years and was the subject of a ferocious battle as the State Police tried to block state dollars from going to sheriff patrols. The troopers lost, mostly because the chair of the Senate budget committee at the time, Sen. Jerome Hart (D-Saginaw), wanted to help the sheriffs.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants to back her state troopers, and if the sheriffs lose out, so be it.

Not so fast, cries GOP Senator Valde Garcia, who chairs the law enforcement budget. He grasps the essence of this debate: “It pits the State Police against the sheriffs and local police at a time when they need to be working together.”

Garcia wants to avert trooper layoffs, recalling the flap last year when 120 troopers fresh out of trooper school found themselves, for awhile, fresh out of work. It was not pretty.

The problem for Garcia is a tough one: if not money from the secondary road patrols, where does he get it?

“I have no alternatives at the moment,” he confesses, but his search is underway as he hopes to avert another shootout between the cops in blue and the ones in brown.

Never Out of Gas

by Jack Lessenberry
February 26, 2010

When John Dingell was first sworn in as a member of Congress, he was a tall and lanky 29-year-old who towered far above the man who swore him in, the legendary “Mr. Sam,” Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.

That was in December 1955. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was still in his first term. At the other end of the Capitol, Lyndon Johnson was becoming the most powerful Senate majority leader anyone could remember, presiding over a caucus whose freshmen included one John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

General Motors was the biggest and richest corporation in the world. Michigan was still growing faster than most states, led by Gov. G. Mennen Williams, with his green polka-dot bow ties.

What Americans worried most about was Communism. Nobody worried about the auto industry. America’s newest congressman took his seat in a body where nobody had ever heard of laptops, the Internet, cell phones, Toyotas, or George W. Bush, who was nine. Barack Obama’s future mother was 13 years old.

Fifty-four years later, a year after he became the longest-serving member of the House — ever —Dingell came to Ypsilanti to address college Democrats. And he had a little announcement to make. He would, indeed, be a candidate for re-election.

“Now is not the time to walk away. It’s time for all hands on deck.” Some had whispered for months that this might be it. That maybe Dingell would step aside in favor of his politically savvy and much younger wife, Debbie.

He had been humiliated more than a year ago, when the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives — his party and his House — voted to take the chairmanship of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee away from him.

This summer, he will turn 84. He’s had heart operations, knee surgery, a hip replacement. He no longer hunts wildlife in Africa, or adds to the magnificent collection of stuffed heads on his walls.

But he wants the world to know that the man they used to call “the truck” is by no means out of gas. After he met with the college kids, Dingell went back to Washington and started lobbying U.S. senators. Food safety is a cause of his. The House passed a bill months ago. When would the Senate act?

Then, on Tuesday, Congressman Dingell ate the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. for lunch. The dean of the House sat down at a committee hearing, wiped his glasses, then started questioning the hapless James Lentz.

“Please tell me the date that Toyota first heard of incidents of sudden acceleration in its vehicles,” Big John asked. Toyota’s main man didn’t know. When they started recalling cars? Didn’t know that either. How many complaints had they gotten? Didn’t know, didn’t know.

Dingell, everyone said, had been the domestic auto industry’s fiercest defender for decades. His enemies said he fought, all too successfully, tougher emissions control and environmental standards. There was some truth in that, too, though he was forced to change near the end.

The balance of power had shifted. Autos no longer had the clout they used to. Two years ago he told the automakers, “work with me and I may be able to get you a (fuel economy standards) deal you’ll hate. Otherwise, they’ll put you out of business.”

Now, he no longer sets the committee agenda. But his questioning of Toyota’s man gave Detroit automakers a potential powerful public relations coup — if they know how to use it.

Dingell has really been in Congress far longer than he has been in Congress. He was six when Detroit first sent his daddy, also named John Dingell, to Washington. The nation was then locked in the grip of the worst depression in its history.

There was no Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no protections for anybody. John Dingell Sr. was a main sponsor of Social Security. There is a picture of him standing behind FDR, grinning as the Social Security Act was signed into law. Every year after that, he would introduce a bill calling for national health insurance. His son still introduces the same bill every session, as a tribute to his father.

In September 1955, the elder Dingell died in office. Two months later, his son, who had worked his way through school as a congressional page and elevator operator, succeeded him.

He’s never had a tough November election since. This fall, Republicans are making noises about a serious challenge.

Don’t bet on it. More than two decades ago, I asked John Dingell how long he planned to stay in the House.

He asked if I knew anything about John Quincy Adams.

Yes sir, I did. I knew that he had returned to Congress after being president and served ’till he died, on a couch right there in the Capitol.

He smiled, and nodded. Got it, I said.

Veteran journalist and national Emmy Award winner Jack Lessenberry teaches at Wayne State University, serves as Michigan Radio’s senior political analyst and writes regularly for several publications. He also serves as The Toledo Blade’s writing coach and ombudsman and is host of the weekly television show Deadline Now on WGTE-TV in Toledo.

Hammering Public Pay

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
February 26, 2010

To begin with, the “iron law of wages” is not really a law, not a legal law anyway. And economic scholars have never been able to determine which of the gloomy ghouls who founded classical economics — Malthus, Lasalle, Ricardo — first propounded the idea. Even more important, economic development history has proven its concept wrong.

Yet, as Michigan lawmakers attack the proposed 2010-11 budget, one cannot help but think about the rusty old iron law. Why? Because the wages and benefits of public employees have become a big part of the early strategies to resolve the budget. At least they are part of the strategy of those lawmakers who are not willing to look at raises for any taxes.

Consider the comments of a top Senate Republican made to a reporter out in the Captiol’s snowy parking lot. The state really cannot cut services any more, this lawmaker said. But raising taxes is not an option, not to most Republicans. So, this legislator said, getting the needed money out of the budget to maintain services will have to come out of the wages and benefits line.

No one suggests that cutting wages and benefits means lawmakers intend to obey the iron law, but still it seems a bit astonishing, if a little discomfiting, in modern economic times to see policy decisions considered that will make people, well, a little poorer.

A very simplified definition of the iron law is that competition for wages will help drive them down to basically just above subsistence level. Higher wages, according to those who buy into the concept, drive up inflation and depress economic development.

Historically, though, it hasn’t worked that way. For all their inflationary effects, higher wages help drive economic development by allowing wage earners to spend on more than just subsistence goods and to save, which provides liquidity for lending, which in turn spurs investment, and so on and so on, etc. etc.

Consider then the iron law a relic of the feudal days when the educated and elite declared life nasty, brutish and short. Nasty, brutish and short for those struggling for wages, anyway.

For years now, government spending critics have certainly made employee costs a target of their efforts. But mostly the attack has focused on cutting back on government functions, ratcheting down the number of people working in the public sector, not necessarily cutting their earnings. Because even critics of government spending don’t suggest public workers are buying yachts off the taxpayers’ dime.

But cutting the cost of those wages and benefits is central to resolving the upcoming budget. Even Governor Jennifer Granholm has bought into the argument. She did not call for wage cuts. But her administration did push for the state’s non-union represented workers to not get a 3-percent raise next fiscal year. It was a push that won the concurrence of the state Civil Rights Commission.

Ms. Granholm also called for dramatic changes to the state’s retirement and health care benefits for state workers, and for those workers “eligible” for retirement (eligible by time worked, not necessarily financially) who choose not to retire.

And to those moves even her critics largely applauded.

But Ms. Granholm also called for tax increases in her budget proposal. She is somewhat confident when the final accounting of an all-cuts budget is considered, lawmakers will reluctantly accept that tax increases are needed.

Tell that to the lawmaker in the snow, not willing to cut the numbers of state workers any further, but saying — reluctantly, clearly reluctantly — that public wages and benefits have to be cut.

Tell that to Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester), who said he was fixated on eliminating the 3-percent increase that unionized state workers are scheduled to receive.

Tell that to a business group lobbyist who told a reporter recently that state wages should be cut. Times are tough, he said, and people are afraid so they will be willing to work for less money. (Okay, that attitude does strike one a little like we’re going back to the nasty, brutish and short days.)

And tell that to unionized state workers who are legitimately worried they will lose that 3-percent raise. Losing it would rub salt in the wounds they feel after agreeing to take other cuts this year to help cut spending, and losing it could threaten the chance that members of UAW Local 6000 will vote to concur with cuts their leaders negotiated this month with the state.

But, as lawmakers might say, tell it to the private sector workers who have to pick up the costs of their retirement, more and more of the cost of their health insurance and may have endured pay cuts in these tough times.

Yet, while lawmakers and lobbyists talked openly about cutting wages and benefits, there was a side story unfolding. Before several legislative committees, the problems that budget cuts overall are causing the state were being outlined.

Even Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Cropsey (R-DeWitt) almost unwittingly acknowledged those problems even as he called for the state to control its costs. Displaying a slide during a committee meeting that showed overall arrests are down despite high levels of felony crimes committed in the state, Mr. Cropsey said he presumed the lower number of arrests was due to the fewer number of cops on the street. Why are there fewer cops on the street? Because local governments cannot afford them.

Will cutting public workers’ pay and benefits provide enough money to get those cops back on the street? So far, no one has been able to show it will.

Which could mean that while the impetus now is driven to cutting employee costs by cutting their wages and benefits, the back story of the ongoing effects of budget cuts, and the long-term effects those cuts could cause, may make that drive less than ironclad.

John Lindstrom is publisher of Gongwer News Service. For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.

March 5, 2010
Jack Lessenberry: Call the Doctor
Joe Schwarz prepares to take on his toughest case of all — Michigan and its fractured political culture. | more

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February 26, 2010
Jack Lessenberry: Never Out of Gas
John Dingell, the longest-serving congressman ever, the man they used to call “the truck,” is ready for another run. | more

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February 12, 2010
Jack Lessenberry: Bridge Blockers
The Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, that stalwart defender of private enterprise, wants a new, internationally controlled bridge built between the United States and Canada. | more

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