A Dent in the Wall
of Distrust

by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
July 2, 2010

In black and white kinescopes, a reed-thin Johnny Carson comes back to us from the days in the 1950s when he was being introduced to America as the host of a game show called Who Do You Trust?

A game involving couples was played every day on the show, but the real entertainment was watching Johnny, who met, worked with and befriended Ed McMahon on the show, crack jokes with his innovative genius. He went from that show to The Tonight Show, and the world knows what happened next.

Despite its black and white hilarity, trust is not supposed to be a joke. It is indeed a sacred bond, hence, “In God we trust.”

But it was hard not to think of trust, at least trust in state government, as a joke this past week when the latest version of the State of the State Survey was released and found: a) the lowest percentage of people in the survey’s history felt state government could be trusted most of the time; and b) the highest percentage of people in the survey’s history felt that state government could never be trusted.

Charles Ballard, professor of economics at Michigan State University and head of the survey (which is operated by MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research), said the survey had always found respondents trusted local government the most (well, sure, you can see the trash getting picked up every week, you know what they’re doing), then state government, then the federal government.

Trust in state government has fallen to the level of trust in the federal government, Mr. Ballard said, which largely means it is not trusted at all. He called it a significant problem for Michigan’s next governor and legislature.

No, actually, it’s a significant problem for Michigan’s current governor and legislature. It has been a significant problem for them for years, though one could be forgiven for wondering if either public officials or the public paid it much heed. It will be a significant problem for the next governor and legislature, even if the current crop of policymakers can begin to make a dent in that steel wall of distrust they have for each other, and the public has for them.

But lawmakers may actually have tapped at that steel wall this past week in enacting the 2010-11 K-12 school aid budget kind of on time, sort of, depending on what happens later, but kind of on time.

Look, nobody ever got poor betting that most people don’t trust government. This country was founded in part on the idea of mistrust of government. And when this country was founded and our founding fathers had settled their founding rumps in the new seats of government, they discovered how much the new republic trusted them when the Whiskey and Shay’s rebellions busted out.

It is a strange thing, though, since as a public we will declare that we are the government, and feel our patriotic bosom fill near to bursting when we hear phrases such as “The people of the State of Michigan enact” that begins every law to clog the system. And yet we don’t trust government, which means we don’t trust ourselves, and why would we, after all, knowing what we know about each other? Still, trust is a good thing, something to be earned and kept, right?

Exacerbating the problem of trust in government is a rotten economy, when the public rightly expects government to do something to fix it. What that something is depends on one’s ideology: either spend more to stimulate the economy, or spend less and tax less to stimulate the economy, or maybe do both at the same time if you can figure it out.

Even in good times, trust in government is a losing proposition. Since 1994, four times a year the researchers with the State of the State Survey have asked Michigan residents the same question on how often they could trust state government, and a positive sense has never cracked a majority. At its peak, just 36.2 percent of those polled in 2002 thought state government could be trusted most of the time.

But that optimistic sense had fallen to just 16 percent of those polled this latest time around.

Even more alarmingly, the percentage of respondents who felt state government could rarely or never be trusted leaped to 37 percent. In the previous survey that had stood at 24.2 percent.

Asked why the state’s populace took such a dim view of state government, Mr. Ballard said the failure to get budgets done on time certainly didn’t help the legislature’s cause.

Oddly, older polling data indicate trust in government may actually be a smidge better today than it was 20 years ago when we were in another recession. Public Sector Consultants polled on the issue of trust, though its questions were somewhat different, asking the public how often they could trust the people who run state government to do what is right. At its worst, in December 1993, just 7 percent thought state government could be trusted most of the time, but 60 percent thought they could some of the time and 33 percent thought they could not very often.

The question of trust, though, needs to be extended to the politicians themselves. For if the public doesn’t trust government, it must be asked, do those in government trust each other?

If Democrats and Republicans were asked how much they could trust each other to reach agreement on issues, to keep their word on votes, to develop compromise, one suspects they would not respond positively.

The evidence of that is clear in the seemingly endless stalling of any movement on issues. Each side will assuredly sniff that the other is not interested in finding answers, in reaching compromise, in bending from whatever they claim is inviolate principle. So government fails to move, each side blames the other, and is it any wonder then the public wishes a plague to descend on all public servants?

So the action this week to pass the K-12 school aid budget is perhaps a hopeful sign. All year long, lawmakers had said they wanted to the pass the entire 2010-11 budget by June 30 or July 1, take your pick. Because of federal complications, economic complications as well as just being naturally complicated themselves, the chance lawmakers would meet that goal largely vanished.

But they still planned to, hoped to, intended to (but never quite promised to) get the school aid budget finished by July 1 so local school districts could get their budgets underway knowing what the state was paying them.

A week ago, it seemed bleak that even that would be met. Legislative leaders were able to work through some differences and get the task accomplished. Make no mistake, though, it was really not certain until the votes were tallied that the budget would be approved.

Observers did not cheer when it was accomplished. Lawmakers were not greeted with tears of grateful joy at the news. In fact, the news was greeted from the outside with a bit of dumb amazement. If lawmakers expected hosannas voiced their way, what they got was more of a mumbled, “Huh, so you can make it work. So why don’t you make it work more often?”

Did the release of the survey results on Monday in any way trigger the results seen by Thursday? It’s a risk to gainsay it did. Still, on Monday every news outlet in the state was telling the public and state leaders that state government is not trusted much, and by Thursday state government had produced its biggest accomplishment of 2010. So, it cannot be discounted that the survey played its role well.

With this success, though, will state government make ongoing headway? Unknown.

There was an instant on the old Who Do You Trust? show when a little kid in a miniature roadster tried to drive on the stage. It can still be seen on YouTube.

The joke in the bit was the little car’s engine couldn’t get started. There was Johnny nervously and funnily trying to cover over the frustration of the stagehands and others to get the car started and on its way. The engine would kick in, the car would drive a foot or so and then stall, to the audience’s howls of giddy delight.

One could very well hope that passage of the K-12 budget means the legislature has kicked its engine to start. One would likewise hope the engine will not stall any time soon. If it does stall, the public probably won’t laugh much.

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.