My writing has come to a crushing halt over the last two weeks. I’m not concerned with health care (yet), flippantly awarded Nobel prizes or Jon minus Devil Woman Kate. No, I’ve been keeping a keen eye on our state representatives in Lansing who are wrestling with Michigan’s state budget.
For those of you east of the Hudson River and west of the San Bernadino Mountains who have forgotten we exist, let me give you a primer on how NOT to run a government, large or small.
Take a one-industry state. Just like the industry when it was flush, overspend like drunken sailors or Michael Jackson in Caesar’s Palace. Give generous salary packages to legislators and lifetime free health care after they have served only six -- yes six years. Add in the benefit packages of other state workers, like teachers. Mix in a generous portion of financial depression when the One Industry moves most of its operations elsewhere and finally collapses. Fold in outrageous taxes to businesses forcing some to flee across the border to the Indiana outback, and similarly outrageous tax credits to Hollywood millionaires so they will come and make their movies here.
Furlough some state employees over the summer, but not too many days. Use the stimulus money meant to “create” jobs as a cork to plug up the budget holes. Take a trip to Japan in early September just as the discussion heats up. Threaten to cut state troopers and per student spending, applying the vise grips to the hearts of the people who think we mustn’t, we can’t — without mentioning the flipside that there are far fewer residents here now than there were four, two or one year ago. Then spend in the future and not in the present.
The end result is a state in a real pickle of a mess.
California may be bigger and it may be broker, but Michigan is right on its heels. At least California has more than one industry to depend on and there far fewer politicians in Sacramento.
Article comments
1 - Arch Conservative
Hey Joanne I heard you guys were changing the state motto to "will the last person to leave please shut off the lights."
2 - Ruvy
I see, Joanne, that you have never involved yourself in local politics at all in the time you've made Michigan your home. And now, you are paying the price. I'm not being nasty, just truthful. The failure to involve yourself in local politics, to the degree that you can, can leave you hanging in the wind - just when you need shelter from it.
I realize that politics are not as open or as friendly in Michigan as they are in Minnesota, but I didn't join merely for the access or camaraderie when I lived there. I had hoped to be a lawyer (idiot me!) and wanted contacts when I got out of school.
Anyway, my point was that it helped - even when I was on the street without a roof over my head. Contacts I made through political involvement of one kind or another really helped me out in ways I never expected or foresaw.
Marie whats-her-face owes you nothing at all. And that is exactly what you will get from her.
3 - Arch Conservative
I'm just going to throw a few random words out there and you can do what you want with them Joanne.
Lake Michigian
disappearance
Jennifer Granholm
ice fishing hole
hippopotamus
4 - Joanne Huspek
LOL... Arch, I could do a lot with those words. But I'll not type them or I might have the State Police on my doorstep.
Ruvy, you are right. I'm a lazy bum, and local politics WAS more friendly in Minnesota. That's because the politicians there were more like real people. You could ring up Bruce Vento's office (I did, a lot) and actually get friendly aides. Here you call the City of Detroit or Lansing and meet up with a wall. That's because politicians here think they are above everyone else.
5 - Ruvy
Joanne,
Politicians everywhere think they are above everybody else. The late Senator (call me Paul) Wellstone was the perfect example of this. One afternoon I was at someone's house during a city council/mayoral campaign, and you could see the reserve around the guy come out, even as he was "relaxed" among his DFL colleagues.
Speaking of friendly Vento aides, I used to know one of them, an officer in the DFL Senate Club I belonged to. She knew where all the bodies were buried, and was a treasure trove of connections - a great gal.