FeedsMichigan: If You Seek A Budget Mess--Look About You.
Solving this year’s $1.7 billion budget hole in Michigan’s budget will be easy—relative to future year budgets experts warned earlier this week.
Denial and pretend solutions from our elected officials have not addressed Michigan’s budget problems for the better part of the last or lost decade.
Real problems require real solutions.
A big thank you is owed to two major organizations in Michigan: The Center For Michigan (www.thecenterformichigan.net) and the Business Leaders for Michigan (www.businessleadersformichigan.com) for their continued attempts to get our elected leaders to accept and deal with reality.
These two thought-leading organizations convened a conference attended by 300 business and civic leaders with a smattering of elected officials this past week. Doug Rothwell, Executive Director of Business Leaders for Michigan acknowledged while the budget news is “very depressing stuff” also pointed out, “we“re trying to raise awareness to get everybody to the same level of understanding.. to inform leaders so they can help legislators to make tough decisions.”
I was blind—but now I can see!
The tragedy is the problems facing our state are not new, nor is the lack of political will from either the Democrats or Republicans to address them. Both political parties have been bobbing and weaving like the great boxer, Muhammad Ali in attempts to avoid making tough decisions.
The fact is Michigan is being “led” by a bunch of followers. It is clear that the governor and legislators are more inclined to follow what trial lawyers, MEA, AFL-CIO, UAW or,Insurance companies, Michigan Federation of Business or the State Chamber of Commerce demands than to lead the state to where it needs to go.
Creating A New Michigan
What we once had in Michigan is now gone. This is our new reality. It is up to us, the citizens of the state to demand our elected leaders to create a new reality based on facts.
What is our new reality? Stephen Goldsmith, the former Mayor of Indianapolis and now Deputy to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, captured Michigan’s reality when he said “essentially, we have a political economy with folks guarding their interests in a way that is no longer sustainable.”
The fact is Michigan’s spending is no longer sustainable and has not been for some time.
Michigan’s long term reality? Gary Olsen, Director of the Senate Fiscal Agency, projected the state will face a $1.2 billion imbalance in the 2012 budget, a $1.6 billion shortfall in 2013 and a $1.8 billion dollar deficit by 2014, even with a 3 percent annual economic growth.
We are simply spending more than we are taking in. Olson, summed it up this way, “What is clear to me is the current budget is not sustainable.”
The Governor and Legislature needs to find the courage to cut the budget, enact more serious restructuring and reforms of government at all levels and raise revenue ( increase taxes) to invest in education that will make us competitive in the global, knowledge economy.
Then we need a leader to rally us all around a shared vision and common agenda for a new Michigan.
These facts are not new. The Citizens Research Council (crcmich.org) has been beating this drum for a decade. As state superintendent in a 2004 report to the Governor, Legislature and State Board of education (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/michiganschoolfunding_110803_7.pd) I point out we must address the unsustainable school funding issues which was ignored until this past week when a small portion of what I recommended was addresses in the teacher early retirement bill that was passed by the Michigan Legislature.
Much more needs to be done.
It is past time that our elected leaders stopped kicking Michigan’s unsustainable budget problems down the road.
They know the problems. The only question remains—will they lead and act or leave office and Michigan in worse shape in which they found it?
Tom Watkins is a business and education consultant in the U.S. and China.
