It's getting hot in here

Wise policy wonks often warn: Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

But when the absolute best you can hope for is mediocrity, then you're pretty well screwed.

That's the scenario with Michigan's budget that's currently $1.8 billion in the hole. Whatever plan Lansing throws together with chewing gum and Silly String by the Oct. 1 deadline — or after, if lawmakers commit grosser negligence than they have already — it will be a train wreck.

Just like previous budgets dating back to the '90s were a shell game of transferred funds and one-time fixes.

After hemorrhaging about 250,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, what anemic Michigan needs is a transfusion of new blood. The best way to do that is by making this a state people want to stay in, play in and raise their kids in. That means spending — not cutting — millions more for economic development, environmental protection and most of all, education from preschool to post-grad.

Confused? You should be. That's because no one is talking about what the Wolverine State really needs.In fact, if you've seen anything on the budget, it's probably a sound bite of pretty people sneering at each other at the Capitol.

That's almost criminal. Anyone who tells you there's a more-important story in Michigan right now is either an idiot or selling something.

It's not just the poor and infirm feeling the pain of this crisis.

You do, when your sewage bill doubles because your township is going bankrupt after receiving squat from the state.

You do, when you have to shell out $1,000 just for the privilege for Billy to play football at public school because the state has disinvested from education for years.

You do, when your speeding ticket is the price of a luxury hotel room because the cops have to cover costs the state used to pick up.

You do, when sending Sally to a state university costs as much as buying a second home.

Think about that the next time snake-oil salesman/Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop tries to sweet talk you into another $1.1 billion worth of cuts. Think about why Republicans won't even tell you from where the cuts are going to come.

As for the Dems, they evidently never read Dante, who warned, "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality."

Last week, 10 House Democrats in swing districts flaunted their neutrality, refusing to vote for a nudge in the income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.6 percent.

Putting that in perspective, it's about an extra five bucks a week for the median Michigan household.

That measure died, as have reasonable proposals to enact a services tax, cut prison spending and reform employee health care costs.

Because if there's a lesson to be learned from the budget battle, it's don't bother thinking for yourself.

Legislators, just sit at your exquisitely crafted desks and vote the way your leadership, the state Chamber of Commerce, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the AFL-CIO, the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance or God commands you.

Go ahead and yield to the recently issued edict of do-nothing Michigan congressmen to "stand firm" against godless tax hikes. Why not defer to the wisdom of Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, who has to ask the Club for Growth lobby for permission to go potty?

Leadership is overrated. Just ask the governor.

Though Jennifer Granholm finally showed the guts Tuesday to threaten to veto any plan without a modest tax increase, she blew this budget big time starting with a sales tax gambit in February she didn't even bother running past the Democratic leadership.

I don't care if the guv is under the spell of an overbearing first gentleman, sycophantic staff or the voices in her head. A brilliant orator, she of all people should have been able to make the case for Michigan's future.

Which is simple: Do we want to return to the days when our state was known for superlative education, high-tech health care and world-class recreation? Or do we want to cut our services as fast as our taxes to become the backwater of the Great Lakes states?

It's time to put our money where our mouth is.

No, it ain't as sexy as gay marriage, but make no doubt about it: The state budget does constitute the kind of moral crisis defined by Dante.

Our leaders have 11 days to pound out a plan that doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be good for most Michiganders. Better than the slapshot scheme they're bickering over today.

Otherwise we'll all feel the heat — not just on Oct. 1, but in years to come.

Dem hopefuls fumble on compassion

CHICAGO — As with any spectacle at Soldier Field, impatient, nacho-chomping fans shrieked at the stars on the 10-yard line and didn't hesitate to hiss at shady maneuvers.

The 95-degree evening heat underscored the fact that it was only an exhibition game — the seventh this summer — but fevered followers gyrated like it was the season's kickoff in January.

Of course, the Chicago Bears never took the field Tuesday at the space-age stadium — and the 15,000-person crowd couldn't have cared less.

Teachers, steelworkers, firefighters, nurses and autoworkers came to catch a glimpse of seven Democratic presidential contenders at the AFL-CIO forum and see what they'd do about health care, organizing rights, trade, infrastructure and Iraq.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich wooed the rank and file, pledging a "workers' White House" and an end to NAFTA, the bane of their existence.

No matter.

The leadership clearly was smitten with frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who defended taking bundles of corporate lobby cash while brazenly declaring "I'm your girl" against the right-wing machine. They want to back a winner, and the Clinton name is still election gold.

But more than halfway through, it became clear the debate was not about them. It wasn't about the talking heads' prognoses or flag-waving graphics on MSNBC.

When Steve Skvara stood at the microphone, neck throbbing in nervous pain as he gripped the metal braces at his side, the cheers and catcalls stopped.

After putting 34 years into a company that went bankrupt, the disabled Union Township, Ind., steelworker lost one-third of his pension and all his health insurance. He's had four heart attacks and a hip replacement, and his wife is still recovering from shattering her hip and pelvis in an auto accident.

Skvara knows he's not alone; 47 million Americans lack insurance. Health costs are the No. 1 reason for bankruptcy and he thinks Medicare should be available for all.

"What's wrong with America?" he asked, voice quavering. "And what will you do to change it?"Former Sen. John Edwards grinned, clapped and dispensed vague promises to reform pension law and health care.

Then he promptly returned to his theme of being the true workers' candidate, having walked 200 picket lines since leaving the Senate.

"Who was with you in crunch time?" Edwards smiled broadly at the crowd.

Translation: It's not about you, Steve. It's about me.

Deborah Hamner didn't fare much better when she talked about the death of her husband, George, in the Sago mine disaster last year and asked what the candidates could do to improve workplace safety.

Joe Biden announced he felt her pain — he'd lost his first wife, after all — and then took the rest of his time piling on fellow Sen. Barack Obama's foreign policy credentials on Pakistan.

Neither Skvara nor Hamner felt the hopefuls really answered their questions. They couldn't say if anyone on that Soldier Field stage truly responded with compassion.

Skvara said he's met enough politicians to know they'll launch into a stump speech if you ask about the weather.

But he's not giving up.

"Union people want straight answers," he told me, "because we deal with companies all the time that don't give us straight answers."

He and Hamner deserved better Tuesday night. And the candidates on stage should have known better than to grandstand. There are five long months before the Iowa caucus to do that at pig roasts, coffee shops and stockcar races from Des Moines to Daytona Beach.

Tuesday was the time for them to dignify the courage of two Americans voicing real problems and concerns.

That's real leadership.If societies are judged by how we treat the least among us, so too should those who aim to run ours.

And if the candidates' stony stock answers are any indicator, we may as well adopt the sober sign-off of Edward R. Murrow, invoked by debate moderator Keith Olbermann:

"Good night and good luck."

Doing the right thing won't win the White House

The unions don't get it.

And if the Democratic Party finally realizes this, it might actually forgo blowing the 2008 presidential race the way it managed to dazzlingly lose the last two elections.

Democrat Barack Obama has about the same shot as Republican Mitt Romney to snatch the AFL-CIO endorsement. Mark Gaffney, the blunt and witty Michigan head of the nation's largest labor organization, more than hinted at that this month in Detroit.

So what crime did Obama commit? Did he call for a Right to Work law? Sanction sweatshops in Shanghai? Was he caught indiscriminately scratching himself on YouTube?

No, the junior senator from Illinois committed heresy by calling out automakers for stymieing a modest hike in fuel efficiency standards.

"Don't count (Obama) out," Gaffney told me at a June 9 Hillary Clinton town hall. "But he probably doesn't have as good a chance as other candidates who understand manufacturing better."

Translation: Look for the union to go for the safe picks of Sens. Clinton or John Edwards. We get them. They get us.Courage and independent thought will get you nowhere. Certainly not the $100 million the union shelled out in the 2006 election.

Armed with scientific evidence, Obama argues it's crucial to cut emissions to halt global warming. He says reducing oil consumption is a vital part of homeland security.

He knows this idea is as popular with labor as his support of merit-based pay for teachers.

"I hope I can always go to my union friends and explain why my position makes sense, how it's consistent with both my values and their long-term interests," Obama writes in his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope."

Yes, it's a bitter pill for struggling automakers. Workers worry they'll pay the price, having hemorrhaged 80,000-plus in buyouts and knowing a $25-per-hour pay cut coming down the pike. After all, Ford execs aren't in the mood for sacrifice, as they still enjoy millions in bonuses after losing a record $12.7 billion last year.

But it's reality-check time. The domestic auto industry, whose strong suit has never been long-term thinking (Remember how gas-guzzling SUVs would save the Big Three, 'cause 99-cent gas would last forever?) has to realize upping fuel efficiency is the only way to compete in a global market. American models just won't be able to sell in Europe or Asia, where their emissions standards put ours to shame.

The right answers aren't always the easy ones. To train the workforce of tomorrow in Michigan, we need to pour millions more into public universities. Yes, it's easier to slash higher ed rather than fix the structural deficit.

But it's just stupid. And we will pay dearly for that mistake.Politicians who buck party and power, like Robert F. Kennedy and John McCain version 1.0, often pay their own price.As a senator, RFK was never a labor darling and had his anti-poverty bills blocked time and time again, often by fellow Democrats.

He wasn't politically correct. In 1968, an Indiana University medical student demanded where Kennedy would get the money for his universal health care plan.Kennedy's blithe reply? "From you."

Back in 2000, McCain declared some religious right leaders "are corrupting influences on religion and politics" and "shame our faith, our party and our country." After a stinging defeat to now-President Bush, McCain 2.0 now is fervidly courting those he castigated with little success.

What choice does he have? He wants to win. And to win a GOP primary, you kow-tow to Right to Life and the Christian Coalition. Just like Democrats have to kiss the rings of labor leaders, though with only 12 percent of the country unionized, it's not as strong a litmus test.

Interestingly, McCain once compared Pat Robertson to "union bosses who have subordinated the interests of working families to their own ambitions."

It's all part of the dance of a broken primary system that caters to extremes, greased by special interests. The center where most of us wade in ye old political spectrum never holds.

This breeds a sorry cynicism in America that will never dissipate without public financing of elections.

Because unions, ideological groups and business lobbies would rather fund a candidate who spews the party line than does the right thing. Often ideology will even trump electability.

So there's a strong possibility iconoclast Obama will be sacrificed by the elders of his party, just as maverick McCain was by his seven years ago. That would be a damn shame.But that's something for which Obama himself likely is prepared.

As he prophetically wrote last year: "What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics."

Clinton sings right song to labor crowd

By Susan J. Demas
The Enquirer

DETROIT –- Hillary Rodham Clinton seized the opportunity Saturday in front of a riveted labor crowd to distinguish herself from her chief presidential rival, fellow U.S. senator Barack Obama.

Clinton, 59, bypassed criticizing the Big Three automakers for low fuel efficiency standards, in contrast to Obama, who last month at the Detroit Economic Club laid into automakers for blocking a transformation of U.S. energy and environmental policies.

Unlike Obama, D-Ill., Clinton would not commit to a Senate bill to raise by 2020 fuel efficiency standards to 35 m.p.g., also known as CAFE standards.

Instead, the Democratic frontrunner from New York called for a “win-win” strategy of the government and auto industry teaming up to invest in new technologies, buoyed by a national health care system she said would take a significant financial burden off employers. Clinton fingered soaring legacy costs for “dragging down the Big Three” in a global market.

“People keep telling me they’re worried about me taking this up again,” said Clinton, referring to her failed health plan during the first term of her husband, President Bill Clinton. “Worried? I can’t wait to take it on again.”

The 90-minute town hall before about 700 union members was part of the AFL-CIO’s eight-part series with leading Democratic presidential hopefuls in cities across the country. It concludes with a multi-candidate forum Aug. 7 in Chicago.

Hillary Clinton stressed her choice to appear in a city famous for its union history.

“When I was asked where I wanted to go, I said one place,” she said, pausing for effect. “Detroit.”

Delivering a 20-minute domestic-focused speech at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall, Clinton called for laws making it easier for workers to organize, universal pre-kindergarten and fairer student loans.

The forum then was opened to audience members. UAW member Dave Berry, 43, said he is still grappling with the aftermath of Ford Motor Co.’s shuttering of its Wixom plant in May.

“We understand what it takes to be competitive,” said the Fowlerville resident. “We understand what the customer wants.”

His experience underscored the recent exodus of more than 80,000 Big Three workers from plants, many in Michigan. Berry blamed U.S. trade policy, and asked what Clinton would do to change it.

Clinton vowed to take a “hard look” at every trade agreement, saying as president, she would appoint a trade prosecutor.

Earlier at the town hall, she blasted the Bush Administration for an $800 billion trade deficit, calling China the United States’ “banker.”

“We are borrowing money for body armor for our troops,” said Clinton, who also vowed to end the Iraq war once she’s in the Oval Office.

Organized labor remains a powerful force in a changing Democratic Party, boasting a $100 million get out the vote drive in 2006. The nation’s largest labor organization likely will endorse a candidate by the end of the year, said Mark Gaffney, Michigan AFL-CIO president.

Clinton’s speech seemed to hit all the right notes with the crowd, which gave her two standing ovations. Gaffney also said workers respond to U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who plays up his labor roots.

“Don’t count (Obama) out,” Gaffney said of the AFL-CIO’s endorsement. “But he probably doesn’t have as good a chance as other candidates who understand manufacturing better.”