The taxpayer revolt that wasn’t

During last year’s budget crisis, we were promised a good, old-fashioned taxpayer rebellion, complete with pitchfork-waving citizens storming the Capitol to impale cowering, tax-hiking lawmakers.

What a letdown.

My old pal Leon Drolet swore there would be recalls by the dozens thanks to boatloads of cash and a groundswell of popular support. But the GOP former legislator has only mustered one real effort against House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township.

And how much has the Michigan Recalls Organization raised in Dillon’s 17^th District?

A whopping $5, which can buy you a Whopper value meal at Burger King, as long as you don’t get all greedy and king-size it. I should note that since campaign finance reports were filed through April 20, the group claims to have raised a full $75 more.

Even Drolet - whose best friend is a giant foam pig named Mr. Perks - admits in his lucid moments that a taxpayer rebellion this isn’t.

But no matter - he’s got a good chance of pulling the recall off anyway.

This would, of course, be devastating for the state, as even Republicans know Dillon is hardly the symbol of all that is wrong in Lansing. He was the voice of centrist sanity last year while the state faced a $2 billion shortfall and is the architect of the only notable economic program passed in recent years, the 21^st Century Jobs Fund.

If all legislators had Dillon’s intellect, conscience and wit, the state would be in far better shape, even in this era of cowardice and crippling term limits.

Drolet’s henchwoman, Rose Bogaert, fired off a grammatically challenged e-mail to me weeks ago whining that Dillon is personally responsible for the tax hike, which costs the average family $200 a year. That’s about a month or two’s worth of gas price increases, but I don’t see Bogaert protesting OPEC.

Learn to keep a budget like the rest of us, sister. And what were you doing to help save Michigan while it burned last year? Andy Dillon was so sleep-deprived and anxiety-ridden that he dropped 15 pounds in September living off protein shakes.

It’s out of sheer ego that Drolet is hell-bent on “making history” to recall the first sitting speaker of the House. Anyone who thinks Leon, himself a victim of term limits, is content as a mere Macomb County commissioner (which evidently ain’t a time-consuming job) probably believes Mr. Perks is a real porker, too.

No, with Leon, it’s all about headlines (send me a thank-you card later) and what he wants to be when he grows up - be it a congressman or a professional anti-tax warrior with any one of the whacked-out groups in Washington.

So thanks to some wealthy, misguided donors, Drolet amassed $103,000 to boot Dillon.

It’s eerily reminiscent of plutocrats who fueled U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg’s bid in 2006, thanks to the shadowy Club for Growth lobby. It was a trip to call up his donors in the posh enclaves of Andover, Mass., and Santa Monica, Calif., and ask what they knew about Walberg, R-Tipton. None of them, of course, could pick the good reverend out of a police lineup.

Yep, that’s democracy at work.

But on Thursday, Drolet’s group turned more than 15,000 signatures, far more than the 8,427 required to put a recall on the Aug. 5 ballot. The fact that the recallers reportedly had to pay $10 a signature to job-starved, out-of-district circulators and lie that petitions would stop a 12-percent gas tax hike (which was caught on tape) once again shows the deafening clamor to dump Dillon.

Drolet’s made a lot of noise about Michigan Democratic Party “thugs” hired as petition blockers, ignoring the fact that his hired guns aren’t exactly pure as the driven snow. The Pigman has even convinced a couple naïve TV stations there’s something fishy about state employees volunteering after hours to help Dillon in the “war zone,” as Drolet calls it, when that’s standard fare during election season.

And while Drolet makes me chuckle every time he calls with more recall and anti-tax propaganda, his over-the-top metaphors comparing a chief Dillon ally to Bull Connor and raising taxes to rape makes my stomach turn.

Where we go from here depends on voters. Dillon has more than $600,000 in the bank, which will help, but groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform are waiting in the wings to fill Drolet’s coffers.

Sure, the Dems will fight the petitions in court but they’ll lose, just as they did with the blatantly fraudulent anti-affirmative action ballot measure in 2006 (another Leon Drolet production). Michigan law is notoriously inept in this regard.

Dillon can beat the recall flat-out if his supporters turn out, not just the angry mob. If he loses, he can turn around and run for reelection again in November and only be out for a few months.

If either happens, Leon will forever go down as a Lansing punchline. But at least nobody’s started their own revolt to recall him - yet.

Could hope spring eternal from tax compromise?

Hail to the victors.

And in this case, that’d be Mike Bishop and his Senate Republicans.

Say what you will about the ever-tan, GQ-attired Senate majority leader (this columnist has, for the record, skewered him as the Tin Woodsman and high school Homecoming king) - but the man got it done last week.

The scorned service tax is no more, replaced by a GOP-crafted surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax. The deal went down 48 hours after all hope seemed siphoned from the Capitol.

The turning point was when Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon on Nov. 28 caved to his caucus, which voted for a plan the Senate would never sign off on and planned to split for six days.

While the Dems’ plan wasn’t unreasonable – it was actually more fiscally responsible – their bravado unwittingly gave the GOP the upper hand.

Incensed and indignant, Bishop and Sens. Jud Gilbert, R-Algonac, and Mark Jansen, R-Grand Rapids, marched into the leadership void.

"In my eight years in the Legislature, I've never seen anything that was such a violation of trust," Gilbert seethed.

Now after 11 straight months of backstabbing, bluster and brainlessness, that’s hard to swallow. Nonetheless, negotiations nosedived to another low, paving the way for an even more agonizing budget showdown next year against the backdrop of the 2008 election.

In the end, the GOP nabbed a sunset for the new MBT tax and a lower rate while raiding a rainy day fund, their favorite pastime.

Yes, Gov. Jennifer Granholm won out on revenue-neutrality – supposedly – and furiously negotiated behind the scenes. But her motivation seemed muddled – was it to demolish a bad tax she’d once succored or to slap down Dillon, her perennial rival?

So Republicans emerged the heroes for slaying the service tax just when it seemed certain it would stay on the books.

Bishop’s power was buttressed by the bill passing almost unanimously in the Senate – despite Democrats’ yowling that they’d been shut out of the process – and by a wide margin in the House.

Though Granholm clearly won the main budget battle back on Oct. 1, those are numbers she could only dream of. Which is why the GOP keeps chanting the service tax and income tax hike are “the Democrats’ plan.”

But rather than be statesmanlike about his triumph, the bitter Bishop afterward again slammed the House, declaring there was “no excuse for any legislators to have turned their back on” the process. The governor at least gets better grades for graciousness in the last round.

Yet Bishop’s phrasing is curious. Note that he doesn’t single out House Dems, because Minority Leader Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, was (surprise) MIA in the mediation, as he has been all year.

DeRoche’s sole goal seems to be carrying water for a few whack-jobs in the state GOP and the intelligent, but indelibly ideological folks at the free-market Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Bizarrely, this is how he justified his loathing of the deal that was practically penned by the business community: “To say (it) supports this plan is like saying that a death row inmate chooses the firing squad over the electric chair.”

Contrast DeRoche’s denial and disconnect with Bishop, who’s been a player from the beginning.

Now for the downtrodden Dems, here’s the silver lining.

The business tax hike is now a bonified bipartisan baby – 65 percent of legislators flicked the switch for it. Rather than slash spending, Senate Republicans championed a plan that hiked taxes on a core constituency.

Yeah, they spin it as cut over the sales tax – something we’ll never know for sure since the whipping boy is dead. But as diehard conservatives intone, a tax is a tax is a tax.

What this means is that right-wing interests aren’t as apt to ardently rally ‘round the Republicans next year. That could serve as a cushion for Democrats, who sprint out the gate late thanks to a botched, meaningless Jan. 15 presidential primary.

The across-the-aisle deal also could sap the wind from the sails of the recall movement, whose money and momentum was spurred by the reviled service tax.

The anti-tax zealots - who appear to worship at the altar of his immense foaminess, Mr. Perks, instead of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ – have always hunted Dems and a few token Republicans who really irked them. Watch their fervor and funds dry up at the prospect of taking out so many of their own.

In the end, what truly matters is leaders of both parties came together and did something constructive. It wasn’t great policy and it wasn’t without ego, rancorous rhetoric or excruciating delay.

(“We’re trying to forge world peace,” Sen. Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, cracked Friday afternoon.)

Could be a start. The odds are long, but this is the season of hope, after all.

Everyone loses on service tax

“Senate Republicans are not obstructionists. We are standing up against a mammoth tax increase. This caucus stands for something.” - Senate Majority Mike Bishop, R-Rochester

So far, that something is failure.

After two months of endless bellyaching, Republicans have proven they can’t butcher a wildly unpopular tax.

The oft-slandered service tax – the part of the last-minute state budget deal instantly deemed dead on arrival - now seems poised to take effect Saturday.

Bishop hoisted the white flag Wednesday night after the Democratic-led House passed an alternate business tax and skedaddled home for the weekend.

Republicans seemed stunned they hadn’t gotten their way. After all, they’d slapped their final offer on the table – probably generously written for them by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce – but the Dems’ plan for a permanent, higher Michigan Business Tax surcharge came out of nowhere.

Faced with hardball tactics, Bishop reamed the “uncompromising, partisan” opposition.

“It is clear that the service tax introduced by the governor and carried to fruition by the House Democrats, has been their goal all along,” he sniffed.

What an incredible statement. Despite having public opinion and the entire business community behind him to ax the tax, the baby-faced Bishop admits he was outsmarted by the dynamic duo of Gov. Jennifer Granholm (as Batwoman?) and her Boy Wonder, House Speaker Andy Dillon.

Does anyone really think Bishop has the gravitas to be governor?

The epilogue to the state budget fiasco seems to be following the same script. Much of the GOP and its interest groups can’t quite grasp that they’re not running the show anymore and they need to give a little more – if they want to get anything at all.

Republicans kept congratulating themselves for considering any tax hike. But no one could really think they’d win a small boost to the MBT that died in three years and relied on raiding yet another rainy day fund.

Life’s unfair, kiddies. Minority Democrats learned that the hard way during the era of perpetual tax cuts and cuts to schools and local governments.

Now if hard-line Republicans could have stomached a slightly higher income tax back on Sept. 30, they could have gotten the last two months of their lives back. But more on that in a moment.

As for Granholm and her Democrats, they may have won a pyrrhic victory in shutting down debate. The GOP certainly seems to have acted more gentlemanly in this round and legislators are rightfully milking it for the media and business.

Dillon’s refusal to appoint a conference committee last week – the traditional path - was both bad policy and PR. Ditto the House’s shotgun vote Wednesday night.

Democrats, per usual, seem splintered. For Granholm, keeping the service tax on the books may well be the goal. She christened the idea with her ill-fated two-penny plan, after all, and economists believe the current tax will rake in far more than the $650 million estimated this year.

But Dillon’s contending with a tide of recalls - including his own – and an election for control of the House in 11 months. He’s been much more responsive to business and has pushed tweaks to the MBT in an effort to quell the clamor.

If the service tax starts up anyway, the backlash may have only just begun. That’s exactly what the GOP and Leon Drolet – its anti-tax, recall-happy pal with a big foam pig – fall asleep fantasizing about.

The truth is, everyone’s got it wrong.

The service tax stinks – it’s a capricious, cherry-picked list. And tinkering with the MBT – before it even goes into effect – could well drive business out of our state.

Leaders need to stop focus-grouping the budget. Business lobbyists testifying before Tax Policy committees act like they’re ordering off a menu (“We’ll take a 12 percent surcharge on the MBT with a side exemption for compensation”) - and some feel they’re entitled to skip out on the bill entirely.

Politicians would be better off sitting down with Tom Clay of the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council and letting him scare the crap out of them about the state’s finances, services and schools and where we’re headed.

What they need to do in the short-term is repeal the service tax and hike the income tax from 4.35 to 4.8 percent.

Then for next year, it’s time to think long-term. Bishop could show his leadership chops by championing real reforms to legislator and employee benefits and Corrections, coupled with a graduated income tax that takes a constitutional amendment, but provides a steadier revenue stream. Exploring a fairer service tax would also be prudent policy, since that’s the growing sector of the economy.

Of course, that will never happen. Constructive solutions are the enemy of the poisonous partisanship Lansing is drunk on.

And political courage always shrivels up in an election year.

Can fringe GOP conjure up a clue?

After months of stunned silence, House Republicans are finally ready to rumble on the budget.

And they're not about to let pesky details — like the fact that final budgets passed on Halloween with near-unanimous consent — stop them.

It was the Senate that voted Thursday to delay the new service tax. But House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche & Co. want to slay it completely, unraveling nine months of anguished compromise.

Yes, after spending money Wednesday like welfare mommies at the Cadillac dealership (begotten from tax revenues few in the GOP voted for), straight-faced Republican reps revealed their flair for even more flagrant hypocrisy.

They want to make the service tax's $625 million magically disappear from the budget, perhaps via séance with Ronald Reagan's ghost.

Seems like if you abhor all those evil government programs, you shouldn't have just voted to fund them.It's bad form, bad policy and the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty.

Besides, if Republicans truly were committed to anti-tax policy, they would try to decapitate the income tax increase worth $725 million.But let's not forget, the GOP-led Legislature tax-cut its way to popularity while merrily ravaging about $4 billion in reserves since fiscal 2001. Beats significantly scaling back government. (One-time fixes didn't abate in fiscal 2007 when Dems took over the House, but now the bills have come due.)

Clearly, slashing government waste ain't the GOP's forte.True, the capricious list of oft-arcane services, from numerology to baby-shoe bronzing, is hard to defend. Legislators surely can conjure up a fairer levy, especially when they're not throwing together a slapdash bill four hours before the government shut down on Oct. 1.

That's why Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and House Speaker Andy Dillon — who have done the heavy lifting on the budget from the get-go — are feverishly talking to business barons about a revenue-neutral replacement.

That could mean a hike in the income tax or the new Michigan Business Tax.

But none of them — not even the Republican Senate head — is pushing the cockamamie scheme of cleaving millions more from the budget.

In a nine-month process with an endgame as gory and excruciating as childbirth, the Senate plan to skive more than $600 million was mopped away like so much fluid.The $433 million in cuts was all leaders could muster, made palatable by $1.35 billion in new revenues that allowed them to take credit for caring about children by barely boosting education.

Still, DeRoche insists on peddling a tired list of cuts, chock-full of vague promises to "streamline" Community Health by $93 million and "reform" Department of Human Services by $109 million — details not included.Sacred cows — like sentence guideline reforms and prison closures that could net $500 million — don't rate.

Cuts are necessary, DeRoche warns gravely, unless we want to "kill more jobs."

But he evidently sees no conflict in whacking $75 million from the 21st Century Jobs Fund, the economic development vehicle Republicans once touted as the elixir for Michigan's economic woes.

"It's not a real list — everybody knows that," the always cogent Rep. Lorence Wenke, R-Richland Township, says. "I give it no credibility whatsoever."

To be sure, DeRoche's plan has zero chance of passage. He doesn't have the votes. And without a functional relationship with any leader, even Bishop, the once-brash boy wonder who rode to the speakership at 34, has lost almost all credibility.

He epitomizes the fundamental lack of understanding of public policy by fringe Republicans determined to place partisanship and ideology above sanity.

There's no excuse for that in either party. The stakes are too high.

Evidently, some have learned nothing from bloody budget negotiations this year.

If DeRoche truly wants to be a player next year, he might want to stop drinking the Kool-Aid — and instead invite Dillon and Bishop to have a beer.

Long-term thinking still lacking in Lansing

"Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today/ And don't worry 'bout tomorrow, hey, hey, hey."— Grass Roots lyrics, 1967, and unofficial motto of the Michigan Legislature

Who knew that a risqué ode to sweet lovin' could so perfectly encapsulate the state's ongoing budget fiasco?

No, it ain't over yet.We still don't have a 2008 budget, and there are only 13 days left until the Halloween deadline — which, for the superstitious or policy wonks among us, are very bad signs, indeed.

When the Capitol gang held their Oct. 1 slumber party (House Speaker Andy Dillon forgot the beer), they only finished half the job. At least legislators were true to the work ethic they brandished when going on holiday for most of July.

Lawmakers finally swallowed $1.35 billion in new taxes, prompting Gov. Jennifer Granholm to sign a 30-day budget extension. But nobody had the stomach to send programs and jobs to the guillotine that night (witness once-slash-happy Republicans surrender their plan to cleave $600 million.)

Since then, the Legislature has gone on a great treasure hunt to find $440 million to cut, which probably will mean prisoners being let out, fewer poor people seeing doctors and fewer child abuse investigations.

Gotta find the money somewhere, and the state budget office says the departmental bleeding can't be absorbed solely by attrition and efficiencies.

The budget battle begins anew next week when bills come to the floor.Oh, and here's the bad news. We're fewer than four months away from having to do it all over again for 2009.What's worse, the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council estimates we'll have a $200 million to $500 million hole to patch.

How's that possible? You can almost hear the sound of seething taxpayers surrounding the Capitol, pitchforks in hand.

After all, you now have to pay taxes on all your astrological and escort service needs. That wouldn't be so bad if we could stave off future draconian cuts to schools, health care and police.

It could work if we were investing in what would grow jobs and modernize Michigan — higher education, culture and natural resources. It would be worth it if Lansing finally licked the state's structural budget deficit.

If you're going to ask people to sacrifice, do it right.Here's the hard truth: They didn't.Extending the sales tax to some services isn't a bad idea, since our economy increasingly has shifted in that direction. Problem is, our tax system remains out of touch, said Tom Clay, former deputy state treasurer and the council's emeritus state affairs director.

The key is to draft a less capricious list than lawmakers cobbled together at the last minute. (Forget about fees to tee off, but pay up for phrenology, that staple of 19th century pseudoscience.)

Meanwhile, the economy and the auto industry are still in shambles — though there's some hope on the horizon for the Big Three with recent union contract talks. Still, there's little chance we'll see a boost in tax revenue for a while, especially if more people lose their jobs.

The new bump in the income tax to 4.35 percent doesn't stabilize revenues, Clay said. What's more effective is to raise the rate even more, and increase taxpayers' personal exemptions.

There's also initiating a gradual income tax rate, as most states have. Of course, that would take a constitutional amendment.

"This stuff is pretty straightforward," Clay says. "But it's pretty tough politically."

And there's the rub.Politicians have flaunted their "live for today" mantra since term limits kicked in, knowing they could shun unpopular reforms and pass unsustainable tax cuts to ride to re-election and sweet lobbying jobs afterward.

They no longer have $4.2 billion in reserves to raid, but lawmakers have done their damnedest this year to avoid tough choices anyway.All except Dillon, who truly gets it, but has been bogged down by the partisanship of his peers.

Like that of Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who's busily plotting a gubernatorial bid, and Minority Leader Mark Schauer. who's picking out curtains for his new congressional office.

Though there's little love lost between the two, they might well break into a soulful Grass Roots rendition betwixt fundraisers:

"We were never meant to worry the way that people do/ And I don't need to hurry as long as I'm with you/ We'll take it nice and easy and use my simple plan ..."

Simple plans often carry heavy price tags. The bills are coming due for Michiganders today, in more taxes and fewer services.
But unless politicians shed their tunnel vision, you can bet you'll keep paying more in years to come.

Want to save our state? Here's how

It's been 31 years since rumpled newsman Howard Beale ordered a generation to fling open the windows and declare:

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

That's the line from the Oscar-nominated film "Network" everyone remembers, as it launched a thousand parodies and at least an ad campaign or two.But few people can recall the beleaguered Beale's soliloquy beforehand:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter.

"Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

"We know things are bad — worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'

"Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!"

Substitute an iPod, TiVo and Xbox, and it all sounds eerily familiar, if not a smidge apocalyptic.

In the past few years, I have had scores of conversations with Michiganders who have touched on these themes. There is a palpable frustration, even anger.

One thing almost everybody can agree on: Our state is in trouble.

But nobody knows how to change it.Enter the Center for Michigan, which is recruiting people from Benzonia to Battle Creek to brainstorm an action plan for the state in 90-minute community conversations during the next two months.

They're guaranteed to be more constructive — and productive — than screaming out your window.

The center, a bipartisan, nonprofit "think and do tank" outside Ann Arbor, calls this "Michigan's Defining Moment." After all, we have the worst economy in the nation, an abysmal rating with Wall Street, a shrinking population, threats to the Great Lakes, an ailing auto industry, a crumbling core city and a structural budget deficit that still hasn't been resolved even after last week's last-minute deal.

More than 80 forums will take place statewide, with Kellogg Community College, the Kellogg Foundation and Battle Creek Unlimited throwing their muscle behind the effort locally.

The center's approach is one of pragmatism, not dogmatism, aimed at bringing the left, right and center together to set firm goals to revitalize Michigan before the 2010 election, when most state leaders will be booted due to term limits. Conversations will be underpinned by civility, something sorely lacking in cable news talk shows, the blogosphere or even the Capitol.

Rather than being bland spitballing sessions, the center wants residents' feedback in three key areas: how Michigan can grow, retain and attract a skilled workforce in a global economy; invest in our economy and quality of life; and reform government at all levels to be more efficient, modern and accountable.Organizers also want to inject some much-needed pride into our state.

After all, we live in a place of unparalleled beauty nestled between four Great Lakes, which is home to some of the best universities in the world and has given birth to a slew of innovations from Corn Flakes to cars.

That is fertile soil for a new, modernized Michigan to grow.

But how, you might ask, do these conversations differ from other periodic powwows to set the state straight?

Well, the forums aren't just for the usual suspects — politicians, CEOs, union bosses — though everyone's invited. But as center founder Phil Power stresses, this round of sessions is aimed at all residents, especially those who feel their voices are never heard.

Groups will meet again in the winter, and then the center goes full throttle for the election cycle, presenting the plan to legislators, holding state House race debates and even issue potlucks.

Sounds great. But as a cynical columnist, I had to ask: What if nobody cares and nobody shows?

"You gotta stir people," said the center's Executive Director John Bebow, himself a cynical former journalist. "People have great interest in public affairs if you ask them to participate. But who's been asking?"

After the budget fiasco, it's clear Lansing has a rather remedial understanding of our state's problems. Now's the time for the people to lead — and our leaders can follow.

What was the budget war good for? Absolutely nothing

LANSING — It was about 56 minutes into Col. Mike Bishop's quixotic last stand at the Capitol early Monday when one of his GOP foot soldiers crossed enemy lines.

John Pappageorge marched over to fellow Sen. Tupac Hunter on the Senate floor and bellowed, "C'mon, let's go home."

But the Democrat didn't budge, and he didn't vote on the budget."Tell him to stay on the other side of the aisle," he hollered, just a half-hour after the last near-fisticuffs on the floor.

It would be another 26 minutes before the last vote hit the board at 4:18 a.m., much to the chagrin of yawning staffers and reporters.The skirmish was over a new services tax, the first shot Gen. Jennifer Granholm had fired when negotiations commenced in February.

The Democratic governor finally marshaled the troops, first twisting the arm of Republican Rep. Chris Ward on the income tax. Her next target was AWOL Democratic Sen. Glenn Anderson, who was quivering in the back room as a blue-jean-clad Granholm strutted across the chamber.

"Where is he?" she demanded with the moxie of Douglas MacArthur.

She got her man. Seconds after Anderson pushed the button for the service tax, Republicans fell in line and our long state budget nightmare was over.

In bleary-eyed hindsight, Granholm looked to have executed a flawless strategy.

Even consternated conservatives conceded victory after the Dems triumphantly impaled the GOP's no-tax mantra, hoisting a bounty of $1.35 billion in new revenue.

Granholm didn't even bother to hold a news conference right afterward, letting the results speak for themselves.

In reality, she got lucky after months of bitter brinkmanship. And to the victor go the political spoils.Truth is, Republicans couldn't pull the trigger.

Even the GOP-controlled Senate could only muster up $600 million worth of cuts — a far cry from the $1.8 billion deficit. In the end, Bishop had an easier time selling income- and sales-tax boosts to his soldiers than even that level of cuts.

Proving that although Republicans hate raising taxes, they hate cutting spending even more.

Everyone is gung-ho for cuts until they hit home. Then lawmakers aren't so keen on moms, teachers, seniors and CEOs banging on their office doors.

Take the $500 million the House cleaved from business tax breaks. Sounds great until you read the fine print, that without exemptions, Battle Creek's Duncan Aviation would high-tail it out of this state.

The reality is, no one in Lansing truly was itching to raise taxes. It was simple arithmetic. After more than a decade of cutting taxes and raiding funds while the state's economy tanked, the bills came due this year.

Proposals to gash spending fell far short of the deficit, like paring welfare and employee salaries, or were deemed unfeasible, like slashing prisons and schools.

That's because, year after year, we've already chopped higher ed, community health, K-12 schools and child-protective services. State government has the fewest employees since the 1970s.

Michigan's budget doesn't work like the feds', packed full of pork (or earmarks when they're in your district) and can (and does) run in the red year after year.

We don't have that luxury.

Maybe legislators finally had an attack of common sense in the blue hours of Monday morning.Or maybe they were just sick of sleeping in their cars after 17 straight days of battle.

Whatever the reason, Michigan dodged a ruinous government shutdown with the extreme last-minute budget deal — and that is good news for all.

The bad news is, legislators passed a hodgepodge of bills no one's even bothered to read, and they'll now have to spend the next 30 days working out the kinks. We can only hope the flaws won't mean the Wolverine State will face another critically out-of-whack budget next year.

For now, bruised lawmakers have left the battlefield in search of showers and Scotch.They said they were fighting for Michigan — but their backbiting and infighting has only further jeopardized the state's future.

"In a true compromise, no one can claim victory," Sen. Mark Schauer said without a hint of a smile late Sunday night.

After this debacle, no one in Lansing should.

Scorched Earth politics burn Michigan

Government needs to be run like a business, so we're always told.

Well, if that's the case, then haul Mike Bishop's butt into the soon-to-be closed unemployment office, thanks to a looming state government shutdown no one seems eager to stop.

The Republican Senate majority leader announced this week "there's no way" a budget can be finished by the Monday deadline and Gov. Jennifer Granholm better deal with it.

When conservative stalwarts like the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and Big John Engler beg you to compromise — even if it means raising taxes — by God, listen to reason, man. At least take their calls.

Mr. Bishop, in the business world, when you have 10 months to complete a project and countless experts at your disposal, failure equals firing.

Now aren't you glad you work for the big, bad government you're helping demolish?Slap the governor with a pink slip, too.

Granholm's earned it with her reckless disregard for the people about whom she claims to care — children, seniors, teachers, business owners, union members, the poor and the infirm.

During her '06 campaign, the Democratic guv proudly declared, "I'm the captain of this ship."Damn right. And while this ship plummets to new lows — along with the state's reputation and bond rating — she's done little other than blame the GOP.

Now the governor is content to turn away a lifeboat, the continuation budget passed by the Senate.Would it be a sign of political weakness? Who cares? We wouldn't have to destroy the state supposedly to save it.

Schools wouldn't have to close, seniors could still have in-home care and police and prison guards would still be paid to protect us from the bad guys.We wouldn't rack up $4 million a day in debt, adding to the already Herculean $1.8 billion we have today.

But the truth is, Granholm wants a showdown. The Capitol is abuzz this week that she reportedly told her staff, "I want this shutdown to be as painful as possible."

Which translates to: Screw you, Michigan, if I can gain partisan advantage off this. That's the one idea Bishop can agree with, egged on by desperate state GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis, who's salivating over the catastrophe to jump-start his ailing party.

As this crisis careens into a shutdown — which seems inevitable, given the players and their pettiness — it should be a career-killer for Mike 'n Jen.

Any Democratic presidential campaign scouting out talent for an '08 administration (that means you, Hillary) should promptly pass on the poison that is Jennifer Granholm.

Anyone who sticks a Mike Bishop for Governor pin on his lapel should be forced to take a Breathalyzer test.

The tragedy is that everyone knows a deal could have been hammered out back in February if Lansing wasn't the playground of the inept, illogical and idiotic.

Such is the sad state of affairs when lobbyists outnumber citizens and journalists in the House and Senate galleries.

It already is too late to undo some of the damage — at the very least, some state payments and paychecks will be delayed — but our leaders still can turn this ship around.Don't leave the bargaining table until you do.

It is worth noting that the reasonable voices in these scorched earth times are those of Republicans, like the 28 former lawmakers who eloquently called for statesmanship and speed in solving the budget.

Leading the way in the Legislature is a duo from Livingston County, the lily white Detroit exurbs nicknamed the deep South of the far North, where raising taxes is akin to treason. Rep. Chris Ward was the sole Republican to pull the lever for an income tax hike anyway. Ditto for Sen. Valde Garcia in nixing $600 million in cuts to what he called "essential" services.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's called leadership.It's a stark contrast to the Democrats, cowering in the corner from former Rep. Leon Drolet, a little man with a big foam pig threatening recall efforts.

Step up to the plate, make some common-sense cuts to prisons and employee benefits and vote for a modest tax increase.

Wake up. We are now the laughingstock of the country, as if having the highest unemployment and a collapsing auto industry weren't enough.This crisis has gone way too far. The next move isn't about who blinks first.

It's about who loves this state enough to save it.

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.

On swine and spines

Right now, jittery state lawmakers are wishing the anti-bullying legislation they passed this spring applied to one Leon Drolet.

Drolet, the elfin former Republican state representative, has reinvented himself as chair of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, fond of stalking his old colleagues with a half-ton foam pig named Mr. Perks.

Considering a tax increase to give kids better schools? Mr. Perks and his adorable corkscrew tail beseech you to reconsider.

It's good, old-fashioned third-grade fun by a bunch of guys who haven't quite grasped the concept that evil taxpayer dollars allow us to flush dookie down the toilet.

But now the mirthful Mr. Drolet has turned serious, evidently intent on earning his $39,000 salary, more than half the alliance's funds, Gongwer news service reports.

(One does have to admire Drolet's conservative work ethic. When life gives you term limits, find a think tank, run back to the Macomb County Board of Commissioners from which you came and end up almost matching your sweet $79,000 Lansing salary — sans perks.)

Drolet is gearing up to file recall petitions against 10 Democratic and Republican legislators in swing districts (can you say politically motivated?) to browbeat them into supporting his group's extremist anti-tax agenda.

If need be, Drolet says he'll go after 20 more.Just what we need, to hemorrhage more moderate, reasonable voices in politics, just for doing what they think is right to represent the people of their district and the state of Michigan.

Nine times out of 10, recalls are an ill-conceived scare tactic — a waste of time and money. They should be reserved for cases of rampant illegality when the bum refuses to step down.

What we could face next year is total electoral chaos.State Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer has vowed to recall two Republicans for every Democrat. Not to be outdone, the Michigan GOP is floating a recall of Gov. Jennifer Granholm to motivate the base, throwing the presidential and state House races the Republicans' way.

This takes politicking to a whole new level of insanity, thanks to people allergic to making prudent policy.And it's superfluous. Despite last year's Democratic tsunami, it's not all doom and gloom for the GOP, which could still win in '08 fair and square.

If Michigan-native Mitt Romney is the presidential nominee, he could easily take the state — and thus the Electoral College. The trickle-down effect in state House races could restore GOP control.

Plus, the Dems could deliver a surprise Christmas gift. If state Sen. Mark Schauer unseats U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, (an almost statistical impossibility if Romney's on the ballot) then his old seat is in the bag, thus bestowing the GOP with a healthy 22-16 majority till 2010.

No Democrat, not even those closest to Schauer, thinks the seat will hold.As for the budget, if you seriously believe the Legislature can solve the $1.8 billion shortfall by Sept. 30 without a modest tax increase, then you've spent too much time inhaling Mr. Perks' fumes.

Do the math. Of the $42 billion state budget, most is in restricted funds for things like road repair. The only funds in play are the $13 billion K-12 school aid and the $9 billion general.

Neither party wants to get tagged with hating children, so that leaves deep cuts to corrections, higher education, human services, local governments and community health.

Go ahead and further gut the Department of Human Services and feign surprise at the next Ricky Holland case — the savings still won't go very far.

Nobody's eager to let the bad guys out to shrink the bloated $1.9 billion prison budget. And even if we pillage the entire $1.9 billion from higher ed (Lansing's favorite whipping boy), we'd still run short next year because our Paleozoic tax code never raises the revenue intended.

This isn't tax-and-spend madness. It's trying to keep the Capitol's lights on and ensure the Mitten State has a future.For those morally offended by taxes, I suggest you declare the glorious Republic of Notaxistan in the hinterland, where perhaps Dick DeVos will subsidize your police and public works. Or maybe you'll be content to let the dookie run free.

As for our leaders in the real world, just do your job.

Try something new, like passing a budget and pertinent laws to grow jobs, broaden health care access and improve schools. Seems that would be better for your job security than bumbling around in a daze of fear and confusion.

After all, even Mr. Perks appears to have a spine.

If they only had a plan

After two weeks vacation, our Lansing leaders are no closer to discovering the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who will magically solve the $1.6 billion budget deficit.

They've been stumbling down the yellow brick road since January, in fact, and still can't figure out which way to go.One path looks a lot like Dust Bowl-era Kansas — depressingly black and white, with the next twister right around the bend. Family farms are going belly-up, schools are ramshackle and downtowns are fast becoming ghost towns.

But at least the dang government is minding its own business.

The other path blooms in Technicolor — and if the gentle, wildflower-dotted hills don't quite look like Silicone Valley, it's at least Pennsylvania. After last week's partial government shutdown, the Keystone State promptly passed a budget boosting spending on schools, daycare and senior services.

Imagine that.

Of course, Michigan can just run out the clock until its Sept. 30 deadline. What's the worst that can happen? Record 7.2 percent unemployment? The continued exodus of business and bodies from our state?Stall on, Lansing. Budgets are hard work. And our leaders clearly don't like being on the surrealist journey together.Everyone's jockeying for first billing in this melodrama.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm plays Dorothy, the heavily rouged Democrat who thinks there's no place like home in Wayne County, where the McNamara machine would just take care of pesky tax questions for her.Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer is Toto, Dorothy's loyal sidekick, cute enough to fit into a picnic basket. Occasionally, the Bedford Township Dem pokes his head out to nip at Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.

Bishop, R-Rochester, stars as the Tin Woodsman in need of a heart, who thinks nothing of slashing college funding and medical care for poor kids.

Is he trying to appease the Wicked Witch of Notaxistan lobby, whose Flying Monkey, former state Rep. Leon Drolet, hounds legislators with his gigantic, fiberglass pig? Or are dreams of the governor's mansion dancing in the boyish Bishop's head?

The Cowardly Lion is novice House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, who clearly needs a shot of courage after going into hiding during the last round of negotiations.

Lastly, there's easily overlooked House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche, aka Scarecrow, who still wistfully calls himself Speaker and can't add up the deficit right. The Novi Republican is just now cobbling together a task force to help him out.

Like it or not, this preening cast of characters is stuck with one another.And we're stuck with them.But if they need help, there's not just one Wizard to consult — there are a dozen from the bipartisan Emergency Financial Advisory Panel, chaired by former governors William Milliken and Jim Blanchard.

They put forth sensible ideas the overwhelming majority of Michiganders support — investing in schools, the arts and health care; modernizing the tax code; and reforming state employee benefits.Precious little of that has been done — save for the new Michigan Business Tax — even as an F-5 economic cyclone barrels through the state.

Now I lived in Iowa long enough, surviving three separate tornadoes, to know that if you choose to shut your eyes in the middle of a twister, it'll still heave your mangled body onto the nearest barn or farming implement.

Our problems aren't going away. The storm grows stronger each day.

But our leaders seem content to keep using the budget as political theater, knowing they can always take cover in their tax shelters.

Right now, too many in Lansing see the world in black and white. It's up to us to tell them we'd rather live in Technicolor.

Time for Granholm to get it done

It's been a rough week of mortgaging Michigan's future.

To console themselves, patrician politicians are partying with the powerful up on Mackinac Island for the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce's annual shindig.

One thing is clear. In the grand, face-saving façade known as the 2007 budget deal, Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm whiffed.

She knew it was crammed full of one-time fixes and accounting tricks — the very shenanigans she fingered her predecessor, John Engler, for using in the '90s that got us into this mess.

She knew borrowing against future investments would cost the Mitten State millions.She knew they were just shunting the problem to next year.

What's worse, she could have spared higher education and economic development by inking a deal with the GOP months ago — before the deficit blew up to $800 million.

She knew better. Period.

Yes, legislative Republicans knew all this, too. But they've already shown more loyalty to rabid, out-of-state anti-tax groups than to their constituents or sensible fiscal policy.

And unlike neophyte Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, Granholm has been to the bargaining table before. After her landslide re-election last fall, she vowed she would lead.

We're waiting.

The governor was off to a good start in January, appointing the blue-ribbon, bipartisan Emergency Financial Panel to make hard-nosed recommendations for the state's long-term problems. Well, she gave the report a cursory look, kind of like President Bush did to that of the Iraq Study Group.It's tough to say whose approach has failed more spectacularly.

Displaying a vexing blend of bluster and timidity, Granholm talks loudly while carrying a small stick. After her 2-cent tax on services proposal went down in flames, she seemed content to let House Speaker Andy Dillon come up with a better idea.

And rather than battle for health care, public safety and schools, the governor figured she could live to fight another day. Maybe she can save them by squeezing a modest tax increase out of Bishop for 2008.Maybe not.

A brilliant orator, Granholm will continue to paint the other side as evil-doers bent on shuttering schools and tossing the sick on the street, because of Republicans' medically untreatable compulsion to cut taxes.

That's an easy fight to win. Michiganders are increasingly horrified by budget cuts, with 70 percent willing to swallow tax hikes even in a dismal economy.

But the most important question is: What do you stand for, governor?

You say you support middle-class Michiganders. Will you restructure the state tax code so the clerk at Meijer doesn't pay the same income tax rate as Dick DeVos?

You say a college education is essential. Will you actually increase funding to state universities?

You say you support business innovation. Will you promise not to lay a hand on any more of the 21st Century Jobs Fund money?

You say health-care coverage is critical for citizens and saves us all money. Will you finally get a universal access plan passed?

Take some time on paradise island to answer these questions and craft a new plan.

Then do us a favor. Stop blaming the GOP and get it done.

Not all tax pain is created equal

Pop quiz: If you're married, have two kids and make $57,000 per year, you're:

A. At the federal poverty level.

B. At the median household income for Michigan.

C. Now spending 92 percent of your salary on gasoline.

If you said C, you're off by several percentage points — but not as many as you'd hope.

If you answered B, you're right on the money. The poverty level for four actually is about three times less — $20,650 per year.

If you said A, you're probably a politician whose handlers forgot to feed you the correct answer on that and how much a gallon of milk costs.

Most of us know $57,000 ain't bad. We don't have to pick up staples at the food bank and sleep at the homeless shelter. But our hard-earned dollars don't stretch as far as they used to. We worry about losing our homes, filling our tanks at $3.65 per gallon and having our kids get priced out of college.

We know Michigan's in trouble just by looking at our drained bank accounts and nonexistent retirement plans.

Nonsense, argues Charles Ballard, a Michigan State University economist. The Great Lakes State is on a roll.

The past 30 years have been good ones for folks who probably flunked the means test above — those 100,000 or so households out of 3 million in Michigan. If you're looking for signs of recession, don't meander through the pristine enclaves of Okemos, East Grand Rapids and Bloomfield Hills.

Households making $166,000 per year or more — to put that obtuse richest 5 percent in real dollars — have been able to build McMansions and buy Mercedes, even as the Big Three implode and state budget deficits balloon.

Actually, the well-to-do are doing even better, thanks to tax cut after tax cut over the past 12 years. But money to keep kids vaccinated and police on patrol has to come from somewhere.

And it has — from you and me. Each cut has shifted the burden to those who work on the assembly line, teach young minds or are retired on a fixed income.

Ballard sums up Michigan's tax system, which is one of the most regressive in the nation, like this:

"What you have is the top 5 percent doing fabulously well, the top 20 percent ($92,000 household income) doing quite well and the other 75 percent struggling."It's a massive widening of inequality ... and nobody is talking about it."

A lot of leaders in Lansing don't get it. It's not just that they make a minimum of $79,650 per year. It's that many of them don't send their kids to public schools, don't ride the bus to work and don't worry about medical bills because they have the best plan money can buy.

When Gov. Jennifer Granholm blasts the pain of budget cuts, it's a pain she doesn't directly feel.

When House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche complains he can't sell his second house in tony Novi as proof that Michiganders can't afford a tax hike, he's out of touch.

What they need is more input from the majority — the struggling 75 percent — so they can pound out a budget with fairer taxes and better services.

But since hamstrung policymakers don't seem eager to invest in their constituents, we would do well to invest in ourselves.

Not just by voting for local millages to keep fire stations and schools up and running. But by socking away as much as we can, so our kids can go to Harvard like the governor, or study at the Sorbonne like Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.

Yes, even tuition at our world-class state universities has spiraled out of control, but they remain the best boot camp for the next generation of leaders.

And with the rate of progress in Michigan, they'll likely get stuck with plenty of problems to solve.

Taxpayers made good choices for Michigan on Tuesday

I am a Michigander by choice, not by birth.

When I moved here almost three years ago, I was fresh off a stint covering the Iowa presidential caucus, just about the only reason to live in the cornfields. And that circus only stampedes into town every four years.

Moving to a land lush with lakes, museums and actual professional sports teams (four of 'em) seemed like a pretty good deal.

After scaling Sleeping Bear Dunes and submerging myself in Diego Rivera's fervid murals, I fell in love — hard and fast.

Little did I know, I was bucking the trend to migrate into the Mitten State, instead of high-tailin' it out of here like 20-somethings by the truckload.

Sure, I'd seen the headlines about Michigan's catatonic economy. But it just didn't seem possible that the land built by W.K. Kellogg, Herbert H. Dow and Henry Ford could have plummeted to the prosperity level of Mississippi.

And it didn't seem plausible we would ravage funding for our world-class public universities to plug the state's $1 billion structural deficit each year — which will never go away until we overhaul the tax system.

But after working everywhere from Howell to Saginaw to Battle Creek, it became clear. My adopted state was in trouble.

Now we have one of the worst budget crises in the nation.And if Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Legislature can't thrash out a compromise to choke off a $700 million deficit by June 1, we'll see more teacher and police layoffs, more prison and school closings and more citizens without medical care.

We don't have the money.

Period.

But wait, it gets worse. The government could shut down — and that's not a good thing. We'll all feel the squeeze, beyond being unable to renew a driver's license. Cash-strapped cities and townships depend on state money to collect our trash, fix our roads and run water so we can flush our toilets. That's the stuff we take for granted.

So how do we solve this mess?

Tuesday, voters from just about every corner of Calhoun County took a surprising step. They modestly raised their own taxes or turned down rollbacks.

As much as we're all hurting, most people seem to think our schools, police and sewage systems are hurting, too.

Still, there are many, like White House adviser Karl Rove, who stubbornly maintain Michigan's problem is "too many taxes and too much spending."

That was the turd of conventional wisdom he dropped while recently collecting some cash for the GOP in Jackson. It's a sentiment too often echoed by Luddite legislators barely four months into office.

As someone who's just had to fork over a whole lotta money to four different governments, I can say that taxes do not top my list of favorite things.

But we've taken the tax-cutting frenzy too far, and our state is withering because of it. Not even Standard & Poor's believes purging $2 billion more in business taxes will jump-start the economy.

Almost 65 percent of Michiganders believe we need both service cuts and tax increases to get us out of the doldrums, compared to 23 percent who think cuts can do it alone, a new EPIC-MRA poll shows.

But Granholm is locked in an ego war with Senate Republicans, who seem to think approving a service tax is akin to calling for the slaughter of the firstborn.

They need to take a breath, and a page from our local officials, and invest long-term in what matters in Michigan — instead of slashing and burning our way to mediocrity.

All our kids need a top-notch education from preschool to postgrad. Cities like Battle Creek, Muskegon and Detroit need to undergo the renaissance Chicago has. Enough police need to be out there nabbing drug dealers and murderers.

Those aren't luxuries. That's called living in a civilized society. And study after study shows boosting critical programs — especially education — is the smartest economic development investment the state could make.But that takes money.

And a heaping dose of common sense, like Calhoun County voters showed Tuesday.

Most of all, it takes risk and innovation. Which was the very spirit the Wolverine State was founded upon, after all.

2006 Governor’s race: What will they do for Jackson?

By Susan J. Demas
Jackson Citizen Patriot

Andy Nastally swapped the assembly line for the unemployment line after spending almost his entire adult life at TRW Automotive.

Nastally, 28, was one of 400 workers to get the ax when the plant closed in July. Now the Jackson dad worries how to pay his heating bill and afford clothes for his three kids.

“I’ll never find another job like that,” said Nastally, an almost 9-year TRW veteran. “It’s getting used to poverty, I guess.”

Former floor inspector Elizabeth Powell, 44, also is among the 80 percent who hasn’t landed a new job since the layoffs.

“It’s a struggle,” said Powell, a 7-year TRW employee from Blackman Township.

As Jackson County faces an uncertain future, with 7.3 percent unemployment and another 500-plus jobs on the line at Eaton Corp., voters such as Powell and Nastally are anxiously looking to the governor’s race Nov. 7.

They’re not party loyalists. They don’t care about the $50 million-plus ad campaign, the priciest in Michigan’s history.

They have just one question for Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and GOP challenger Dick DeVos:

What will you do for us?

“I have a program, ‘No Worker Left Behind,’ for auto workers who are victims of the global economy,” Granholm said. “It helps them afford collapsed training in a new career like skilled trades or health care.”

DeVos counters it’s too little, too late – and he can do better.

“I’d tell them it’s time for a change,” DeVos said. “What (Granholm) is doing in Michigan obviously isn’t working.”

Governor’s grades

At the Jackson Coffee Co. this week, a khaki-clad Granholm came armed with hugs and handshakes for 200 supporters. After a full day on the campaign bus, her magnetic blue eyes still locked with every worker behind the counter.

What gets lost amid the shouts and cheers is that the governor — who has never lost an election — is fighting to keep her own job.

Four years ago, she was flying high as the state’s first female governor, with analysts lamenting Granholm’s Canadian birth blocked her road to the White House.

That was before Michigan bled 85,000 jobs, Ford Motor Co. announced 40,000 layoffs and General Motors hemorrhaged 35,000 buyouts.

Studies by University of Michigan economists and the nonpartisan,
Kalamazoo-based W.E. Upjohn Institute both project a net job loss through 2008 — regardless of who’s in the governor’s mansion.

Michigan’s dependence on the auto industry is one reason for its 7.1 percent state unemployment, Granholm argues.

Granholm also hastens to point out the state lost 240,000 jobs in the last three years of Republican Gov. John Engler, who also handed her a budget $4 billion out-of-whack.

“Like so many other women, I’m a mother and I’m used to cleaning up other people’s messes,” the mother of three said at a Michigan State University rally in October.

The centerpiece of her economic plan is the $2 billion 21st Century Jobs Fund investing in advanced manufacturing, alternative energy, homeland security and life sciences start-ups. She also signed a $600 million tax cut for manufacturers.

Granholm wants to replace the $1.9 billion in revenue lost from the repeal of the Single Business tax — almost one-quarter of the general fund — with a business tax weighted more on profits than wages.

U.S. House candidate Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, said Jackson County voters know Granholm has been “incompetent” at bringing the economy out of the doldrums.

“I would give her a ‘D’ grade,” said Walberg, who’s facing Sharon Renier, D-Munith, in the 7th District. “She won’t work with the Legislature. Engler worked with the Democratic House to get 21 tax cuts passed.”

Millionaire challenger

DeVos, 51, is shakier on the campaign trail than Granholm, but he was quick with a crinkled smile and hearty laugh at a 400-person Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce mixer last week.

The father of four has run as a political outsider, having only served two brief stints on educational boards. His wife, Betsy, is the former state GOP chairwoman and the Ada Township couple has given millions to Republican groups.

DeVos says the race comes down to leadership.

Touting his credentials as the former CEO of Amway/Alticor, DeVos helped spearhead this year’s petition drive to kill the Single Business Tax in 2007.

He supports replacing “at least half” the lost revenue through a business-based levy but said he’ll propose a new tax structure after Election Day. To make up for the shortfall, DeVos wants to “trim the fat” from state services.

DeVos also wants to overhaul personal property taxes for business, which generates $1.8 billion, and enact a “30-day shovel in the ground” policy for construction. He said Ohio and Indiana have benefited from “high taxes driving Michigan businesses away.”

“We need a businessperson in the governor’s office,” DeVos said. “We need to transform taxes and have one-stop shopping in state government.”

It’s DeVos’ record in business that Democrats have seized on — pointing to 1,400 Michigan jobs lost while Amway invested $200 million in China in the 1990s.

DeVos calls the claim “salacious,” maintaining he did not ship jobs overseas.

But state Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, says DeVos’ history hasn’t played well with Jackson County voters nervous about their jobs.

“He’s part of the problem in Michigan,” said Schauer, who’s being challenged by Elizabeth Fulton, R-Battle Creek. “People know Granholm is going to fight, like she has for the Big Three car companies.”

Jackson bound

During DeVos’ stop in Jackson, he called its 2004 “Cool Cities” designation a “nice-sounding idea” but questioned how much Granholm’s initiative had improved the area.

“I might be a little biased, but I think cities that work — that’s a cool thing,” DeVos said. “I know a little bit about that with what we’ve done in Grand Rapids.”

Granholm highlights the Armory Arts Project — which in May netted $10.5 million in state funds — as her “first example of how arts can foster economic development.”

She said it’s critical for manufacturing-based cities like Jackson to attract other development and attract young people.

Jackson County faces more challenges than with its economy. About 20,000 residents — 12 percent — lack health insurance, the Department of Community Health reports.

Granholm has proposed “no-frills” coverage for Michigan’s 1.1 million uninsured modeled around a plan signed by Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass. She argues it’s an investment since the high cost of health care is costing Michigan companies jobs, especially within the auto industry.

DeVos said it’s another example of “all talk, no action” by the governor, who hasn’t taken her plan to the Legislature. He favors tort reform to keep costs down and revamping Medicaid.

“We have got to get Michigan back to work,” DeVos said. “The best way to have health care is to get a job.”

Education is another area in which Jackson County lags, with only 16 percent of residents 25 or older holding bachelor’s degrees compared to 22 percent statewide.

Granholm has proposed a $4,000 merit scholarship for every Michigan student to meet her goal of doubling the number of college graduates by 2015. Vowing to invest more in K-12 education, she also signed a law beefing up high school graduation requirements.

“What I stress to kids is that there is a $1 million lifetime earning differential between those who graduate from high school and college,” she said.

DeVos argues Granholm has cut education too much. Though he led a 2000 effort for school vouchers, he said he’s “firmly committed” to public education and will fight to funnel more funding into the classroom.

Workers’ winners

So after sifting through the plans, the rhetoric and the non-stop TV ads, what do the laid-off TRW workers have to say about the race?

Nastally, who said he’s never voted a straight ticket, said he’s worried DeVos will slash school funding and other programs. Granholm won his vote with her plans for education and improving the skilled workforce.

“(DeVos) is wishy-washy in his answers on everything,” he said. “The governor has taken one hell of a mess and tried to turn it around. I don’t know if she could have done it any quicker.”

But Powell, who says she’s a lifelong Democrat, is pulling the lever for DeVos because “Granholm fell short of what she promised” about creating jobs. She also raised taxes on cigarettes.

“Things are so critical. I’ll vote for whoever can get the job done,” Powell said. “(DeVos) ran a corporation like Amway — he knows the ins and outs to bring new business here,” Powell said.

On Nov. 8, both Nastally and Powell will still be looking for work – and whoever falls short in the gubernatorial contest could be joining them. But offers likely will pour in for the multi-millionaire entrepreneur DeVos and Granholm, a Harvard-trained former federal prosecutor.

The TRW workers are in a different boat.
Facing her fifth month without a job, Powell lets out a long sigh. “I don’t know if either of them is concerned about us people.”