In his appearance Thursday night (May 8, 2008) at the Howell Opera House, well-known Michigan journalist Jack Lessenberry pulled no punches in describing the problems facing our state and placing the blame for them.
Term limits, lobbyists, and certain Republican policies are harming the state, Lessenberry said.
As Lessenberry explained it, term limits have caused gridlock and excessive partisanship in the Michigan Legislature by assuring that our state is run by people who know little and have their eye on the next job. Term limits are the delight of lobbyists because inexperienced legislators are dependent on lobbyists who know how the system works.
Last year's budget boondoggle hurt both parties, he said. That's the bright spot, in Lessenberry's view, because it's unlikely that members of either party will be willing to look so bad again.
As an example of the effect of term limits and lobbyists, Lessenberry pointed to the service tax, which was proposed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2007 to help balance the budget. The Legislature responded by placing the tax on every business that didn’t have a lobbyist. That left small businesses like ski lift operations, phrenologists, masseuses, and fortune tellers (no sympathy here, they should have seen it coming) to be taxed. The unfairness of this caused the Legislature to repeal the tax.
Lessenberry also cited the case of using the tobacco settlement funds to plug the hole in the budget. The state lost a half billion dollars because the Legislature didn’t have the courage to raise the income tax. To a Republican legislature, all tax increases are bad and all tax cuts are good.
Furthermore, Lessenberry said, Michigan prisons are overflowing because of the Republican idea of punishing criminals for minor drug crimes with a policy of "put them in and throw away the key." The result is a prison population that has skyrocketed to 51,000 today from 13,000 in 1982. Worse, it costs more to incarcerate a person than it would to send them to Harvard. Michigan spends more than any other state on incarceration while it cuts funds to higher education.
Lessenberry predicted that the year 2010 will be a year of great change. Not only will 31 out of 38 state senators be term limited out, as well as the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and others, but the ballot will ask the voters of Michigan if a new Constitutional Convention should be summoned.
Usually, LivingBlue likes to link to media coverage of events, but the Livingston Press and Argus didn't bother to cover Lessenberry.
1 comment:
Jack donated his gift gas card to a deserving family and he also
allowed his picture to be taken with me and my Pinwheels for Peace. His speech was entertaining as well as knowledgeable about Michigan Politics. I will Post the photo! It's better than the one on the flyer! I e-mailed him and said he was welcome to cut me out and use it! :).
Post a Comment