-
Bring Fenty Back
July 11, 2012 | 63 comments
-
Mitt W. Bush
May 7, 2012 | 29 comments
-
Education’s Medicaid Problem
January 11, 2012 | 39 comments
-
The NEA’s Progressive Turn
December 9, 2011 | 13 comments
-
Taking Over Lousy Schools
December 2, 2011 | 29 comments
Special Report
Dry Lakes
Michigan’s history of late has been one of growing malaise and steady decline. If only this pertained to football.
When it comes to sports these days, Michigan residents hardly have much to celebrate. Save for the Red Wings, the state has seen the recent decline of the Detroit Pistons into the cellar, the perpetual woes of the football Lions (now in its third decade in the NFL abyss) and bowl game losses by Michigan State and the University of Michigan (along with seven consecutive years of horrifying losses by the once-mighty Wolverines to the ever-loathsome Ohio State).
So the average Wolverine State resident has almost nothing to distract him from the headlines of economic malaise, fiscal collapse, and educational crisis on the front pages. And Rick Snyder, the state’s new governor, will have an even harder time turning things around than Brady Hoke, the new head coach of Michigan’s recently woe-begotten football team.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report this week that Michigan added 10,129 to its initial unemployment rolls during the first week of this year — along with news that 72,810 homes in the state were foreclosed upon last year — was another reminder that the state’s manufacturing-(and federal bailout-dependent) economy is still in the dumps. Michigan’s unemployment rate of 12.4 percent in November tied it with California for the nation’s second-highest (tourism-dependent Nevada beat out the Wolverine State for the number one spot). The state’s unemployment rate, in fact, is two-to-five points higher than that of its sister Midwestern states.
Two years of state budget tricks — including $1 billion in one-shot revenues for this fiscal year alone — have left Michigan officials scrambling to make up a $1.9 billion shortfall for 2011-2012. The state faces a longer-term crisis in the form of at least $70 billion in public pension deficits; based on estimates by Northwestern University Associate Professor Jonathan D. Rauh and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago, the busted pensions could be tapped out within the next 12 years.
State officials are still reeling from revelations two years ago that the state’s two corporate welfare vehicles, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (also called MEGA) and the Michigan Economic Development Corp., had awarded a $9 million refundable tax credit (which the state must pay to the recipient in cash) to a scheme orchestrated by Richard Allen Short, a convicted embezzler who based his operations out of a trailer park. The scandal proved particularly embarrassing to now-former governor Jennifer Granholm, who stood on stage with Short to thank him for his renewable energy plan.
While the spectacularly failing Detroit Public Schools system captures the nation’s attention for its systemic academic, bureaucratic, and fiscal failure, Michigan’s other elementary and secondary school districts aren’t doing much better. The performance of the Wolverine State’s eighth-graders from middle class homes on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress trailed their peers in 37 other states, according to a report released yesterday by the Education Trust, one of the nation’s leading school reform think tanks. Thirty-six percent of Michigan’s fourth-graders — and 39 percent of the state’s fourth-grade boys — read Below Basic on NAEP, higher than the already-abysmal national averages in both categories.
All in all, the decay shows. Declared the Grand Rapids Herald in an editorial last month: “Michigan is now older and poorer than it was 10 years ago.”
Certainly the Great Lakes state’s position as a Rust Belt bellwether in the age of a global, knowledge-based economy — along with the dwindling fortunes of federal government dependents General Motors and Chrysler — has put the state in a state of secular decline. But its long-term mismanagement of state government, decades of deal-making between governments and the state’s public employee unions, and the reluctance to embrace school reform has made the state even less attractive to longtime residents and newcomers alike. It will take aggressive overhauls in government and in education in order for the state to recover for the long haul.
The specter of Detroit and its spectacular rise and fall into corruption and ineptitude is as much a part of Michigan’s national profile as Mackinac Island. The scandal-plagued tenure of the Motor City’s former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick — now languishing in a federal prison in the tiny Michigan town of Milan — has recaptured the headlines after federal prosecutors indicted him (along with his father and several former aides and cronies) on 38 charges of alleged racketeering that includes collecting $360,000 in bribes from one contractor and another $300,000 in travel and other goodies from another.
But the Wolverine State’s own government culture is renowned for its stunning level of fiscal incompetence. Between 1995 and 2008, the state’s two economic development outfits poured at least $5 billion in subsidies into an array of job-creation deals that have yielded little; MEGA’s subsidies yielded a mere 17,971 new jobs, according to a 2009 report by the Mackinac Institute. The state’s motion picture tax credit scheme — geared towards bringing television and film production to the streets of Ann Arbor and other locales — cost the state $116 million in the 2009-2010 fiscal year for little in the way of sustainable long-term employment. None of the schemes have managed to help Michigan stave off the dubious distinction of being the only state that actually lost residents (some 58,000) between 2000 and 2010, according to the latest U.S. Census.
One underlying reason lies with a penchant for fiscal mismanagement that crosses party lines. After all, this is the state of Republican George Romney (who managed to double the state’s budget during his first five years in office — and force the state to enact personal and corporate income taxes to keep up with the spendthrifts) and Democrat James Blanchard (one of the few governors anywhere in the country in the past three decades to increase income taxes by 38 percent at the beginning of his term and being re-elected to talk about it).
Blanchard’s successor, John Engler, managed to clamp down on the tax-and-spending during his 12 years in office (along with successfully advocating for one of the nation’s first charter school laws in 1993 and enacting an overhaul of public assistance programs that helped foster the 1996 federal welfare reform law). But by the end of his term in 2002, he had pushed through the creation of the economic development agencies that would waste so much taxpayer money.
Granholm, who succeeded Engler, showed no willingness to significantly cut spending — and was aided by Republican legislators unwilling to hold down spending. Although spending increased by 12 percent between the 2003 and 2009 fiscal years, she often resorted to tax increases and delays in scheduled tax cuts in order to keep the budget afloat. Save when forced (such as when the state’s school superintendent forced another takeover of Detroit Public Schools), Granholm had little interest in school reform. Nor did she bother taking on the generous array of defined-benefit pensions and retiree health benefits that were helping to increase costs for the state, school districts and local governments .
Only into the last year of her term, with the state facing structural deficits, did Granholm managed to take some small measures to cut into the 11 percent increase in average public employee salaries that have contributed to increased costs. Still, being a retired public employee has its privileges. A retired teacher in Michigan who isn’t eligible for Medicare picks up just 12 percent of her $1,171 monthly premium for herself and her spouse; the state picks up the rest. When she qualifies for Medicare, she will pay just five percent of her monthly premium; the remaining cost is subsidized by taxpayers.
New governor Snyder, a venture capitalist who managed to beat out better-known names such as former congressman Pete Hoekstra to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination and then the high office, has already declared that he will slice into public employee costs and embraced a more aggressive school reform agenda. On the latter, he already has some help courtesy of the Race to the Top initiative, which prompted Granholm and Michigan’s legislature to allow for the expansion of charter schools and for teacher merit pay. The Republicans also control both legislative houses, for what it is worth. But with billions in long-term costs — including $8 billion in unfunded public employee healthcare benefits — that still must be covered, Snyder and the taxpayers will have a lot of recovery work ahead of them.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (50) | Leave a comment
More Articles by RiShawn Biddle
More Articles From Special Report
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/14/dry-lakes
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Bill Sundling| 1.14.11 @ 7:20AM
I used to live in Gladstone, which is 500 miles from Detroit and 90 miles from Wisconsin. The town of 5,000 is smaller than it was 30 years ago. It's part of Delta County, which lost population in the last 10 years. You can see what Michigan's economic policies have done to the area.
JAWilson| 1.14.11 @ 7:33AM
MI has got to start somewhere. And it sounds better than here in Quinnville Illinois. In both cases its the unions that have to give ground. I think its going to be a good study to see how either state fares against the unions.
Mike D.| 1.14.11 @ 8:15AM
Michigan is 10 years or more ahead of what this country will become if it keeps on the Socialist track we are on now. Its a union, rino republican, inept and corrupt government Jurassic Park where the socialist/leftist and statist dinosaurs can be seen still roaming in their native habitats. I was born and raised in Detroit and the decline has been steady for decades. All predictable, desolation, destruction, waste, and literal abandonment of cities and a population exodus to other states. A great state for vacationing, a disaster to live in. All brought to you by overspending over taxing government and their voting schills who enable them. So come America, visit us, but instead of the lakes, woods, streams, lighthouses, and other wonderful things to see and do. Drive through Detroit, Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw and see your future right now as it will be in the years to come. Because thats where it always goes when government(insert Washington D.C. here) is allowed to run wild and spend itself into the ground. All for our own good of course.
Eric Cartman| 1.14.11 @ 9:18AM
Agree with Ken - spot on, Mike D. Detroit used to be studied by city planners nationwide as a example of how to design and run a metropolis. Then, Liberals and racist blacks (always in the "You owe me so gimme" mode and dependent on government) got a hold of her and it became a third-world toilet. And Detroit is exactly what the country as a whole is heading towards if Liberals are not stopped dead in their tracks. Whoops! Inflammatory "elimination rhetoric" alert! I blame Sarah Palin.
Kris Lepine| 1.15.11 @ 10:57AM
Isn't it ironic, my husband was quoting Colman Young, MI's mayor in the 1960's and beyond, to new friends last night. After the Detroit riots in 1967, he told "whitey" to get out of his city. And they did, moving to Oakland County and other areas in droves. Many of the homes burned in that riot are still vacant and standing as monuments to inept, liberal rule in this country.
We lived in St Clair county for 40+ years but my husband worked in the Detroit area all that time, so had a first hand view of the continual decline. All the mayors of Detroit and most of the city counsel, have been Democrats since the 1960's. Why haven't Americans connected the dots, as Glenn Beck would say, and observed the cities and states worse off in this country are run by the Dems and have been for years?
Vernor's| 1.14.11 @ 9:46PM
Thanks Mike D. You're so right. What once were Michigan's great and productive cities now look like a war zone. Michigan needs to become a right-to-work state.
Kris Lepine| 1.15.11 @ 10:47AM
Exactly right Mike. We moved from MI to SC a year ago. One other city I would recommend visitors drive thru as well, Henry Ford's dream city, Dearborn, especially Warren Road. My husband drove me there last summer. It's worth seeing as an example of "unintended consequeces".Ford's anti-semite attitude (I'm being PC by saying attitude rather than hatred) caused him to import Arabs to work in his car factories.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.14.11 @ 8:48AM
Mike D.
You nailed it sir! Thank you.
WRTolkas| 1.14.11 @ 8:53AM
My son, a sophomore at Michigan Tech, returned home for his Winter break. He found in his room the congratulatory letter from Governor Jennifer and the documents awarding him the Michigan Promise Scholarship. This was $1000.00 a year scholarship for four years rewarding scholastic achievement in the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) test. I told him to frame this document with the title "Broken Promises."
The moral of this story: Michigan has money to throw to ghetto rats but not a dime for achieving students.
Eric Cartman| 1.14.11 @ 9:37AM
Houghton and surrounding areas are simply beautiful. Copper Harbor, Pictured Rocks, Grand Island, Isle Royal, Mackinaw Island - all God's country. We used to own one of the top restaurants in the area and catered to many MTU students (I took a few classes there, myself). Michigan is a beautiful state with great potential. As long as it is run by Liberals, however, it will continue its down hill slide.
sestamibi| 1.14.11 @ 1:25PM
I've been obsessed with the Keweenaw since my first visit back in 1977, and hope yet to retire there. Copper Harbor is my favorite spot on earth, and I've been to all 57 states :-)
But let's keep the secret among ourselves.
Eric Cartman| 1.14.11 @ 2:23PM
Yes . . . let's ;-) Didi you ever stay at the Keweenaw Inn? Built in the Depression era? Beautiful place. My grandfather was the head of the WPA in Michigan and upper Ohio Valley.
Frank Marschino| 1.17.11 @ 12:16PM
My grandmother was the first cheerleader at Hancock High in 1920 or thereabouts. I visited there as a child, the K Peninsula and Copper Harbor are God's country!
DG in GA| 1.14.11 @ 1:25PM
WR, could you explain your comment further? Are you saying your son was awarded an academic scholarship by the state but he will not receive the money?
I do understand your comment about throwing money at the "rats" however. In the same vein, I have a young cousin who is a college student in Michigan. She is paying her own way through school, but the state will not recognize her as a self-supporting student, so she can only afford to take one class at a time while she works full-time. Recently she met with the financial aid advisor at her college, who informed her that if she was a single mother, the state would not only pay her tuition, but would provide her with a place to live and welfare and food stamps to support her lifestyle. So, have an illegitimate child, get a free ride through college. Be a responsible young adult, pay your own way and take YEARS to accomplish your goal. I am very proud of her that she is choosing to go the responsible route. I am ashamed of the State of Michigan that they have been rewarding irresponsible behavior for over four DECADES.
WRTolkas| 1.14.11 @ 3:18PM
Dear DG in GA,
My apologies for not explaining further about the "Michigan Promise" Scholarship as this is common knowledge to Michigan residents. This scholarship was an enticement to perform very well on the MEAP exam. Many students put hours in extra study, purchased books, and hired tutors to enhance their abilities in various subjects. The test was taken, the scholarships awarded, colleges and universities were scheduled to accept the scholarships, students were counting on this money - then we received a message from Lansing: sorry, no money. Better luck next time.
Many student's parents had to scramble to find the money to replace this "promise" and I know of one student who had to drop out. The sum of $1000.00 per year maybe doesn't sound like much unless you are barely making ends meet. My son's books alone were $660.00 for this last semester.
Then you have the Dream Act which that cow stab-in-the-back has championed for years. It makes my head spin knowing how much money we throw at illegal aliens. I have a son in college now. I will have a daughter in college this September. Both are very bright and educated because of the school district (a very good one) and my insistence of academic achievement. These young men and women are the new class that is left behind. I'll see that my son and daughter get their chance at an education. Just don't ask me to donate with my tax money to the Dream Act or professional loosers.
Regards,
WRTolkas
brian| 1.15.11 @ 10:04AM
Is your cousin the wrong color?
Jacob McCandles| 1.14.11 @ 8:57AM
The decline of the auto industry has affected not only the employees of the Big 3, but also hundreds of auto supply and support companies. The attitude of the typical union autoworker is this: don't cut my pay, don't cut my benefits, don't take my job, and DO NOT work too hard in this plant. So many of these union slugs get paid for doing next to nothing, yet they hate you for buying a foreign made care. I grew up around these folks. Generally good people but the union domination and brainwashing has brought the whole thing down.
walt reed| 1.14.11 @ 11:17AM
I always drove Ford or GM products since I was 16, I am now 62.
I have purchased used Volvos and Mercedes for myself and my family over the past few years
I own a small company. We use GM trucks. As they cost out, I will buy Isuzu and Toyota.
I have respect for Ford Motor Company, but Michigan and their products are a dying breed.
GM and Chrysler will not exist in 10 years, no matter have much taxpayer money is funneled to the unions to buy their votes and return money to the DNC.
The British took the same path decades ago. In the end, after hundreds of millions of Pounds of taxpayer money, they still failed and were purchased for pennies on the pound by foreign interest.
Mike D.| 1.14.11 @ 12:03PM
I read in the Detroit News paper just this very Morning that the UAW will declare the Non-Union foreign car companies as "human rights violators" if they are not allowed to unionize under the banner of the UAW. I remember when I was a kid and I used to read or hear about the UAW labor contract discussions and they would designate one of the big three as a "strike target".
I thought, if these companies lived up the their contractual obligations why should they be designated as a "target" for any reason. Ahhh, but that was the political term for another legalized shakedown or increasing the cost of the protection racket fees they "owed" the union. Like I said, if Americans want to see the future the communists(and labor union hiearchies are filled with them) in DC have in store for them, by all means come and see the wasteland government and teacher unions, the welfare state, spending beyond its means, corruption and other great society/socialist marxist utopian concepts have wrought. Pure Michigan, were your future is here now.
DG in GA| 1.14.11 @ 1:29PM
After growing up in Michigan and seeing the damage that has been done to the state by the unions, I DESPISE all unions. I fear the "card check" legislation that Obama still supports. Unions destroyed the State of Michigan, just as they destroy the companies who are saddled by them. I am PROUD to live in a right-to-work state. I think the people of Michigan should wake up and recognize that they will NEVER be able to turn their economic ship around as long as they have the anchor of unionization holding them back. The people of Michigan need to vote to become a right-to-work state.
WRTolkas| 1.14.11 @ 4:55PM
Dear DG in GA,
I fully and profoundly agree. I, though not a union member, worked in a union manufacturing plant. My wife was a member of the union. That company is long gone. I will NEVER AGAIN work in a unionized company. Where I work now is not unionized, thank G_d. What did the union do for my wife? Well they picked her pocket every payday.
Be safe,
WRTolkas
UFO UFOS| 3.2.12 @ 4:33AM
I fully and profoundly agree.UFO
Tom in Michigan| 1.16.11 @ 5:41PM
I'm replying to both your comments above, Mike.
You are absolutely correct. The left has destroyed this beautiful state and, the future of America is here for all to see if we re-elect Barack Obama and allow the Obamaviks to do to the nation what they've done to Michigan
Lefist policies DO NOT WORK! THEY NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL! Come to Detroit and, we'll show you the results of their handiwork (plus, we need the tourist dollars).
skip| 1.14.11 @ 12:59PM
Add me to the rolls of AmSpec posters born and raised in Michigan (northwest lower version). In all my time living in various places around the nation and globe, I have always referred to it as 'God's Country', and all my acquaintances expect this reference. The state is unparalleled for the experience of all four seasons in ideal conditions. Comfortably cool summers. Falls Vermont has nothing on. Winters that are not frigid. And springs that follow 200 inches of postcard quality snow. More miles of shoreline than Florida, without the salt.The most pleasure boats in the nation. The most snowmobiles in the nation. The most public golf courses in the nation. Even the most bowling alleys. And the most deer hunters.
Then there's Detroit. There are two Michigans: Detroit and everywhere else. My mantra is liberalism is wholly lacking in intelligence and wholly lacking in honesty; has never produced any policy of any benefit; that every policy has been detrimental, destructive, damaging, and dangerous to our nation. Detroit is as much proof of this as any other area of the country. At least the ObamaslashPelosi of college football, Rodriquez, is history.
DG in GA| 1.14.11 @ 1:35PM
Detroit is where the giant sucking sound that is the taxpayer money going down the welfare drain is coming from. Always has been, always will be. Detroit is a disgrace, and is a shining example of liberalism in action. I used to live in suburban Detroit back in the 60's. I remember the riots, which were caused by nothing more than hot weather and left-wing agitation. Detroit's decline began there and never stopped. It's really a shame that the rest of the state, which is a pretty great place to live (especially West Michigan) has been dragged down by Detroit for so many decades. Too bad we can't just cut it loose.
Career Soldier| 1.18.11 @ 10:00AM
While I love your promotion of our "Great Lake State" and it's senic beauty, your overlooked some of the signs of our decline. We are now:
2nd to Florida in registered pleasure boats.
2nd to Arizona in public golf courses.
2nd to Wyoming in hunting licenses.
But in other ways we've excelled:
2nd to Neveda in unemployment.
2nd to DC in violent crime.
2nd to Arizona in forclosures and vacant buildings.
2nd to California in welfare and medicaid payments.
2nd to California in per student spending on public education.
2nd to California in public school teacher salary and benefits.
And (TA DA) #1 in the nation in high school dropouts, and #2 in lowest student test scores.
All thanks to our represive and greedy Michigan Education Association (teachers union) which protects it's pathetic teacher monopoly thru our "closed shop" law. Ah, the UAW legacy continues, as it's "choke hold" union tactics, adopted by the MEA, deprive our children of a decent public education.
You're correct though that there are two Michigan's. The steadily declining and increasingly violent lower penninsula. And the ever beautiful and tranquil upper penninsula. Hey, how come I still live in Grand Rapids then? (rhetorical) To the rest of my fellow Michiganders, "RUN, save yourselves. It's too late for me".
Sara| 1.18.11 @ 8:57PM
Skip, you have my sympathy. My father was an automobile dealer in Alabama in the 1950s. He loved his trips to Michigan.
We have several non-union auto manufacturing plants in Alabama now, all originally based in other countries. They pay well. But our state teacher's union has become as dishonest and double dealing as any political organization ever operating in our state. That says a lot.
As an Alabama football fan, I admit I was relieved when Rodriguez turned down his chance to be UA's coach, just before accepting Michigan's offer. I did think he was a dog the way he left WV. It seems his wife, Rita, didn't want to live in Alabama, which is really quite a beautiful state, as well. But I don't think any stylist here would have been able to maintain Rita's unusual hair.
Never mind though. Now Michigan is rid of the pair of them. Good luck in 2011. This too shall pass.
Sara| 1.18.11 @ 8:57PM
Skip, you have my sympathy. My father was an automobile dealer in Alabama in the 1950s. He loved his trips to Michigan.
We have several non-union auto manufacturing plants in Alabama now, all originally based in other countries. They pay well. But our state teacher's union has become as dishonest and double dealing as any political organization ever operating in our state. That says a lot.
As an Alabama football fan, I admit I was relieved when Rodriguez turned down his chance to be UA's coach, just before accepting Michigan's offer. I did think he was a dog the way he left WV. It seems his wife, Rita, didn't want to live in Alabama, which is really quite a beautiful state, as well. But I don't think any stylist here would have been able to maintain Rita's unusual hair.
Never mind though. Now Michigan is rid of the pair of them. Good luck in 2011. This too shall pass.
skip| 1.20.11 @ 1:53PM
I rooted for Auburn strictly because Alabama is a state so conservative and Oregon is a state so liberal.
Have enjoyed time spent in Gulf Shores. Every single state in the union has some beautiful areas that never get old.
Tradcon| 1.14.11 @ 1:26PM
One last progressive push from former gov. Jenny last year. The DHS pushed an ad campaign called, no less, "Welfare 101". They need to make it as easy as possible for people to apply for welfare. In my opinion, it's insidious. They won't even allow for people hurting financially, to seek out their own help by having to make a phone call, or check the internet. Besides, who the heck hasn't heard about welfare and how to get it that they needed ads!!! Cloward-Piven, anyone? UGH.
Nick| 1.14.11 @ 1:40PM
I'm not an expert on the auto industry, even if I have lived in the Detroit area my whole life.
But, I believe, the death of the American car industry was due to both unions and C.A.F.E. standards.
Unions were responsible for our inability to compete with foreign car companies.
Fleet gas milage regulations kept the Big Three from doing what they did best. Designing cars that people actually wanted to buy.
The Chevy Volt just won the "Car of the Year" award, for crying out loud! We are at rock bottom, folks.
PattyMor| 1.14.11 @ 3:25PM
For kicks, the Michiganders can buy binoculars and watch us over here in Illinoistan disintegrate before their very eyes. Our Demon legislators just voted in a 66% income tax raise. Say good bye to Caterpillar as they will just complete the relocation down south. Then anyone with assets will also move to escape the taxes. In ten years, we'll be Michigan.
Peter McGrath| 1.14.11 @ 3:31PM
I grew up in Birmingham, MI, and fled the state in '85 after graduating from MSU. No jobs. Zippo. Nada. Thank Christ my Dad didn't get me into the union. What a miserable existence that would've been, where the lowest common denominator is normative and mediocre is the gold standard.
Back then, Detroit was pretty rough but we'd bomb down to Greektown or Hart Plaza once in awhile and have a great time. The DIA (Detroit Institute of Art) was and still is a world class museum and most of the great Rock Concerts of My Youth were staged in downtown venues, like Cobo Arena.
A few years ago, when my Dad passed away, I took a road trip through east Detroit - Grand Avenue, the Cass Corridor, Telegraph and 6 Mile.
I will never forget the devastation, dilapidated structures, street after street of boarded up houses and businesses, and vast, overgrown, empty lots - a look of naked desperation in both the surroundings and the folks stuck living there.
A lump in my throat rose and my heart wept. A feeling of ... panic gripped me. How could this ... place ... be possible in America? Why was this allowed to happen, and on so vast a scale?
Today Detroit, moribund sad Detroit, stands as the purest example of liberal "good intentions." Our friends on the Left offer something for nothing, which adds up to poverty, misery and death for those receiving its benedictions.
Tom in Michigan| 1.16.11 @ 6:38PM
You know how I've stayed employed all these years?
I learned Japanese. Really. Went back to school when I was forty. If I was 10 years younger, I'd be learning Chinese.
As for liberal "good intentions." This is the greatest fallacy of modern America. Until November 22, 1963, liberals did indeed have "good intentions." But, when Lyndon Johnson became President, the "professional" left, as Robert Gibbs called them realized they could subvert those good intentions to gain power. That's why so-called "liberal" policies never, ever work - because the left uses them for their own purposes.
There are still "good intentioned" people who consider themselves "liberals" but, they are deluded, not realizing their leaders are leftists, progs - whose only goal is power. The key to saving our beautiful state and indeed, the nation lies in disabusing these well-intentioned people from the illusion those they follow share those good intentions.
Pat| 1.14.11 @ 7:45PM
Peter, as a much older ex-Detroiter living happily these past decades out West, the good old days actually were that good, something that usually isn’t true if you discount the nostalgia factor. Turning an unsophisticated but good hearted city into a landscape resembling those urban wastelands within many third world nations took a great deal of hard work. In the 60’s, Detroit, like much of our country, underwent a major change in personal values and before you could say “entitlement”, the Motor City morphed into the Moribund City, complete with that upbeat Moribund Sound. But, in the beginning, the change was nothing if not sincere; Michigan folks actually believed you could manufacture unending prosperity by raising taxes and forcing the so-called advantaged to help the disadvantaged.
Today, that concept might seem naïve, but people actually believed in it once upon a time and not in a cynical “what’s in it for me” way, but in the way a young child believes in Santa or a nun believes in the saving power of Divine grace.
Those first few years following the great 60’s change were filled with frustration, the average citizen didn’t quite grasp the concept, was slow to change, slow to embrace the new world order. As the years passed, as the beautiful promises failed to materialize, the intelligent among the citizenry took flight, the “we can do anything” intellectual well was poisoned and those new beliefs which seemed intuitively wrong to the older Detroiters became obviously wrong to everyone. Today, the raise taxes and spend your way to prosperity philosophy has lost its magic and the childlike belief in the essential goodness of that notion has changed to cynicism and resignation.
Weep tears for Detroit? Why bother – other citizens in other times and places have gone through the same process; the old Soviet Union comes to mind, what was once Russia’s great “New Beginning” is now deader than Caesar’s dog. A place is simply a place, it’s the people who make all the difference and the remnants of Detroit’s once great citizens face a long and weary road back to sanity. Like the fevered dreams of Karl Marx, the “something for nothing” philosophy must be allowed to run its sad and pathetic course once again. Best to turn away and not seek to reanimate a decaying corpse.
Kris Lepine| 1.15.11 @ 11:12AM
One more comment and then I'll quit. Someone talked about the majesty and beauty of the west side of MI versus the east side, where Detroit and surrounding areas are blighted. The west side of MI was and is non-union. Lower wages and standard of living, but still vibrant while the west side of the state crumbles. I lived, until a year ago, on the east side. Very sad as it didn't have to be that way. Highly recommend watching Glenn Beck's last 2 programs (Thurs and Fri). Extremely eye opening.
Career Soldier| 1.18.11 @ 9:32AM
Michigans west shore is anything but non-union. I take it you've never been to Benton Harbor or Muskegon? Both are smaller versions of Detroit. Heavy in unionized auto parts plants, now heavy in unemployment and decay and crime.
Michigan's 0nly hope to bring back jobs is to vote itself a "right-to-work" state and stop the lawful extortion of union dues.
Richard Baker| 1.15.11 @ 2:01PM
In 1985 I was out with two of my cousins from Mount Clemens and we were near the tank plant in Warren. I said let's go see my Grandmother's old house ( she left in '73) on 7 Mile and Russell (their Great Aunt). They stopped the car and looked at me in the back seat and said "Richie, we ain't got enough guns." That neighborhood was once populated by Poles, Romanians, Czechs, and others from Eastern Europe and was spotless but now was entirely black. They finally said "Don't ruin your memories." Sad what Detroit and Michigan have become by their own hands, yet.
Redstateboy| 1.15.11 @ 3:36PM
I grew up and lived most of my adult life in Buffalo, NY. As a kid I recall being in the backseat with my brother and two sisters mesmorized by the Refinery burn-off fires.. or seeing the night sky lit by the Coke-ovens of Bethlehem Steel. I was awed by the scale of the Westinghouse Plant, the early 20th Century Industrial neatness of the (3) Trico Wiper Blade plants.. the Chevy Delaware Ave. Plant.. the list goes on and on and on of Industrial Plants.. the Neighborhoods were clean and neat... the Poles and Germans were fanatical about their homes appearence.. Now? it's all Gone! I ask Liber-uls all the time.. what was the one single intertwining thread?? Unions!!! Could all of these factories closed because of incompetent Mmgt.?? Certainly some.. but All?? and those beautiful neighborhoods.. now you'd think you needed armed Humvees and were driving through the streets of Nirobi, Beirut or Mogidishu.. they're wastelands.. oh! and one other common denominator?? Buffalo has been run by Democrats for Decades.
Taxpayer| 1.16.11 @ 10:56PM
My family was one of the thousands who left Michigan when the jobs evaporated. We lived in Holland for 16 years, then Ann Arbor for 4. We loved Michigan, but we saw it going to hell in a handbasket over those 20 years. Michigan has so much to offer--so many great resources and people--but the unions and the socialists have choked it nearly to death. If the citizens can break that stranglehold, Michigan has a chance to rise again.
But until then, my family is staying in Colorado.
Tom in Michigan| 1.17.11 @ 8:04AM
The greatest testimony to the failure of leftist policies and, Gaia willing the imminent political left of the left is; not one leftist poster or even a troll has come forth to defend what's happened in Detroit at their hands because - it's indefensible.
Tom in Michigan| 1.17.11 @ 12:20PM
Sorry. I meant the "imminent political death of the left." Need a proof reader, I reckon.
Tom in Michigan| 1.17.11 @ 12:20PM
Sorry. I meant the "imminent political death of the left." Need a proof reader, I reckon.
Sara| 1.18.11 @ 9:29PM
I do believe the unions are the cause of the collapse of the auto and steel industries in our country as well as the author of many other disasters.
But unions weren't the likely cause of our desolate downtown areas. Birmingham, Alabama went through an almost identical metamorphosis in the 1960s, but it couldn't have been unions that caused it, because we had almost no unions. I am putting the blame for Birmingham's decline on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
We had industry: steel mills, pipe foundries, etc. We had beautiful downtown department stores. Downtown area neighborhoods were safe and well kept. Almost all families had two parents.
Then Johnson made it possible for young teenagers tired of listening to Mama and tired of following the rules of home to move out and get their own federally funded apartment and regular check. All they needed was a baby with no visible father. It wasn't long till several more babies came along, often with different fathers. Fewer teenagers were finishing high school. Violence increased. And the government was paying the tab.
Thank you, Lyndon Johnson
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 5:37AM
is good
العاب | 4.10.12 @ 12:46PM
I rooted for Auburn strictly because Alabama is a state so conservative and Oregon is a state so liberal.