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Gov. Granholm says nothing new in State of the State

By on February 5, 2010 1:20 am in Columns / 1 comment

 
Gov. Granholm says nothing new in State of the State
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Governor Granholm gave her last State of the State address on Wednesday.
I wasn’t “blown away.” In fact, I felt like I had heard her speech before somewhere. But where was it?
Right — a year ago, a speech given by Granholm herself.

The speech was filled with generic political rhetoric and feel-good statements about bringing jobs to Michigan.
The theme of the speech was transitioning from “Old Michigan” — a Michigan dominated by the auto industry and manufacturing — to “New Michigan” — a Michigan with a diversified economy.

She talked about bringing new industries and jobs to Michigan in the coming years, especially green jobs. And that’s good — I would like to see green technology come to Michigan. Wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear plants would be great for Michigan.

But she was talking about bringing more jobs to Michigan last year. So where are they?
Most of her speech that talked about new industries did not talk about who was already in Michigan, but who she wanted to bring in (with the exception of the film industry and Hemlock Semiconductor, which are already here). If all we do is talk about new jobs, Michigan will never improve.

Granholm also said Michigan has relied too heavily on the auto industry. I wholeheartedly agree, but I was disappointed that she never mentioned that auto unions played a major role in putting the auto industry in the sad shape it is in. Autoworkers failed to give in to wage and benefit concessions at a time that auto companies could no longer afford high salaries and Cadillac insurance plans.

Granholm also promoted a constitutional amendment requiring the Legislature to have a budget passed by July 1, stressing the need for bipartisanship and a willingness to compromise. I support that amendment, but the governor should be stressing the need for a willingness to compromise to her own party.

It was House Speaker Andy Dillon who decided to wait until the last minute to get his chamber’s budget passed, when the Senate had its budget prepared weeks in advance.
Dillon even allowed for long weekends of vacation after he knew that passing a balanced budget would be difficult. It is the Democrats who really needed the lesson in bipartisanship and compromise.

Finally, one point of the speech that affects us here at CMU was the Michigan Promise. Granholm stated that she wanted to bring it back, appealing to the students.
But before students start thinking Granholm is on our side, remember she was the one who took it away. I would love to see the Michigan Promise reinstated, but only if the state has the money, and we cannot sacrifice K-12 education to restore the Promise.

Those were the basic points of the Governor’s last speech. It wasn’t anything special, just more of the same.
And that’s not what Michigan needs right now.

 

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  • Maxine Berman

    Sorry, but we must have heard different speeches and been living in a different state for years.
    Of course the Governor talked about jobs again. There is nothing more important. But she listed, by name, thousands of new jobs in high tech/green industries. She is the one who brought the film industry here and it was under her watch that Hemlock underwent significant expansion. The Governor has brought in tens of thousands of new jobs to Michigan, but we have lost hundreds of thousands and yes, that is because of the bottom dropping out of our major industry, automobiles. And by the way, that bottom began dropping in 2000. From 2000-2002, we lost 150,000-200,000 jobs. Those were the last three years of the Engler administration. I’m not blaming Governor Engler either. But you seem to think the unions, who have made enormous concessions in pay and health benefits over the last decade–including taking over retiree health, and Governor Granholm were actually responsible for bad decisions made by top management in Detroit’s “Big” 3, including lagging years behind in making more fuel efficient cars. (You’ll notice that all 3 have changed their top people now.)
    Finally, you’re right that the House did lag on their budget. But you’re wrong on blaming the Governor for taking away the Michigan Promise. That was done by the Michigan Senate. The Governor could have vetoed that, but the Senate refused to talk about finding money for it and since the state was already in an extension budget period, the Governor had little choice but to agree to no veto on anything. The option would have been shutting down the state, meaning, among other things, no money for higher ed at all. The budget signed by the Governor was the Senate’s budget. The House, in the person of the Speaker, agreed to support the Senate budget if the Senate would later consider additional revenues. Or at least that was the story. The Senate later said that there was no agreement. I can’t tell you whether there was or not.
    Maxine Berman
    Griffin Chair