Here’s how to make Michigan better

I do a fair amount of speaking to citizens’ groups across Michigan. Most people I meet are polite, intelligent — and anxious to learn why Michigan has gone from being a national powerhouse to a poor state with a government that can’t seem to do anything right.

And they want to know, “What can we do to make things better?”

Forty years ago, Michigan was a state where wages were considerably above the national average. Today, though unemployment is less than five per cent, the state is a dismal 34th in per capita income. Higher education of some kind is essential these days.

But while someone in the 1970s could work during the summers and put themselves through school without much debt, skyrocketing costs have made that impossible. Young people today often graduate owing US$30,000 or more in student loans, which seriously cripples their ability to start a life.

Infrastructure is also a devastating problem. Detroit may be the city that put the world on wheels, but today the state’s roads are among the nation’s worst.

Despite widespread support for increasing taxes to fix the roads, and studies showing that would actually cost the average citizen less money in the long run (because of less wear and tear on their cars) the legislature has failed to fix the problem. That doesn’t make it easy to attract new jobs. Michigan’s personal income growth was less than half the national average between 2000 and 2013, according to the respected firm, Public Sector Consultants.

So what can be done? After decades of writing about Michigan politics and government, here are my suggestions:

Fight to end gerrymandering: Every 10 years, the legislature draws new congressional and legislative boundaries. Michigan Republicans had complete power the last time, in 2011, and drew some of the most grotesquely distorted districts in American history. Not only did they ensure they kept control, the whole principle of representative democracy was lost, because districts no longer follow community lines.

Worse, most districts are entirely safe for one party or another, and so representatives have far less incentive to reach a sane compromise. Voters not Politicians is a new group that plans to collect signatures this summer for a constitutional amendment that would switch the responsibility for drawing district lines to an independent, bipartisan commission.

Something like that would go a long way to restore a working democracy people could believe in.

End term limits: Michigan voters enacted some of the nation’s toughest term limits laws in 1992. Every serious observer agrees they have been a disaster. Representatives can serve a maximum of six years in the lower house and eight in the state senate. After that, they are banned for life. This has had horrendous consequences. Nobody serves long enough to really learn their jobs or forge the kind of relationships that made intelligent and effective compromise possible.

Lawmakers are instead often happy to put off dealing with serious problems. Term limits also foster corruption. There have been numerous examples of lawmakers looking out for special interests, not their voters, in order to get jobs as lobbyists when they are done.

Just fix the roads: With much fanfare, lawmakers enacted a plan two years ago they said would solve the problem. Trouble is, it doesn’t. Gov. Rick Snyder had the most sensible idea: raise the tax on gasoline and diesel fuel.

Boost the tax by 30 cents a gallon, and that means about $1.7 billion in new money a year. Gas, which fluctuates constantly, would still be less than it was a few years ago. Additionally, there’s sort of a rough justice to this, in that those who drive most would pay more.

Finally, fix education: The current generation of Americans may be the first in a long time who can expect to live less well than their parents. That’s largely because of weaker support for the public schools, and policies that have made it cripplingly hard for the middle class to afford college.

This is not only unfair; it endangers the future. Politicians running for statewide or national office should pledge to regard their children’s futures as more important than their own.

Doing all these things wouldn’t solve all of Michigan’s problems, but they are all absolutely necessary.