Jack Lessenberry

I ran into John Rakolta late Tuesday afternoon, as he was arriving on Mackinac Island for the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce's annual policy conference. Nobody could possibly question Rakolta's conservative credentials. He's raised millions for GOP candidates over the years. He was a national finance chair of Mitt Romney's first presidential campaign and was state finance director for Rick Snyder. He has a graduate degree from Harvard Business School, and is the CEO of Walbridge, the giant century-old construction firm that has been owned by his family for decades. Yet Rakolta is passionately committed to education and saving Detroit's schools. He not only supports Gov. Rick Snyder's plan to spend $715 million to give the schools a new start, he thinks that isn't enough. "There are 65,000 skilled jobs in Michigan right now that employers can't fill," he told me while walking up to the Grand Hotel. "Sixty-five thousand!" He added that our schools weren't turning out students with the skills to take them. Rakolta is a conservative, but one who both has a conscience and who believes we need to plan for the future. He came to Mackinac primarily to be on a panel this morning,"Kids Reap Rewards When Leaders Leave Comfort Zones to drive Detroit Schools Reform." Rakolta is something rare in Michigan today. He is a true leader, a man approaching 70 who has spent his entire life in the private sector, a conservative who recognizes the need for a public sector that can help prepare our kids for the future. I've never asked him, but perhaps that's because all four of his grandparents came from Romania, a country that was one of the worst hellholes on earth under Communism. They came to a place where public education helped them make it. Rakolta is not alone; there are other business leaders who recognize the need to save the schools. Some of this is likely enlightened self-interest; it is hard to plan for the future when you can't find workers who have basic math and literary skills. When I first attended a Mackinac Conference in 1988, there was a clear and obvious divide between business and labor; Republicans and Democrats. Today, you might say the split is more between the rational and irrational, between those honestly seeking solutions and those consumed with irrational ideologies, fears and hatreds. However, not many of the latter are at this rather expensive conference. Most of the attendees are undoubtedly Republicans, but my educated guess is that very few wanted Donald Trump. Nobody, in fact, is talking much about the presidential election. They are focused on Michigan. They know this has been a grim year. Flint has largely ruined the career of the governor who had always been hugely popular with this group. Additionally, it has sounded a clear warning about this state's aging infrastructure. Michigan has devolved in the last three decades from one of the nation's richest states to one among the poorest. Education is in crisis, not only in Detroit but statewide, income inequality is stark and growing, and our political system seems paralyzed. With that backdrop, those attending this conference are struggling to find a way forward for Michigan to have a future. We need to wish them luck. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Richard T. Cole, who most people know as Rick, is a remarkable man who's had several careers, sometimes simultaneously. I was first aware of him when he was press secretary and chief of staff to Governor Jim Blanchard in the 1980s. Later, he was a senior executive at Blue Cross Blue Shield, and worked with Mike Duggan back when the man who became Detroit's mayor was overhauling the Detroit Medical Center. But Rick Cole is also an academic with a doctorate who was a professor and department chair at Michigan State. He did some serious writing and research on child abuse, and even served on a Federal Centers for Disease Control task force. And he contacted me the other day to alert me of a new epidemic of child trauma going on this year, something that was the focus of a study this spring by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The highly respected center, founded by the legendary Morris Dees, exists, as its motto says, "to fight hate and bigotry and seek justice for the most vulnerable members of our society." This year a whole lot of hate and bigotry have been on display in the current presidential campaign, most of it stemming from one candidate. The man who now seems certain to become the Republican presidential nominee has promised to deport every person who is in this country illegally, and to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The Poverty Law Center did a massive study on how a phenomenon they call "The Trump Effect" was affecting teachers and students. They surveyed more than two thousand teachers and found the effects on them, their students, and their ability to learn was immense. In their words, "our report found that the campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color, and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom." Many minority students, who don't exactly understand what "illegal alien" means, fear being deported. This is true not just of Hispanic children but many Muslim and black students as well. There has also been a noticeable increase in bullying and harassment of minority students. Many are scared. In Tennessee, the study found a frightened Latino kindergarten student who asks his teacher every day "Is the wall here yet?" In Oklahoma, an elementary school teacher said that his students were terrified and believed that a President Trump would deport them – "and none of them are Hispanic; all are African-American." Naturally, teaching in such an atmosphere of fear isn't easy. On top of that, teachers face an anguishing dilemma. Do they dare to speak out, and possibly risk losing their jobs for partisanship? According to the study, more teachers than ever are simply ignoring the campaign, whereas they traditionally would use it as a real-world civics lesson. Some teachers worry over whether to take a stand. One candidly said she would keep her mouth shut, because she needed her job. But a Michigan high school teacher who has never been political before said "I feel it's my duty to speak out against ignorance." Dramas like this are playing out in America's schools this spring. And as with the lead poisoning in Flint, the long-term effects may take years to assess. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

The governor and the legislature are currently fighting over how to rescue the Detroit public schools from financial collapse. There's a general recognition that this has to be done, if only because the consequences of not doing so would cost the state even more. The state constitution requires Michigan to provide an education for all children. Detroit's schools are half a billion dollars in debt and on the brink of not being able to pay their staff. The house and the senate are far apart on money, but the real issue dividing them is whether to put any restraint on the spread of charter schools. The governor wants to establish a Detroit Education Commission that would have a say in where any proposed new public school, conventional or charter, could locate, in order to prevent the sort of destructive competition that has left some areas dreadfully underserved. The state house, however, wants no restraints over the charters of any kind, and the Speaker has indicated that's more important to him than saving Detroit's schools. But beyond Detroit is an even more significant story that Michigan Radio reported last week, but too many news outlets basically ignored. The Education Trust-Midwest, a non-partisan research organization, released a report showing that Michigan schools were among the academically weakest in the nation, and getting worse. If you think this is only a minority-based problem, think again. In fact, in terms of fourth-grade reading, affluent Michigan fourth-graders are already 50th. This will have devastating consequences for our economic future, in a world where virtually all new good-paying jobs require education beyond high school. This may have come as a surprise to some lawmakers, but was anything but news to one mother I know. Rebecca Kavanagh is a Michigan native in her 40s with two kids in a fairly affluent Detroit suburban public high school. She and her husband moved back from San Diego in the year 2000 to raise their children in what was then regarded as a model school district. "We moved here for the schools – and now I am holding my breath hoping my kids get into college," she said. Her daughter, the oldest, has a 3.9 GPA, but Kavanagh said "she's not seeing the same high scores on her ACT and SATs – and yes, I do blame the schools for not preparing her." While the teachers focus on "teaching to the test," her parents, both graduates of Michigan State, worry their kids aren't being taught what they need for college readiness. "I know it didn't used to be like this," Rebecca said. "My mom was a teacher. I believed in Michigan's education system. And I'm not sure it can ever recover, honestly." The Education Trust report indicated recovery may be possible, but not through any quick fix. "We won't succeed with the one-off investments that Michigan has long tried," the report concludes. "It's going to take a series of interconnected changes in policy and practice, fueled by strategic investments over multiple years." That would mean no more robbing the schools to give businesses a quick, politically popular tax cut. It would mean a policy of putting our children and our future first, which is what responsible government should do. I'm not sure that any issue could be more important. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

I didn't grow up around a racetrack culture, but the ponies did affect my life. I had a rather irresponsible algebra teacher in high school, who was very fond of horse racing. I took Algebra I and II the last hour of the day. The teacher would put a bunch of problems on the board, tell us to solve them, and slip off to the track. We never reported him, and we all passed, though today I know about as much algebra as does my dog. Well, I know only slightly less about racing than I do about algebra. My knowledge was formed largely from watching the Kentucky Derby on TV, and movies like the Lemon Drop Kid. I did go to the Hazel Park Raceway once or twice years ago, but found it a seedy and depressing experience. The father of a friend, Detroit writer Dave Mesrey, actually dropped dead there. Back then, you placed a bet by going up to the window, just like in the movies, and plunking your two dollars or $10 or $20 on Fleabiscuit. I was also aware there were people called bookies who would illegally place bets for you if you couldn't make it to the track yourself. Well, I learned recently my knowledge was way behind the times. Horse racing has gone into a steep decline – possibly because casinos and lotteries and other forms of gambling are ubiquitous. Seventeen years ago there were nine racetracks in Michigan; now, there are just two – Hazel Park and Northville Downs. According to Lindsay VanHulle, reporting for Crain's Detroit Business and Bridge Magazine, virtually all the gambling revenue these days comes from betting not on live races, but on so-called simulcast races broadcast at the track. That would seem to me to take all the fun out of it, but now the racing industry wants to go a step further and have online betting, which they call by the sober term "advance deposit wagering." Basically, you could sit on your couch and bet the rent money on the ponies without ever having to go near a race track. Personally, I think that's an awful idea, and was pleased that a provision that would have allowed online betting was stripped from a bill now before the state senate. There is a general consensus that Michigan's horse racing statutes need to be updated, in part because of disagreements over how to split the simulcast revenue. But the tracks themselves say they need online betting if they are to survive. Long ago, I learned that virtually every thinking person has some issues on which he or she is both conservative and liberal. On gambling, I have the mentality of a Baptist preacher or a primitive Marxist. It is destructive, unproductive activity that ruins families and enriches some of the more unsavory elements in society. I recognize people have a right to do it, but we already make it very easy. Allowing gambling addicts to blow their paycheck on a cellphone bet on a horse race they will never see sounds like bad public policy to me. The race tracks say they'll eventually need this to survive. If that's the case, I think we need to ask whether they should. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

A long time ago, when VCRs were state of the art technology, Ronald Reagan became President, and his captains proclaimed a new economic philosophy: We'll give massive tax cuts to everyone, but especially corporations, and that will cause them to create millions more jobs. Formerly unemployed people will become productive taxpayers, and even though they pay lower tax rates, the revenue will come flowing in, and governments too will have more money than ever before. They adopted a Kennedy-era slogan, "a rising tide lifts all boats," and the revolution's sacred relic was a napkin on which economist Arthur Laffer had supposedly drawn a curve in 1974 showing how all this was supposed to work. Cut taxes, get more revenue. It was a great theory. In practice it resulted in record federal budget deficits, and the beginning of a massive transfer of wealth from the poorer half of the population to the richest few, a pattern that continues today. Most economists regarded the Laffer curve theory pretty much the way George Bush the first originally described it – "voodoo economics." Regardless, five years ago, a businessman named Rick Snyder got himself elected governor of Michigan, and tried a slightly crueler version of the same thing. Snyder economics involved a massive tax cuts for businesses and corporations, cuts to education, and the taxing of people's pensions. Fortunately for him, Michigan benefited from the national recovery. But the Snyder cuts never produced the jobs we were led to expect, and according to today's Detroit Free Press, the number of jobs created has actually dropped every year since the Snyder tax cuts took effect. And yesterday we learned that for this year and next, the expected rising tide has left us stranded in the mud. The state is projected to have almost half a billion dollars less than an over-optimistic revenue estimating forecast expected in January. If this were a lurid novel, you might call this "The Death of Rosy Scenario." This resulted in worry lest the legislature use it as an excuse to kill the effort to save Detroit Public Schools, or reduce the help available for stricken Flint. So far the governor's office indicates that neither is on his agenda, though things like the effort to prevent tooth decay in poor children may take a hit. But there is a solution, and it lies in a chance remark made by the state treasurer yesterday. He said part of the reason for the shortfall was that citizens were spending more on services and less on stuff. Bingo. If you sell me a length of copper pipe, I pay six present sales tax on it. If I pay you to come install that pipe, I pay no sales tax, and the state gets nothing. Why is this? Because times have changed, and our tax collection ideology hasn't. Back when the sales tax started in the 1930s, we were overwhelmingly a manufacturing state. We made and sold stuff. Now, the world has changed. We are primarily a service-driven economy. Not extending the sales tax to most services makes no more sense than not extending it to hybrid cars. The legislature could easily fix this, and save Rosy Scenario, just by passing a law. But that would sacrifice ideology for reality. So, don't hold your breath. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Every so often it comes home to me that we really live in multiple worlds. The "official" one is what we see presented by the media on radio, television and in newspapers. This is a more or less rational world, though people don't always behave rationally in it. There are certain shared assumptions about things like, for instance, the presidential election – what the candidates stand for; what the issues are, that sort of thing. We journalists think we have the big picture. Perhaps, but in reality, we spend a lot of time talking to each other and people who think like us, just like Tennessee Baptists and Trotskyites do. This is something which has been brought back to me even more powerfully by this year's election. Almost none of the experts in any of the media took Donald Trump seriously for months and months, even after he started winning primaries. He was going to disappear after New Hampshire, and then was going to peak at 20 percent of the vote, and then a third of the vote, and then was going to be stopped at the convention ... and then every one of his rivals dropped out. Almost the same thing happened with the Democrats, where Bernie Sanders' candidacy didn't even make the front page when he announced and was treated dismissively for many weeks. Sanders is unlikely to win the nomination, but will have beaten Hillary Clinton in more than twenty states before the primaries are over. Yesterday, I was in a sandwich shop in Charlevoix, an hour from the Upper Peninsula, and was chatting with Jan, a server I've known for more than twenty years. Jan is in her late sixties, and is anything but rich. She had to scramble when her former restaurant closed last fall, and I was thrilled she'd finally found another job. She has to work two to make it. When she gave me my chicken salad, she said "don't you do political commentary? It must be quite a year for you!" I asked what she thought. "I think Trump is going to win, and that's just fine with me," she said. "My mother used to say, if you have a man who loses a million dollars, don't worry, because that means he knows how to make it again." I'm not sure that is Keynesian economics, but I think there are a lot of people who think that way. I didn't have a chance to ask her about the story splashed all over the copy of New York Times lying on the counter, about Trump's alleged loutish behavior towards women. I have as strong feeling she would have given it a dismissive wave. Now, a conversation in a coffee shop is not advanced survey research. But somehow, Jan seems very real. Three days after George W. Bush was reelected, I was approached by a bewildered elderly liberal Jewish lady. "I can't believe this. I've never even met anyone who voted for Bush," she told me. I told her there were 62 million of them, and she was wrong about that. In fact, too many of us seldom talk to those outside our little tribes. If you don't think that's part of the problem, then you may be part of the problem too. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Michigan has very minimal requirements for gun sales. But you need to get a permit before buying a pistol, and there are a few people who aren't allowed a license, mainly those with a possibly dangerous mental illness or a criminal conviction. State Representative Robert Wittenberg introduced a bill last week that seems pure common sense. He wants to require gun licensing agencies to notify police and prosecutors when someone applies and fails the background check. He thinks if someone is trying to buy a gun who isn't allowed to have one, it is a pretty reasonable guess that they are up to no good, and the authorities should know about it. My Michigan Radio colleague Rina Miller asked me about this bill on the air Saturday, and I said I thought it was sensible – and had no chance of passing. For one thing, Wittenberg is a Democrat, and would probably not be able to pass a bill honoring Mother's Day if he didn't have some powerful Republican cosponsors. But for another, the fanatics of the National Rifle Association and their allies own enough lawmakers to never let any gun control legislation pass, no matter how sensible. Later that day, I heard from a man with an interesting and nuanced perspective. Harry Frank is a gun lover and collector. He sells guns, trades guns, and is a concealed-carry permit holder in both Michigan and New Mexico. Yet he is anything but a redneck racist in a pickup truck. He is a retired professor of social psychology at the U of M Flint, who now lives in Ann Arbor. He has no use for the NRA, and considers them "the worst possible spokesman," for the Second Amendment. He wrote to President Obama three years ago and said "I am a 1960s liberal ... and a lifelong Democrat who hasn't missed a primary or national election since I voted for Lyndon Johnson." But he is a fervent believer in gun rights. He doesn't think Wittenberg's bill makes a lot of sense, since trying to buy a gun is not proof one intends to use it to commit a crime. But as for background checks themselves, Frank told the President : "Bravo! It's about time. When I see the racist (and possibly prison) tattoos that adorn many of the buyers who frequent gun shows," he doubts man should have guns. He suggests, however instead of having dealers do background checks, the government should e-mail "no-buy lists" to every licensed dealer every week. Harry Frank knows his stuff. He showed me statistics indicating that while so-called assault rifles are frightening and get all the attention, that's misleading. Far more people are actually killed by knives than by rifles of all types. Handguns are our murder weapon of choice. Frank thinks the solution is merely for Congress to allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to do its job and restore its regulatory and enforcement powers. I would personally be in favor of far more severe sanctions against guns than he. But if we are ever to have anything approaching a sane gun policy, it will have to be spearheaded by responsible gun owners like Dr. Frank. I hope he can find a way to make his voice more loudly heard. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

If you've been around for a while, it isn't hard to be cynical about Michigan government in general and the legislature in particular. As I've said a few million times, a combination of term limits, gerrymandering, and a dogmatic anti-tax ideology has prevented our lawmakers from taking care of our needs or preparing for the future. Well, I talked with an energetic young man yesterday who is anything but pessimistic. Sixteen months ago, I first met Brian Stone, who had a brief moment of national fame involving his hometown, Dearborn, and the persistent rumor that it is under Sharia law. Dearborn, whose most famous native was Henry Ford, does have a substantial Muslim population, something that has caused Tea Party types in other states, including a U.S. Senate candidate from Nevada, to claim it is a Muslim terrorist hellhole. Dearborn in fact has an Irish-American mayor and far more churches than mosques. Stone, a Navy veteran who was finishing a degree at the U of M Dearborn, ran around with a friend last year and posted pictures of a strip club, ham store and other non-Koranic institutions, with a sign saying "Dearborn Sharia law!" When I interviewed Stone then, he told me he felt compelled to do this in part because he was gay. When people were beating him up in high school, Muslim students were the only ones defending him, perhaps because they were outsiders too. Well, Stone is now an old man of 29, and has become passionate about making the world a better place. So, he's running for the legislature, trying to win the Democratic nomination in August for his home district, which includes almost all of Dearborn. The seat is safely Democratic, but he has to get by four opponents in the primary first. So he's been campaigning door to door in his battered 2009 Ford Focus. He isn't rich, but as a Dearborn patriot, bought Ford Motor Company stock when it was near its lowest levels. The auto industry has come roaring back, and that has enabled him to wage a full-time campaign. Stone told me his top issues were infrastructure and education, but he seems motivated primarily by a passion for social justice. He became aware that traditional debt collection agencies are being pushed out of the marketplace by unscrupulous banks which were calling themselves "debt forwarding agencies" and doing the same work more recklessly. A legitimate Dearborn firm, Midwest Recovery and Adjustment, sued, and won a unanimous verdict in the Michigan Supreme Court. But Brian says the banks are still behaving badly, and claims the state attorney general refuses to prosecute them. That, he tells me, is why he wants to be in government. I told him that if he did win, he would be a lowly freshman in what may still be a Republican-controlled body, serving with a Republican governor. Wouldn't that be frustrating? Nope, he said, reminding me that he is gay, a Buddhist and a U.S. Navy veteran. Just surviving required him to become a master of the art of persuasion. I don't know if Brian Stone will win his race, or even if he should. But I do know that if are ever going to fix things, it will take more people who are cheerfully willing to try. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

When the current presidential campaign began, there were two things on which the expert talking heads agreed. Bernie Sanders was a far-out fringe candidate, and Donald Trump was a carnival sideshow who would be gone long before the snow melted. Well, guess what? Donald Trump is going to be the Republican presidential nominee, despite never having run for anything before, and despite having only officially been a Republican for about four years. Bernie Sanders, of course, is not technically a Democrat at all. He is, as the world now knows, a proud Democratic socialist. Barring some kind of act of God, Sanders will not be the Democratic nominee – but he has won nineteen states, including Michigan, and is likely to win a few more. Trump and Sanders are political polar opposites, but they have one big thing in common. They believe the system is no longer working, and they are appealing directly to those who are mad as hell and don't want to take it anymore. Many Americans – possibly most of us – feel that way. Hillary Clinton, for whom the system has worked just fine, doesn't appear to have a clue. Neither did the now half-forgotten Jeb Bush, who the experts predicted would be the Republican nominee. Clinton is on track to win the nomination, thanks mostly to overwhelming support from minority voters and party officials. But she is losing eighty percent or more of young voters to Sanders, which should be enough to make her campaign deeply worried. And if most people feel the nation is on the wrong track, it's almost certain that even more think politics and government in Michigan are an utter mess. There's no question that term limits, gerrymandering, and ideological blindness have nearly destroyed the ability of government to respond effectively to the state's needs. The largest school district in Michigan is on the point of collapse, but the legislature, which is entirely controlled by Republicans, is still divided over whether to pass the Republican governor's plan, something that would give Detroit's schools a fighting chance. Our roads and bridges are dangerously falling apart, but the legislature for years obstinately refused to do anything about it. Finally, last year, they did pass a bizarre bill that raises some taxes, doesn't fully kick in for years, and will never provide an adequate level of funding. What it does provide will be dependent on lawmakers slashing spending on things like education and health care by $600 million a year. Meanwhile, State Representative Jim Stamas seemed to have little interest on conducting a real investigation into what happened in Flint. But he was very enthusiastic about passing a law preventing local communities from banning environmentally disastrous single-use plastic grocery bags. My guess is that he made some lobbyist for a plastic bag manufacturer happy. What this state needs is a new political movement led by someone who is a combination of Trump and Sanders; someone who will lead a revolution of sorts, one in which politics and government are again based and focused on common sense. That would take a lot of work and a lot of money. But given the condition of what used to be one of the best governed states in America, I can't imagine a more important cause. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Imagine bringing Abraham Lincoln back to life today. What do you suppose he would find most shocking about life in today's America? Airplanes? Same-sex marriage? A black president? It might be modern plumbing. But I can tell you one area where he would be puzzled, dismayed, and angry. And that would be that we are letting our infrastructure fall apart. While we think of Lincoln primarily as a great moral and military leader, the focus of much of his career was on what then were called "internal improvements. " Today, we call this infrastructure, the often forgotten underpinnings of our civilization. That means roads and bridges and wiring; water and sewer pipes and systems. We built these decades ago, when we were an expanding civilization and believed in ourselves. Now, they are falling apart. Thirty years ago, there might have been some controversy over how to pay for new roads if we needed them, but there was never any real question about whether to do so. Now, we are literally letting our country fall apart. Last night, I had the privilege of moderating an Issues and Ale event Michigan Radio hosted in Lansing. Our panelists were three people who really know this state's infrastructure: Charles Ballard, a professor at Michigan State who specializes in our state's economy. Aarne Frobom, a longtime planning specialist with MDOT, the Michigan Department of Transportation. And Mike Nystrom of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association, which is essentially a lobbying group for the construction industry. We met at an excellent place called the Beer Grotto, a stone's throw from the Capitol Dome, where decisions that will lead to the saving or neglecting of this state's underpinnings are made. Earlier that day, the American Society of Civil Engineers released a report saying that over the next decade, the nation is projected to spent $1.4 trillion – that's a thousand billion –dollars less than needed on our infrastructure. This gap is only expected to widen. In Michigan, the situation is worse, especially for our neglected roads. The legislature did finally pass a bizarrely complex plan last year, which eventually is supposed to generate another $1.2 billion a year for our roads. But the panelists agreed all this will do is cause our state to fall apart a little more slowly; the real amount needed is more than $3 billion. The fact that a nation still as rich as ours is allowing our foundations to crumble is baffling – until you understand that economics have nothing to do with it; this is driven by ideology in its worst form, plus the destructive effects of term limits and gerrymandering. Economist Ballard said as a joke that he wasn't sure whether carpet bombing would be worse than term limits for our state. I'm not sure it is a joke. Fully twenty percent of the legislature has signed a no-tax pledge which has resulted in the mindless rejection of proposals that would make save us serious dollars in the long run. There is one bit of good news. As Mike Nystrom noted, for the first time, polls show that infrastructure needs are now the number one issue in Michigan. So all we need now is a responsible government that really cares about our people and our future. Good luck in getting there. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.