LSJ Blogs: Derek Melot is Just Asking

Campaigns don't matter

A visitor to the LSJ newsroom today remarked on the avalanche of political advertising in mid-Michigan and wondering what could have been achieved if the money were used for worthwhile endeavors.

Indeed, there is a growing body of research that argues political campaigns are pretty much meaningless. Once you know the macro situation — particularly the macro-economic situation — you will know how an election is going to turn out.

Who deserves thanks on new GM jobs?

General Motors will bring new Cadillac production to downtown Lansing — and 600 jobs to do the work.

Who deserves the credit for this boon for mid-Michigan.

Virg Bernero? He is the mayor of Lansing and he has touted manufacturing and the auto firms as mayor and gubernatorial candidate. He also asked the City Council to approve tax incentives as a lure for the GM work.

The Lansing City Council? Its members voted for the tax incentives, worth a reported $9.8 million. (GM’s overall investment in the expansion is supposed to be $190 million.)

Looking past Gillespie's win

Now I know why developer Pat Gillespie looked so relaxed at Ryan Field last Saturday as he enjoyed the Spartans’ comeback against Northwestern.

On that rainy, then sunny Saturday, Gillespie’s big Market Place project was in limbo. The City Council had twice deadlocked on approving brownfield tax credits. Conflict was high; chances for progress seemed low.

Barely 48 hours later, Gillespie was back on track, though. Ingham Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina reviewed Gillespie’s legal request for relief from the council and granted it, forthwith. State law was on Gillespie’s side, a point Lansing City Attorney Brigham Smith had tried to make to the council before its votes.

So, where does this leave politics in Lansing?

Oesterle spends; Byrum donates

In the last 24 hours, I’ve seen three airings of a TV ad touting Republican Jeff Oesterle in the 67th House District and heard one radio ad.

Today, I read, via Gongwer News Service (subscription only), that Democratic Rep. Barb Byrum of the 67th District donated $20,000 to the House Democratic Caucus’ campaign fund, presumably from her own campaign kitty.

It’s common for politicians in uncompetitive races to donate money to help political allies. So I would take Byrum’s donation as a sign she thinks she’s free and clear for another term in the House.

Yet, Oesterle is running TV ads, something you don’t see much of in uncompetitive state House races.

One of them is making a smart calculation and the other one isn’t. I wonder which is which.

On being more like Indiana

In his visit with the LSJ Editorial Board, Rick Snyder pointed to Indiana’s Mitch Daniels as a governor worth emulating. And Tim Skubick has reported on Snyder listening to such budget ideas as selling state assets (Mackinac Bridge) to raise money, a la what Indiana sorta did with its toll road.

Having just used the toll road to drive into Chicago on a Friday afternoon, I can say that I wasn’t impressed with the new operators — a private consortium. Construction repairs seem poorly designed and timed. And the road’s toll plazas are, frankly, a mess.

But who cares about my road rage. Let’s talk garage sale budgeting.

Benefits under the electoral microscope

Public employee compensation will be the issue of the next five years. Even in San Francisco, voters are upset enough that they forced a vote on Nov. 2 to contain compensation.

Public workers are right to worry that some factions are just out to get them. But the reason this issue is rising to the fore is the disparity between what happens in the world of taxpayers vs. the world of government. Taxpayers won’t long tolerate paying for benefits they cannot afford for their own families.

In San Francisco, this means “A typical San Francisco resident with one dependent pays $953 a month for health care, while the typical city employee pays less than $10. In 2009, San Francisco’s deputy police chief earned $516,000 in cash compensation and retired with a $230,000-a-year pension—a package that could cost the city $8 million over the balance of his life.”

Any wonder that voters are upset?

Granholm leaving, economy rising

Gov. Jennifer Granholm must read reports like this with a wry smile: “Michigan can expect economic growth in the 1 percent to 2 percent range next year, according to Comerica Bank’s chief economist Dana Johnson, speaking yesterday in Livonia.”

So, next year, Gov. Rick Snyder is going to enjoy his first year in office with a growing Michigan economy. He’ll profit from it politically, even though he had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Rick Snyder, read this

This is what truly serious budget hawks do when presented with a monumental fiscal crisis. A brief taste:

"According to Treasury calculations released for the first time, the £81 billion of cuts will leave every household worse off, whatever their income. But eight million higher earners will be hit hardest through higher taxes and the loss both of access to public services valued at more than £500 every year and welfare payments."

This is in Britain, of course, where Conservatives campaigned on fiscal austerity and, with their Liberal Democrat coalition partners, are actually doing what they campaigned on. Extraordinary.

Winds of change in House

Back in the summer, assessing the economic angst  and anti-incumbent mood of the electorate, I surmised that the Republicans would gain control of the Michigan House in the Nov. 2 election. This would require a net gain of at least 13 seats from the GOP’s current total of 43. (56 seats in the 110-seat House provide outright control.)

Come September, I started to think the Dems would hold on. Part of my reconsideration centered on the 67th District now held by Rep. Barb Byrum, D-Onondaga. In summer, I figured Byrum would be in big trouble against Republican Jeff Oesterle.

Of unions and markets

 Bonnie Bucqueroux makes some solid points in her commentary about the political trends swirling around the Lansing City Council tax incentive votes. I particularly like this line: “High-school kids in Michigan graduate without ever learning that the enviable standard of living previous generations enjoyed was the direct result of the work of the unions in our state.”

I suspect there are plenty of young people out there oblivious to the fact their grandparents knew a world without a minimum wage, or that their parents knew a world with laws against a black person marrying a white person. Social change has come so fast, the recognition of, and understanding for, where we once were have been lost in the shuffle.

I do want to quibble with Bucqueroux on a tangential point, mainly because I’ve heard her view expressed elsewhere: “Frankly, I look at the new Lansing City Market and I see a pole barn, a facility far smaller and less appealing than the one it replaced. Does this inspire confidence about building Market Place next door? And why do the artist’s renderings rarely resemble the final project once it is built?”