Shovel-Ready Infrastructure Not Necessarily Future-Ready Infrastructure

Shovel-Ready Infrastructure Not Necessarily Future-Ready Infrastructure

Funding Shovel-Ready Projects May Only Dig Nation's Car-Centric Hole Deeper

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Even though Washington has approved $17 billion in TARP funding to Detroit's Big Three car makers to tide them over to spring, the news that one renowned billionaire investor has dumped his considerable holdings in Ford, whose stock has plummeted this year and now resides at about $2, should be a tale of caution for public officials, from president-elect Barack Obama and a new Democratically controlled congress who want to open the flood gates on massive spending on infrastructure to under-gird its economic recovery plan, to consider the best interests of the nation as it chooses between infrastructure projects ready for a shovel and projects that are ready for the future.

Economic development professionals and public policy makers have rounded up thousands of conventional infrastructure projects, the vast majority of which are about roads and bridges and by extension cars, as projects that but for the lack of a shovel could create jobs quickly.

With the American economy in a tailspin of such velocity that nearly 2 million jobs have been lost in 2008, it is clearly appetizing that car-centric projects involving roads and bridges move to the front of the class ofObama's stimulus package. But the question being raised by a growing chorus of economy watchers is whether throwing billions of dollars into convention projects is wise? The need for the nation to find a better, more affordable and realistic road to mass transit, which is growing in popularity as family and community budgets tighten in the wake of job losses from companies that have thrown in the towel, is clear.

In Ohio, for example, the state department of transportation proudly announced it performed 493 road and bridge projects this year. The same can probably be said for the other 49 states when it comes to road versus non-road projects. A new report issued by a 62-member task force to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland about the "crisis" state of state transportation efforts, offers guidance on spending. But the guidance, sadly, is for conventional, past-ready projects that some critics of "shovel-ready" projects would say spends good money on old infrastructure that will only gobble up more funds in a handful of years because their life-span is short and repair and maintenance will soon be needed.

Chester Jourdan, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and a task force member, said the report represents a long-overdue attempt to "move the state beyond its traditional role as builder and fixer of highways to one as a strategic creator of interconnected public transit, rail, road and water routes that can boost economic development," according to Columbus Business First (CBF).

“Not everything in the report will be put into law, implemented or passed tomorrow,” Jourdan told CBF. “But there are some tremendous opportunities for Ohio to do some things that are significant, bold and innovative.”

High sounding as the report is, it reflects many of the committee's agendas, which appear mired in expanding on conventional, old-school technology. One would be hard pressed to find language in the report that opens the door to include or embrace outlier technology like Tubular Rail or PRT or Monomobile . All three of these "unproven" technologies, as their critics would say of them, are advancing to proof-of-concept [PRT will soon be seen at Heathrow Airport outside London, England]. For supporters of "proven" technology like steel-wheel-on-rail trains, which is proving that building tomorrow's transportation infrastructure based on yesterday's technology is outrageously costly at a time when Ohio, among other states and the nation, is using a straw to breath because its budget is so far under water, with little expectation that new jobs can roll in any time soon.

So while a specific infrastructure project may be "shovel ready," by its very nature it may not be "future ready." Building advanced transportation systems that avoid the pitfalls of current, conventional technologies -- costly, difficult to build and environmentally unfriendly -- seems a wiser, more prudent tact to take for the tsunami of funding Washington will wash over the nation in 2009 to reclaim prosperity and the middle class jobs that are key to it.

Both Tubular Rail and Monomobile represent outlier technologies that have an uphill climb before them. State bureaucrats, totally risk averse by nature, only seem interested in fully baked cakes -- late stage commercialization in program talk -- and don't seem too eager to help start-up companies gain the traction they need to show their technologies may be eminently cheaper than conventional transportation infrastructure, not to mention quicker to be built which translates into new, sustainable jobs. But as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his trilogy of books on the unforseen phenomenon of why new, small events can suddenly bloom into game changers [Tipping Point, Blink and Outlier], a new idea like Tubular Rail, prominently featured in the Discovery Channel's episode on future trains that will air in January, that uses readily available existing technology in a new way isn't shovel-ready but it is "future-ready."

Hungry lobbyists representing the infrastructure status quo will use their sharp elbows to eat up as much of Obama's infrastructure stimulus package as it can, despite the fact that putting money into their agendas may only dig us into a deeper hole because it furthers our dependence on cars and the roads and bridges they need to operate. The same will be true for rail, which is using its capacity for freight. High speed rail on conventional tracks, while it sounds good, is just too expensive. California voters who approved a $9.5 billion bond package this November for only a quarter of the state's projected 800-mile system [close to that of France] will find out that build out costs will be double or triple the cost sold to them, and that's after they settle lawsuits with the Union Pacific railroad over use of their tracks.

The Wright Brothers invented heavier-than-air, controlled flight in 1903. If Orville and Wilbur were to show up today to ask Ohio development officials for money for their outlier technology, the Wrights would be wrong in thinking Ohio would give them a dollar since their invention wasn't in the "late stages of commercialization" and they couldn't bring $3 in investments for every $1 of state funds. So while Ohio, which worries over loosing more of the 250,000 jobs directly or indirectly tied to the Big Three of Detroit, claims itself on its license plate as the "Birthplace of Aviation," it hasn't recognized that a new industry, like Tubular Rail, which can be every bit as powerful as planes or cars, can be had for a song, creating many new jobs in Ohio for former Chrysler, Ford or General Motors employees who have either lost their jobs or soon will be seeking state unemployment benefits.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter and business columnist. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Lewis' Carol on Modern Financial Insanity A Wonderland of Failure

Lewis' Carol on Modern Financial Insanity A Wonderland of Failure

Liar's Poker Author Says TARP Dollars Down a Rabbit Hole

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Michael Lewis has one really good question about the use of TARP funds. Why was Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and by extension the White House and all the legislators who bought into the panic memo that said America's financial sky was falling, was in such a pell-mell rush to handout $700 billion to banks whose assets were troubled because they made bad loans when the money should have gone to banks, maybe even some small banks, that made good loans?

On a segment of MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" about how the US and now the worldwide economic meltdown happened and why the TARP program is both not working and secretive, Mr. Lewis said it was a total collapse of the entire system, from the banks to the rating agencies to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal regulator he said was an "embarrassment." Out of clear blue skies, Lewis said our current problems were "auto generated by financiers" and aided by federal treasury officials who seem to change their game plan daily and keep their actions secret.

Having earned his pedigree in financial analysis from inside Wall Street and the world of high finance as a bond salesman for Salomon Brothers in London in the late 1980s, Michael Lewis' latest book, Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity, adds another important perspective about the marketplace he knows well and some of the individuals whose fame, fortune and reputations were made and lost there.

Lewis' short answer to how we got into the financial mess we're in, posted in an interview at the money and The Motely Fool, a Web site about money and finance, was the "ability of Wall Street to repackage subprime mortgages as an investment-grade security" that then became worthless when the "casino in side bets" against the subprime mortgages going bad, went bad themselves. An even shorter answer, Lewis says, is the underpricing of risk, a factor he claims is common in many financial panics, especially modern ones. "They have sort of systematically misclassified the nature of the risk that they are dealing with," he says about how Wall Street got its insurance priorities mixed up.

The author of best sellers like Liar's Poker, The New New Thing and Moneyball, among other works, Lewis says finance has become complicated due in part to academic research. Mathematical models were offered up and smart people used them to justify their misguided belief that financial gravity wouldn't apply to them. They then jumped off buildings, financially, of course. Expecting to fly, they instead nosedived to earth, the power of their elaborate assumptions and mathematical schemes having blown off in their cliff dive.

Some investors, generally the first ones ensnared in Ponzi or "pyramid" schemes, oftentimes make money. It's the ones who come later or last who are sucked dry by the vortex of back-paying schemes to make it all look legitimate. Lewis' anthology book comes out just as Wall Street and big investors woke up to the news that Bernard Madoff, a long-time hedge fund manager, made off with $50 billion of their funds. Lewis doesn't specifically equate the meltdown of Wall Street with a Ponzi scheme, but he says it in so many words. Charles Ponzi, whose eponymous scheme to defraud investors is being replicated four score years after the scam on postage stamp speculation he funded with just $30 dollars went bust, is a household name again.

First fault lies with rating agencies like Moody's, 20 percent of which is owned by Warren Buffet, according to Lewis, who said the problem subprime mortgages has wrought on us all could have been nipped in the bud had these firms done their jobs. But with profits big and easy to make, why take the punch bowl from the party.

The Kool-Aid that washed it all down was leverage, borrowing too much, and no one having enough skin in the game to care what happened.

"If the Wall Street firms had been partnerships instead of corporations, if the people in them had had total long-term engagement with the risks they were taking, they never would have done what they did. If American culture had not evolved to inure people to the risks of leverage, then I don't think nearly so many people would have borrowed money they couldn't repay." [Michael Lewis]

Lewis says TARP funds [Troubled Asset Relief Program] should start at the bottom and trickle up. And that if banks fail after individual homeowners are kept in their home through subsidies or recalculating loans, then so be it.

"I think you let more institutions fail. I think there is no solution that is not a painful solution. I think that this top-down approach of trying to sort of hand over taxpayer dollars to failed banks, hoping that they will become successful banks, is a mug's game ... what they should do is target homeowners in their homes, and use that subsidy to subsidize those people so they stay in their homes, and re-jig the mortgages so they lower principal balances, and so and so ... you start with the level of the crisis, which is the level of the individual homeowner. And if, above that, and while you are doing that, some of these institutions fail, then they fail." [Michael Lewis]

The unintended consequences of handing huge sums of money to failed enterprise are seldom appreciated, Lewis says. "I hope that the Treasury and the Congress has already learned something from the money they have handed out to the banks. It wasn't a smart thing to do."

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

On Making Our Own Stuff Again

On Making Our Own Stuff Again
Import Substitution Factor in Economic Recovery Plan

Spending on Right Infrastructure Good First Step

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: The foreign trade goal of third-world countries who want to graduate to emerging economies is to substitute imports with goods made at home instead of in foreign nations. American manufacturers, spurred on by tax policy that paid them to outsource millions of middle-class jobs over a decade and more, have turned the one-time butcher into the fatted calf that China and Pacific Rim nations, where labor is cheap, have been feeding on for quite some time.

Having lost millions of jobs due to policies like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that a political outlier like Ross Perot, running as a third party candidate in 1992 against then-president George H.W. Bush and a young, brash governor of Arkansas who would twice be elected president, said would produce a great "sucking sound" as jobs crossed the Rio Grand, was the tipping point of American manufacturers who used to make goods with American labor, making goods with low-cost foreign labor that were then imported to a hungry nation of consumeroids trained to buy not to save.

But America is now caught in a a fierce recession that could take it down like the La Brea Tar Pits did to once-mighty creatures who inadvertently got caught in and succumbed to its sticky ooze. To extricate ourselves from the fate that met Saber-toothed Cats and other creatures of prey whose bones are testament to their misguided misfortune, maybe its time America starts doing what emerging nations have done to keep their hopes alive, their money at home and their jobs from wandering abroad: start making our own stuff again.

It might not be the best for corporate bottom lines and the shareholders that enjoy them, but it sure would be good for the top lines of American families and the communities whose survival is dependent on their incomes. Would you rather pay a dollar less for something and create a job overseas or pay a dollar more and create a job for your neighbor? The answer to me is no contest.

The nation could loose 3.5 million jobs and unemployment could be 9 percent or higher, according to Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post. Speaking on the News Hour on PBS, she said 41 states face budget deficits now, among them Ohio, where a potential $7.3 billion gap is the largest in history. Montgomery said Obama's spending payout could last two years due to the fierce recession facing the nation. Montgomery said fixing rather than building would get more money more quickly percolating through the economy. For the construction trades, who she said have the highest rate of unemployment of any sector, over 10 percent, traditional infrastructure spending would be best. But she said a "green stimulus" may well be part of the estimated $775 billion Obama's economic team is talking about now. If the plan is good "economic medicine and not just a grab bag" for politicians, she said it would be viable.

Economist Robert Frank, also interviewed for a segment on infrastructure spending, said that if the "government doesn't spend, we're in for a terrible downturn." New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine rattled off projects like the Hoover Dam, the TVA, the Golden Gate Bridge, the George Washington Bridge and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels as WPA projects that made a tremendous contribution to reducing employment in the 1930s and still serve the nation nearly 80 years later. He said such spending won't be a panacea, but it will contribute to putting idle hands to work.

The first thing we can start making is our infrastructure. Weeks ago I wrote "Pax Obama Stars in Rebirth of a Nation," my opinion about President-elect Barack Obama's need to fix, repair and build infrastructure systems like water, sewer, roads, bridges and rail that can put lots of people to work quickly. But he also needs a grander strategy for continued job creation. World War II saved the bacon of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose turn to conservatism in 1936-37 nearly quashed his mighty works programs like the WPA and CCC that created much-needed jobs for the nearly quarter of the workforce out of work. Obama and the new Democratic Congress must overcome the vortex of forces driving our current economic meltdown by playing their infrastructure trump cards early and smartly.

Newly minted Nobel Prize winner and New York Time's columnist Paul Krugman seems to echo my prognosis to prosperity in his Monday column. In it Mr. Krugman opines that more will be needed than the Obama's expected pursuit of $800 billion or more in deficit spending to turn the economy around.

In so many words, Krugman appeared to endorse the Spinelli plan of "lets make our own stuff again."

"A more plausible route to sustained recovery would be a drastic reduction in the U.S. trade deficit, which soared at the same time the housing bubble was inflating. By selling more to other countries and spending more of our own income on U.S.-produced goods, we could get to full employment without a boom in either consumption or investment spending...Despite rising trade in services, most world trade is still in goods, especially manufactured goods — and the U.S. manufacturing sector, after years of neglect in favor of real estate and the financial industry, has a lot of catching up to do." [Paul Krugman, New York Times]

A growing chorus of advocates who want to see more federal and state investments in infrastructure cautions that not all infrastructure is created equal. This piece posted on the progressive Web site Daily Kos said that investments in roads and bridges, while why might be "shovel ready" would only harden America's dependence on cars and become magnets for more public spending because they don't last that long.

"The last thing, the absolutely last thing, that America needs now is more miles of highway. Pave another half a million miles of road, and you end up repaving up to fifty thousand miles of that a year. And the costs of infrastructure goes up sharply when that new highway starts to attract housing development.

"A hundred billion dollars invested in new highways is no investment at all. It's a commitment to spend another ten billion a year. Forever. Recreating the employment and energy of the WPA is a great idea. Replicating the outcome is begging for a white elephant we can't afford." [Daily Kos ]

The growing interest in rail-oriented infrastructure, as attested to when the lion's share of public transportation projects on the November 4 ballot passed, shows that America is ready to consider and pay for alternatives to cars. This may not be good for Detroit's Big Three car manufacturers, but if they got behind the ball on this, as I said they should do in "Time Right to Shake Up Detroit," they too could benefit, as could their suppliers who are thirsty for new systems and the new components needed to build them.

Making our own stuff again starts with conventional infrastructure, including roads and bridges, but must expand to new public mass transit systems that can create a bounty of middle-class jobs, the lifeblood necessary to rebuild our urban cores.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Solis Selection Gives Solace to Wary Workers

Solis Selection Gives Solace to Wary Workers

Is The Day Workers Stopped Standing Still Here?

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Seasoned sailors can anticipate coming weather by interpreting clouds. When clear blue skies show the encroachment of streaking strains of stratospheric clouds, mariners know something more formidable this way comes.

Workers have reason to believe their fortunes may be brighter under the administration of President-elect Barack Obama than former presidents. From the era of Ronald Reagan to our current lame duck president, when it comes to worker's rights the current occupant of the White House has acted in the interest of Ebenezer Scrooge than Bob Cratchit, the miser's underpaid and abused employee.

But with the selection of Hilda Solis, a Democrat Congresswoman from California as secretary of labor, who will replace current labor secretary Elaine Cho, wife of ultra-conservative and anti-labor Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, workers have hope again that the war waged against them for decades will either come to an end or at least be joined by a better armed army that can fight back. Solis has walked picket lines and will have the backs of workers, whose chance to form unions, greatly despised by Republicans and even some Democrats, could tilt the balance of power away from captains of industry and their sycophant down-chain managers who took pride in keeping all labor costs but their own down to them.

Solis will champion workers, the heart of any business great or small, rather than stiff-arm them as has been done for decades. The leading edge of the Obama weather system gives workers evidence that they may no longer be forced to act like shooting gallery targets, forced to stand still as business managers and elected public officials forced them to take wage concessions and then stacked the deck against them by making the process of unionizing difficult and unsavory.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote of Obama and his selection of Solis as "developments that portend a radically different environment for the nation’s workers."

From Ronald Reagan’s voodoo economics to Henry Paulson’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, he said "we’ve put the mighty resources of the national government overwhelmingly on the side of those who were already rich and powerful."

Herbert's article quotes Andy Stern, president of the huge Service Employees International Union, saying, "We’ve had a 25-year experience with market-worshipping, deregulating, privatizing, trickle-down policies, and it has ended us up with the greatest economy on earth staggering, and with the greatest amount of inequality since the Great Depression.”

Included in his column is the now-famous statement about showers and baths. Leo Gerard, president of the steelworkers union, said of the government’s attitude about workers, "Washington will bail out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards.”

One non-partisan economic think tank in Ohio said the roots of the current "staggering financial catastrophe lie in over-reliance on the market, excessive deregulation, and our economy's failure to deliver for most families." Researchers from Policy Matters Ohio show that wages have been essentially stagnant for the typical worker since the late 1970s, despite rising productivity and tremendous growth in incomes at the very top. To access the basics, PMO argues that many families went deep into "poorly regulated" debt, which was not sustainable for individuals or the economy; price we're all paying the price for now.

Their remedy is better regulation and better wages. One way PMO says is the path to better wages is to make it easier for workers to join a union.

But we know that the bastions of business will go nuclear to defeat enactment of legislation known as Card Check. Card Check, shorthand for the Employee Free Choice Act, is a method of organizing employees into a labor union in which employers enter into an agreement to recognize the unionization of its employees if a majority of employees in a bargaining unit sign authorization forms, or "cards".

Under Card Check, introduced in the United States Congress in 2005 and again in 2007, the NLRB would recognize the union's role as the official bargaining representative if a majority of employees have authorized that representation via card check, without requiring a secret ballot election. It was passed by the House on March 1, 2007, but failed a cloture vote in the Senate. Card Check allows employees to choose a secret ballot process to elect union representation if they do not desire a card check election, but employers are required to accept whichever method employees choose.[Wikipedia]

Big Business, lead by powerhouse groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, say the program would "result in employees being subjected to coercion by unions, employers, or other co-workers." But they have no problem coercing workers to take pay cuts, as is happening in President Bush's proposal to use federal funds to keep Detroit's Big Three car manufacturers alive until spring. Southern senators with foreign car plants in their states have laid the blame of Detroit's car costs on wages and benefits negotiated by the United Auto Workers. These senators want the UAW to reduce their wages aboub $3-per-house to levels for workers at Toyota or Honda.

The coming four years could be the thaw labor and workers need to regain levels of dignity, pride and wages they've been missing. Solis could be the solace wary workers have been waiting for.

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

American Debt Greater Than Collective Networth, Budget Birddog Group Forecasts

American Debt Greater Than Collective Networth, Budget Birddog Group Forecasts

Subsidies, Savings Highlighted as Sinners and Saints

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Recent calculations forecasting that America's debts and other financial commitments will soon exceed the collective networth of its citizens, marks a historic first at precisely the wrong time, when the escape hatch out of a long, rough recession calls for massive new spending by a new president and congress.

The foreboding prediction of America under financial water came from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF), the eponymous budget birddog group that's riding like Paul Revere to warn us about our financial crisis and how to avoid the disaster it will bring if presidents and other leaders don't act with dispatch.

In its latest newsletter, the group who made "I.O.U.S.A," a tale of how America accumulated its sky-high debt that was recently nominated for the Critics' Choice Awards for Best Documentary, said unfunded promises for social insurance programs such as Medicare, when combined with a drop in the networth of Americans due to lower home equity values, has brought the world's reigning super power to it s financial knees.

The foundation's dire warning is based on new consolidated federal financial statements as of September 30, 2008, numbers that do not reflect the additional toll taken by more recent market declines, bailout packages, and record October and November deficits.

Hard to fathom but all too true, the group's math show that $56.4 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded promises for Medicare and Social Security is for the first time in the nation's history more than a total of household networth, which it pegged at $56.5 trillion.

"Given more recent developments, it's clear that America now owes more than its citizens are worth," said Foundation President and CEO David M. Walker, writing for the group's newletter. "Passing this shocking milestone highlights the need for President-elect Obama and the next Congress not only to turn the economy around and boost consumer confidence, but to put a process in place that will lead to tough choices getting made to strengthen the government's financial condition once the economy begins growing again."

In a related piece called "The Breadth of Brokeness" about the extent of government's problems, author Gene Steuerle outlines a dozen areas where President-elect Barack Obama and a new Democratic-led Congress can make changes.

Many government programs were created decades ago for a different economy, a different family and industry structure, and even a different understanding of our economic and cultural opportunities, says Steuerle, who observes that "many of the agonizing debates over the past three decades have represented a see-saw battle, more often over symbol than substance, leaving in place agencies and programs often moribund and incapable of meeting many modern needs."

Concerns expressed by Steuerle on various topics - health care, tax policy, social security, disability, environment, housing, consumer protection, antitrust, justice, transportation, education, pension policy - may appear on first glance as curmudgeonly, but seem eminently foresighted in their practicality and ability to plan ahead rather than react to.

But the sheer size of the financial picture it paints will be troubling to art lovers, who will come to realize that the rich paying more and individuals saving more are fundamentals to reaching the surface so America can again breath on its own, without resorting to artificial aid like foreign borrowing.

In a separate story on Ohio's worsening budget picture, Policy Matters Ohio, a non-partisan economic think tank, argues that the "roots of the current staggering financial catastrophe lie in over-reliance on the market, excessive deregulation, and our economy's failure to deliver for most families." PMO researchers say wages have been essentially stagnant for the typical worker since the late 1970s, despite rising productivity and tremendous growth in incomes at the very top. The group says "many families went deep into (poorly regulated) debt, which was "not sustainable, for individuals or the economy, and we're all now paying the price. With Obama's selections for various cabinet posts and regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, PMO's call for better regulation and better wages may be realized.

Focusing on the Buckeye State's budget hole of $7.3 billion, the largest in its history, PMO says "failure to fill it will lead to devastating cuts to essential services, services that currently provide the basics to children, families and communities." Further more, not filling it now will "suck money out of our economy just when we need to stabilize, leading to a deeper and longer recession." The research group says only the federal government can come through with aid to cities and states now. But criticizing a five-year incomee tax cut plan Ohio Republicans pushed through in 2005, PMO advises Gov. Ted Strickland and a split legislature to "stop further implementing tax cuts that were ill-advised in any economy and will deepen the crisis."

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Pro-Democratic Alignment Possible, Vote Turnout Report Posits

Pro-Democratic Alignment Possible, Vote Turnout Report Posits

African-Americans, Anger, Fear Drivers for Obama in 2008

Mobilization Good But Candidate, Issues Better

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: A final report on voter turnout in the 2008 election found that a possible pro-Democratic alignment is underway, propelled in part by a historic high level of support among African Americans, while Republicans lost ground as the demographic sun sets on their go-to sub-group of whites, who in coming decades will become a minority.

The 25-page report, authored by Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, based on final and official returns from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, reached a conclusions that the only way that the Republican Party can restore its majority status is if President-elect Barack Obama fails utterly, and "they win via the negative vote or if they reconstitute their advocacy and actions (and not with symbols) so that they have some programmatic appeal to an increasing diverse America."

Democrats, on the other hand, can solidify their hold on the future only if the Obama administration "is seen as effectively responding to the many deep crises of today in a manner that recalls Roosevelt facing the depression or Lincoln with respect to slavery and secession."

Highlights of the Gans report showed that:

In all, 131,257,542 Americans voted for president in 2008, nine million more than cast their ballots in 2002 (against only a 6.5 million increase in eligible population).

The turnout level was 63 percent of eligibles, a 2.4 percentage point increase over 2004 and the highest percentage to turn out since 64.8 percent voted for president in 1960. It was the third highest turnout since women were given the right to vote in 1920.

Overall turnout increased in 37 states and the District of Columbia. The greatest turnout increases occurred in the District of Columbia (13 percentage points), followed by No North Carolina (10.3), Georgia
rth (7.6), South Carolina (7.4), Virginia (7.1), Colorado (6.3), Mississippi (5.9), Alabama (5.5) and Indiana (5.2).

Overall turnout records were set in Alabama, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Democratic turnout, as measured by their share of the aggregate vote for U.S. House of Representatives increased by 5.4 percentage points to 31.6 percent of the eligible vo vote, their highest share of the vote since 33.4 percent voted Democratic in 1964 and the largest year-to-year increase in Democratic turnout since women were enfranchised in in 1920. Democratic turnout increased in 46 states and the District of Columbia and declined in only four.

Drivers that pushed Obama into the White House were polling data showing 90 percent of citizens seeing the nation on the wrong track, fear of a deep recession with personal implicatons and the organizing efforts of college-educated youth.

From a geographic perspective, the report showed the GOP out of contention in New England and the West, where Obama won states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that George W. Bush won in 2004.

The GOP is loosing ground in the industrial and agricultural mid-west, where former Republican states like Ohio and Indiana flipped to Democrats this year.

Gans says that the only place where the GOP enjoyed a "durable advantage" are Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Oklahoma and Texas, which is forecasted to be a "toss-up state" within the next ten years.

"It is virtually certain that African-Americans were a major factor in the Democratic turnout increase," Gans said of where the enormous rise in Democratic turnout and where those turnout increases occurred.

Two reasons Gans gives about why Democrats had an 8.8 percentage point spread over Democrats were that Republicans didn't see Arizona Sen. John S. McCain as "one of their own," while he said GOP moderates were "appalled by the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin" as McCain choice for vice president.

Another factor discussed was whether some "Reagan Democrats," who shared Democratic economic concerns but were driven to the GOP by 1970s Democratic excesses and cultural issues, just didn't vote.

Cultural issues this year, Gans says, "took a back seat to economic concerns" while some who didn't vote did so based on racial concerns or the perception of elitism, which were emphasized by McCain and Obama's primary candidate New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Youth participation, while it was only one percent above 2004, provided energized bodies, especially among college-educated students who were in part responsible for the large increase in Democratic turnout.

The Republican Party motivated more voters to vote early and on election day in 2004, but the Democrats won that contest in 2008. This dynamic suggests that no matter how sophisticated they are and how comprehensive their reach, mobilization efforts "are as successful as the ground they till in terms of affirmative voter sentiment."

Contrary to how it's been sold, Gans sayd that so-called convenience voting -- mail voting, no excuse absentee voting, early voting and even election-day registration -- not only does not help but may hurt voter turnout.

Of the dozen states that had turnout declines in 2008 when compared to 2004, 10 had some fort of convenience voting. Of the 13 states which had the greatest increases in turnout, seven had none of the forms of convenience voting.

While Gans cited a number of reasons why convenience voting doesn't increase voter turnout, he said The United States should consider adopting what Mexico has done, which is a "biometric identity card which would at one and the same time enfranchise every citizen, eliminate the forms of fraud the GOP biennially claims which lead to intimidation and suppression, and eliminate much of the cost and complexity of election administration."

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Republican Senators Intercept Hail Mary Pass to Detroit

Republican Senators Intercept Hail Mary Pass to Detroit

Can Train Innovation Like Tubular Rail Ride to the Rescue?

Transportation Infrastructure Key to Jolt Economy

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: The news late Thursday that a handful of southern Republican senators, whose political motivation was nothing less than busting the United Auto Workers Union, were able to quash a meager $14 billion bridge loan to Detroit's Big Three automakers Democrats and a lame duck White House were able to arrive at despite President Bush's reluctance to help the industry from driving off a financial cliff is bad news for middle class families.

The inability of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford to receive even bare basic funding begs the question of can America invent a new industry, equal to planes and cars, that can revive a nation now that domestic car makers may be soon asking for their last rights.

As Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc., the "trackless train technology" company from Houston, Texas, the news that Senate Republicans successfully stiff armed Detroit, while disheartening to states like Ohio and Michigan because it means more workers, families and the communities they live in will be further harmed, is the latest sign that new industries offering new jobs must be found to keep the very fabric of our society together.

This report, therefore, continues my exercise in advocacy journalism. The the rising tide of interest by federal and state officials to jolt our cardiac arrest economy to life, through large and immediate investments in transportation infrastructure, amplifies my arguments advanced in previous posts like "Time Right to Shake Up Detroit," "Living La Vida Local" and "Columbus to Paris: Attitude Not Miles Key," a trio of essays that advocate for smarter, affordable alternatives to our car-centric transportation system.

Cars haunt and hinder us as we look to upgrade or build from scratch effective, energy efficient mass transportation systems that don't abandon past technology but don't overlook, discount or block future technology either. Previous civilizations constructed huge, massively impressive and functional infrastructure. For China it was the Great Wall. For Rome it was networks of aqueducts. We must do the same. But what will be our great infrastructure achievement be? Energy or transportation? Or both?

The weekly announcements of hundreds of thousands of Americans are loosing their jobs is as painful to the body politic as passing a kidney stone is to an individual. Claims for unemployment benefits surged to their highest in 26 years, according to the US Labor Department, which reported that jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 6 rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. This figure is 48,000 in excess of what Wall Street economists expected. With total job losses in 2008 nearing the 2-million mark, President-elect BarackObama's plan to create 2.5 million during his first term, principally through massive investments in infrastructure - roads, bridges, water and drainage systems - is both bold and necessary.

As recently as yesterday, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, where about 250,000 auto-related jobs hang in the balance, gave his residents a bitter pill to swallow, as he explained what cuts he would have to make if the state is confronted with balancing a budget for 2009-10 that could be more than $7 billion, the highest budget gap in state history.

Spending more money at a time when America is broke seems the only remedy to put the nation back to work, echoing what was done by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to lift America from the strangle hold the arms of the Great Depression had on it. But unlike FDR, Obama won't have a world war riding to his rescue. But that's a good thing. The war we must fight now that will create for us the number of jobs that World War II created for the nation then is a war on foreign energy sources that can only be won when we develop our own sources of renewable energy and a means to distribute and use that power in new, innovative ways.

President-elect Obama's appointment Thursday of Stephen Chu to lead the US Department of Energy is good news. Chu is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics. Reuters reported that he was an early advocate for scientific solutions to climate change. Having a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics running the national department of energy is a revolutionary selection, when compared to picking from a pool of energy lobbyists or former politicians as President Bush liked to do. And Obama could have selected a well-seasoned administrator, as he's done with his other teams like foreign relations or economics. The turnaround of picking a working scientist likeChu is exactly the kind of change Obama said he would bring to Washington. Leadership is most cost-efficient when it comes from the top. Upward leadership from the ranks is important too, but that takes time; and time is a precious commodity these days. When a leader likeChu , whose groundbreaking is all about converting sunlight to electricity, then to chemical power that could then be used to fuel America, not only points the way forward but is inclusive enough to fund inventive, innovative independents to join in, its a breath of fresh air and inspiration and should not go unnoticed by transportation officials, who should consider using technology that may not be conventional, especially when it comes to trains. The train that left the station last century may not be the same train that pulls into the 21st Century station.

The resurgence of talk about reviving train traffic in America is starting to work its way into the minds of the mainstream media. A case in point was today's Washington Post editorial "Invest in Mass Transit" whose subtitled "Far sighted way to jolt the economy" reflected the reality that voters, expressing their will on Election Day by approving most transportation issues, are ready to pay for mass transit.

"Nationwide, voters approved over 70 percent of major transportation-funding measures, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence. That's double the rate at which ballot initiatives are generally approved, and it is even more impressive because gas prices were already declining." [Washington Post ]

Citing significant rises in public mass transit over a half year, it argues that politicians should make infrastructure improvements a key component of any economic stimulus bill. In September the House passed a bill on mass transit that was "haphazardly crafted," according toWaPo , which said would "jump-start ready-to-go transit projects that cash-strapped states had shelved." Continuing, it said these approved but idle projects "would not reward the best projects, only the ones that were ready to begin." The editorial wisely cautioned lawmakers to "give priority to projects that are environmentally friendly and that encourage smart growth."

Everyone at Tubular Rail Inc, where the technology developed and patented by inventor and company founder Robert Pulliam is featured in the Discovery Channel's forward-looking NextWord episode called "Future Train," believes "trackless train technology," which reforms the relationship between wheel and track, can contribute to achieving both energy and transportation goals. TRI has been seeking its "Kitty Hawk" moment to show, through a working "proof of concept" model in Ohio or Texas, that conventional railroads, grade-level steel on steel technology is not only costly but difficult to build and environmentally unfriendly. As well known as traditional trains are and as powerful as their lobby is, the question is, is it smart or affordable to pursue them, especially as public coffers drain dry? Instead, if an affordable, energy efficient, job-producing system whose capital costs could be 60 percent less that conventional train technology, shouldn't it be given its turn at bat in the sweepstakes of public-private funding?

And as America braces for hundreds of thousands or maybe millions more in job losses if a federal bridge loan to Detroit's Big Three automakers fails, as was announced Friday because a handful of Republican senators from southern states with foreign car manufacturers located in them effectively killed the helping hand, what will the next generation of jobs these laid off workers can apply for?

New train technology today is as revolutionary as the untested technology two brothers from Dayton worked on in their bicycle shop at the turn of the 20th century. Orville and Wilbur Wright, the bicycle brothers who birthed controlled, sustained flight in 1903, were hard working inventors of their day whose persistence and perseverance eventually took off despite little interest by the press and no financial assistance from government. They two bachelors winged their way into history at a windy, secluded beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where they turned their glider into a self-powered airplane and made history in the process.

We can only wonder if the fanciful invention Orville and Wilbur worked on at their own expense over several years would turn the heads of state development directors, who in a state like Ohio, where jobs are leaving with few taking their place, seem only to be interested in innovations that are in the "late stages of commercialization" and that can leverage state dollars by a factor of two or three. If Orville and Wilbur showed up today with their invention in Ohio -- whose license plate slogan "The Birthplace of Aviation" memorializes their work -- they wouldn't fair well, as government officials are averse to risk. And lifting a heavier then air machine off the ground for sustained periods was indeed risky.

Tubular Rail's "trackless train technology" is a perfect example of a transportation technology that Obama's infrastructure spending program could make real.

But risk is in the eye of the inventor. The Wrights were not wrong about their own research. Pulliam of Tubular Rail has nurtured his "trackless train technology" along much as the Wright's did in their time, only Pulliam wants to invite the world to his coming out party in contrast to the Wrights, who were far more circumspect about public scrutiny than isPulliam . But Ohio may loose out to Texas in landing a new industry of future trains. Texas may get the jump on jobs Ohio sorely needs if Buckeye officials, both public and private, don't get on board a new train for a new century.

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Taking Off On a Wing and a Prayer

Taking Off On a Wing and a Prayer

GAO Report Blisters Bush on Administrative Debris

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Columbus, Ohio: Coming In On a Wing and a Prayer was a popular patriotic song during World War II that depicted an anxious but jubilant Allied bomber crew limping home from a mission with only one engine working as their airfield came into sight. Migrating the song across time and redirecting it to the flight path confronting President-elect Barack Obama, a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) depicting the deplorable state of the federal government after eight years of George W. Bush shows Obama will be taking off on a wing and a prayer into headwinds of gale force velocity.

The report was issued in response to a request by the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia,
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the U.S. Senate, also known as Ohio senior senator George V. Voinovich, for background research that would help elicit views on management challenges within agencies and across government by the political appointees of Obama early next year. Going far beyond what Voinovich thought he would receive, the report turned out far more extensive and painfully embarrassing and frightening for both Voinovich, who may run in 2010 for a third term, and his party's lame duck president, George W. Bush.

In a letter signed by Gene L. Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the United States, Voinovich was told that "The incoming administration will face challenges in implementing its policy and program agendas because of shortcomings in agencies’ management capabilities."

An expose by Jonathan Stein writing in Mother Jones Magazine of the 155-page report, shows why Obama will need more wings, engines and prayers if he's to get aloft and above the troubled storm clouds of bad management that are swirling as we speak.

The report is divided by department and is limited to "basic management capabilities," in that it raises questions about personnel, resource distribution, IT, and "results-oriented decision making."

Stein says the politicization of the Justice Department, a situation that arose and forced US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales from office, is not mentioned. Straight foreword and non-partisan as it it, the scope and depth of the report is a clear window into the labyrinth of internal problems of the Bush Administration that show Obama the extent to which Obama is flying into a storm packed with mismanagement, inefficiency, and faulty communication practices.

For example, Stein notes that The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture have no plan to work together in the event of a food-borne disease outbreak or terrorist attack. The Department of Defense's security clearance process takes so long, the GAO says, that it jeopardizes classified information. The report observes that the Environmental Protection Agency's chemical risk assessment program is improperly influenced by private industry.

Given President Bush's repeated reliance on lobbyists and others from the private sector, who often had no skill set or experience that matched up with the requirements of certain positions of power, it's little wonder that the Chicago community organizer is willing to anger far left stalwarts of the Democratic Party by appointing experienced Washingtonians, regardless of whether they served with former President Bill Clinton.

In a timely post that addresses the importance of the report, Obama's deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, writing in the Huffington Post, advised the battle-hardened members of his party's progressive, activist branch to understand the mine field that lay ahead, and to cut their nominee, now president-elect, some slack for picking the cadre of appointees he has, who have largely won plaudits from Republicans and independents alike.

"Now comes the hard part - assuming the presidency at a time when there are more major problems facing our country and the world than at the beginning of any administration. Our economy is in shambles, affecting people at every income level. Nearly 500,000 jobs were lost during November alone. Retirement and investment accounts were shattered as the Stock Market dropped by historic proportions. Record numbers of families are being forced from their homes. Banks are hardly making loans to anyone right now. Auto manufactures and auto dealers have seen their sales drop between 30 and 40 percent.

"We have a war with Iraq that needs an exit strategy and attention by our new president and his foreign policy team. There is unrest with Iran, Pakistan, North Korea and a host of other countries. We desperately need to repair our Nation's reputation around the world. And we need to do all we can to protect our soldiers overseas and our people here at home.

"Nearly fifty million Americans have no health insurance, left vulnerable and one catastrophe away from bankruptcy or worse yet, death. This number will increase if we see unemployment continue to grow." [Steve Hildebrand, HuffPost]

Now that the election is over, we can look back on the contentious and silly debate pitting judgement against experience. Obama ran with judgement -- especially on Bush going to war with Iraq -- while his primary rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, now his nominee for Secretary of State, chose experience as her jousting lance.

We can only count our lucky stars that the duo of so-called mavericks of John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who just wanted to be elected they could "shake up Washington" but whose judgement and experience were her downfall -- were not elected, given the daunting challenge the results of the report represent.

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Ho Ho Ho Help

Ho Ho Ho Help

Detroit Big Three, UAW Prepare for Bad Tidings

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Detroit's Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers union may wake up Christmas morning to find nothing under their tree, if congressional Republicans and their lame duck president stand tough and not throw good money after bad by letting General Motors, Ford and Chrysler fall into bankruptcy, a scenario expert witnesses who also testified Friday said was not in the best interest of the nation.

The leaders of the Big Three car-makers, who this week drove to Washington in their most fuel efficient vehicles instead of flying there by fossil-fueled corporate jets as they did last week, did double duty by repeating their talking points, with hat in hand and a big tin cup, to the Senate and House. The three car stewards from Detroit asked lawmakers for about $34 billion. This amount, nine billion more than the troika said they needed last week, would be enough cash to get them past Christmas and maybe to March, when a new Democratic president and a stronger Democratic congress will do for them what President Bush and many of his party's fiscal conservatives won't do now, namely, keep about three million workers from joining the 1.9 million workers who have already lost their jobs this year.

But by Friday evening Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, agreed that a "rescue loan" to the nation's struggling domestic automakers was essential. Their decision came as The US Bureau of Labor Statistics greeted the nation with employment statistics that assured about 533 thousand workers will not have the same Christmas those with a job will have. The job loss number was powerful. It cast the recession economists now say started nearly a year ago in December as the longest one since the Great Depression. Today's BLS numbers are equivalent to tossing the entire state of Wyoming or the City of Seattle out of work. In November alone, the manufacturing industry lost 85,000 jobs, 82,000 thousand in construction and 91,000 thousand in retail. BLS officials said it was the worst report in three decades.

President Bush said he didn't want to redirect any of the $700 billion congress approved to bail out a sluggish, over-leveraged Wall Street to help the domestic automakers stay out of bankruptcy reorganization known as Chapter 11. The sentiment offered by Mr. Bush and fellow Republicans -- that throwing money at companies that may not survive -- were echoed by Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina. He said bankruptcy was the only way to "break certain relationships...like labor contracts" and believes Washington has provided enough stimulus already. He said $ 7 trillion in stimulus already is enough and Washington printing more money can't continue. He defined Detroit's situation as a problem of too much debt, the declining value of the dollar and not working hard enough in a market based economy to get rewarded. But foreign car companies, some in Republican districts, were hurting, too, as seen by a 50 percent downturn in Toyota stock. A fall off in car sales is no doubt linked to Americans who don't have cash or cannot get credit to buy one, or who don't have a job anymore.

One Ohio senator, Sherrod Brown, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee chaired by Chris Dodd, said constituents in his state, where total auto-related employment is about 250,000, are worried they won['t have a job next year. "It's all about manufacturing, making things," she said, adding, "America has a middle class because we make things and export them." Brown, elected senator in 2006, said US trade policies need to be changed, a hope that may come true when his party's new president-elect, Barack Obama, comes to power in January along with a more powerful Democratic caucus in both legislative chambers. Putting people to work is as paramount for Brown, who said no one wants to "play a game of chicken" and political posturing at this time is unnecessary, as it is for Obama, who used his Saturday video to outline a massive infrastructure spending program he'll launch upon being sworn in president.

"I didn't want to vote for money for Wall Street or car makers, but I have to," Brown said, noting that no questions were asked of Wall Street bankers as they are now for Detroit carmakers and workers. "There's a class difference here; people working with their hands...AIG workers make multiples of what autoworkers make," he said in his signature gravely voice. "It's not a pretty sight," Brown said to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.

House Banking Committee chairman Barney Frank, a Democratic leader who has called on president-elect Obama to get involved now in advance of his January 20 swearing in ceremonies, said the new deal is to loan Detroit's Big Three $25 billion in already approved energy funds, but reserve the right next year to use Wall Street money. Frank said no questions were asked of the big insurance giant AIG, whose leaders and workers make far more than their peers in Detroit. Frank also said the situation calls even more attention to solving America's health care problem, which places a financial burden on the automakers that in turn makes them less competitive than their foreign car rivals, whose government have universal health care. Lack of universal health coverage underscores the "stupidity of America's health policy" he said, noting that Detroit and other business would be better off in two years, after President Obama and Congress work toward a "rational health care plan." Frank, like other Democrats, said there is a distinct bias between blue collar and white collar jobs. One industry observer said people who "shower before work" are given carte blanch while people who "shower after work" are given the third degree.

News came a day later that the size of the bailout may be half what automakers had asked for.

After the car CEOs left he hearing room, a panel of other economic experts chimed in, saying Detroit could not be allowed to go bankrupt or out of business. Felix Rohatyn, a legendary financier who helped bring New York back from the edge during the 1970s, said lawmakers need to hurry up before it's too late. "From a popular point of view, it's difficult, but from a practical point, its' very doable," he said of the rescue loan.

David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists Clean Vehicles Research Center said the rescue package should be structured as investment, not bailout. He said Detroit's survival depends on it, that taxpayers should get a return on their investment, that carmakers should drop their lawsuits to keep increased mileage standards imposed by California should be dropped and new cars should be made to produce cleaner cars and trucks.

Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University said Detroit should not reorganize in Chapter 11. Sachs told lawmakers that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Chairman Henry Paulson should both be more involved than they are. He called on Detroit to be pragmatic, restructure their balance sheets and models. "The double standard with Wall Street is painful and palpable and difficult to understand," he said. Sachs said if Detroit gets no help soon, they could meltdown by Christmas. "Unless they are driven to bankruptcy, ,they will survive and prosper," Sachs said.

But a witness like Edward Altman, a professor of finance at Columbia University, said just the opposite. He said the only hope Detroit has is to go bankrupt, where they can restructure and change their management.

One committee member, Al Green, a Democrat, took a pop quiz of the witnesses. He first asked them if the bailout of Wall Street was in America's best interest. All hands went up. He then asked if it was in America's best interest to help Detroit. Again, all hands went up. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey took on critics of auto union workers. He debunked the so-called “mythology” that auto workers make $70-an-hour as “scapegoating” and “garbage." According to the New York Times, the average U.A.W. member costs GM about $74 an hour in a combination of wages, health care and the value of future benefits, like pensions. By contrast Toyota spends the equivalent of about $45 an hour for each of its employees in the United States. Base wages between the Big Three and the foreign companies are roughly comparable, with a veteran U.A.W. member earning $28 an hour at the Big Three compared to about $25 an hour at Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Ky. (Toyota pays less at its other American factories.)

Senator Dodd is echoing the notion expressed here that Detroit should also manufacture mass transit vehicles, an idea one commenter said others dealt with "respectfully."

Michigan Governor Jennifer Grandholm, whose state unemployment figure is within spitting distance of double digits, said access to credit is what's stopping people from buying cars. She said 1 in ever 10 jobs in the nation are tied in one way or another to car makers, and that for reasons of energy independence and economic security, Detroit must not allowed to fail. Meeting with the nation's governors in Philadelphia, where they asked president-elect Obama to ride to their rescue next year, Grandholm, who said her state was the poster child of the sagging economy, said no one wants people living on a "safety net system." She implored that people be given a chance at dignity, retrained in innovative ways instead of the slash and burn philosophy of Mr. Bush and others, like Alabama Senator Shelby who told the car makers he doesn't want to fund them. She said not giving people a second chance "is not American."

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com