Bill O'Brien: 'Turnaround' plan short on specifics

Business

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Bill O'Brien

February 5, 2012

By Bill O'Brien, Business editor ---- The Record Eagle Sun Feb 05, 2012, 07:14 AM EST

Numerous state media outlets, including columnists in this newspaper, trumpeted a "turnaround" plan offered by the Business Leaders for Michigan, a group of executives, ex-government types and university heads from 80 of the state's largest private and public organizations.

BLM contends its agenda could create 500,000 jobs and increase per-capita incomes by $18,000 in Michigan over the next decade.

Impressive numbers, indeed. And noble ideas, as well. BLM suggests using Michigan's engineering base to revive manufacturing, improve trade across the Midwest and Canada, send more kids to college and better utilize Michigan's natural resources.

Bolstering Michigan's life sciences hub and its auto industry for the global market are priorities.

Who could be against any of that?

Much more fuzzy are details on how to get there. The BLMers will look to Lansing and Washington for answers, even as their combined annual revenues of close to $1 trillion dwarf the state's yearly budget.

And from which side of the mouth will they speak?

If the state needs more college graduates, why are we heaping a lifetime of debt on young people who want to go to school? Improve the natural resource economy?

The business sector always bellyaches about state environmental laws and "onerous" regulatory agencies like the Department of Environmental Quality. Michigan's natural resources would be in grave danger if citizens ever let business call the shots.

More reliance on the auto industry also is a shaky proposition. The Big Three automakers dictated a boom-and-bust cycle to Michigan's economy for decades, and a series of once-proud Michigan cities crumbled in its wake.

Some of those same people and companies that helped derail Michigan's economy over the past 10-plus years now fashion themselves as conductors on the state's train to prosperity.

Sorry, but the public's memory isn't quite that short.

BLMers have more common ground. Many of them did just fine, and sometimes saw their personal fortunes grow in recent years while their companies laid off workers, closed factories and shifted operations elsewhere.

The nonprofit group's interests seem largely tilted to southern Michigan, and its wish list appears more provincial than it lets on.

They also have more friends in Lansing than the public is led to believe. No sector benefited more than business from the policies of Gov. Rick Snyder, an ex-BLMer.

Its windfall is close to $1.8 billion in tax breaks at the expense of public education, senior citizen income and Michigan's social safety net.

So far, the results of these pro-business policies seem pretty negligible, to the point where some Lansing commentators are finally starting to note Snyder's acute aversion to specifics — and results.

Perhaps those business leaders could take a more novel approach: Show some leadership.

What's to stop them from laying out specific hiring plans or returning some of their far-flung operations to Michigan? It shouldn't take government action for them to expand their worker base or sink more resources into high-tech research and development.

Between tax cuts, layoffs, bailouts and bankruptcies, the public took on much shared sacrifice to help business leaders and their operations. Where's the return on that investment?

Everyone knows that business is all about the bottom line, and it's past time for Michigan's corporate giants to offer specifics on their turnaround plans for the state's economy.

Lofty goals that lack details on how to get them accomplished might be good enough for some pundits.

But the rest of Michigan should know better than to take that bait.

Contact Bill O'Brien at bobrien@record-eagle.com.