This article originally appeared in The Detroit News January 14, 2025.
Driving through Montana on a family vacation, we took a wrong turn.
The correct road, which normal people use, would have taken us around several mountain ranges. Instead, our GPS pointed up a mountain road. Once we went that direction, the GPS waved goodbye. Our cell phones lost all signals.
The road took us right into those mountain ranges. But one does not drive straight across mountains. We cut this way, then that. Over streams, around hairpin turns. We hugged the side of the mountain and looked down without the comfort of a guardrail. At times we knew we were going the wrong way, but it was the only option.
The road narrowed to a one-lane dirt path — we couldn’t tell if it was for logging trucks or four-wheelers. Tree branches scratched both sides of the car. We could have turned back, but surely the GPS knew what it was doing, right? We had plenty of gas, water, food and daylight. We kept driving.
At one point we reached the top of a mountain range. There was no evidence that another human had been there, other than the road that we were on. No buildings in sight, no lights, no smoke and certainly no people. Nothing but deep green forest, blue sky and white clouds in every direction. We kept driving.
It’s the most lost I have ever been. Eventually, with the aid of some friendly huckleberry pickers and a few lucky guesses, we hit a marked highway. What should have taken 90 minutes took us five hours.
That’s what happens when you don’t have a reliable map. Without one, every turn is a gamble.
Michigan is at a crossroads. The state’s challenges demand a clear roadmap, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to announce a “commonsense, bipartisan vision for our state’s future” during her Road Ahead live stream Wednesday.
It’s a good time to plan for Michigan’s future. In the competition for jobs, other states are eating our lunch. Michigan’s growth lags behind our neighboring states of Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin, and way behind Texas, Florida and North Carolina. Despite skyrocketing spending, our public education system struggles with performance. Parents have fewer educational choices than in other states. Michigan’s energy costs are way higher than in surrounding states, and we have far more power outages. Housing costs are going up. The Michigan budget is growing faster than inflation or population, which isn’t sustainable.
Michigan needs to confront what it takes to be a state where people want to live, raise a family and build a business. We should focus on serious solutions, not vanity projects like underwriting Hollywood movie productions or harmful economic policy like massive corporate subsidies. My colleagues at the Mackinac Center have compiled a list of major reforms to consider, titled “Michigan’s Blueprint for a Brighter Future.”
Any policy agenda has to be understandable. It must inspire people, whether the farmer in Kalkaska, the venture capitalist in Southfield or a road construction worker on I-75. They have to look at the plan and say, “I get it. I support that.”
This is a challenging moment for policymakers. A divided Legislature will make even the easy things difficult. Whitmer has two years remaining in her administration — not much time to get big things done. And will the potential of higher office galvanize her leadership or distract?
Without a well-defined plan, Michigan risks spending the next decade meandering without purpose, drifting toward irrelevance.
Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.
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