The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

As a state, we have gone stale. If we were a novelist, we’d say we have writer’s block. If we were a baseball pitcher, we’d have a tired arm. The edginess that we once had, it’s gone. Somehow we’ve let ourselves lapse into a funk. No matter the problem or even the crisis, we find ourselves resigned to the way things are.

Take our economy. Since the 1970s our manufacturers could no longer do what they once did; provide bushels of good-paying jobs. We’ve talked about changing our economy, moving in a new direction, but we’ve never done anything bold. So we’ve watched as our share of the U.S. economy has gone to other places. We celebrate small victories like a few weeks ago when the Department of Commerce celebrated the 17 jobs coming to River Falls.

Our Governor wanted to make sure credit was given where credit is due and said, “I have worked hard as governor to make Wisconsin a friendly place to do business.” Seventeen jobs, for heavens sake, that’s about what we’d expect when a Wendy’s opens up.

Or how have we responded to all of the recent scrutiny given our education system? We had been led to think that our schools are something that sets us apart. Now we read a steady stream of uncomfortable stories highlighting all of our warts and blemishes.

The Bush people told us that we have dozens of schools, “in need of improvement,” and the Obama people tell us that we’re not likely to race to the top. Wisconsin schools are just back in the pack somewhere and fading. And what are our leaders doing about our schools? So far nothing. And what do people expect that our leaders will do about our deficient schools? Nothing.

We also have a long-standing disconnect between the voters and the people we elect. We turn out at the polls in declining numbers to send the same group back to Madison year in and year out. And year in and year out we tell pollsters how little we think of those people we sent to Madison. We tell the pollsters that our elected leaders put their own interests ahead of our interests. We tell them that hey listen to lobbyists way more than they listen to us. We think they’ve made the recession worse. Yet, with very few exceptions, at the next opportunity, we’ll send the same folks back to Madison.

Our two largest cities are each led by nice, comfortable fellows, neither of whom seems particularly inspired or inspirational.

We’ve been rocked by recession but we’ve really done nothing innovative in response. The face of our state government is unchanged: no departments were eliminated, no departments were consolidated. True, state workers were told to stay home for eight days but there have been no moves to actually change the structure of state government. So that institution that was given form in the 1970s limps along with fewer dollars, hoping that things will turn around.

Well, keep hoping. Things rarely turn around for the enterprise that has gone stale.

We talk about keeping our talented people, but we give them few reasons to stay. We talk about attracting smart, dynamic workers but we give them few reasons to come.

You see, people who have options end up living and working in vibrant, dynamic places. People haven’t been migrating to the great American cities because life there is predictable and sure. They go there because those places are edgy and full or opportunity. Unfortunately, I’m afraid they can sense our staleness, our insistence that we cling to the status quo.

-November 24, 2009

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