Of course, this is Michigan, the home of one-time fixes, which means we can probably anticipate a fresh spending spree this year that will only compound that billion dollar problem in FY2010.  Just in time for an election.  Goody.  Wonder who the majority Dems will blame that one on... but I digress.  The point is, things are a mess and in Lansing they're already talking about finding a billion dollars worth of what the bureaucrats call "new revenue."  

Now flip over to the Detroit News, if you've got the stomach for even more depressing news, and you'll learn that metro Detroit is experiencing record breaking drops in home values, too.

Average home values in Oakland and Macomb counties plummeted by double digits this year, fueled by fire sales of foreclosed homes and the growing glut of unsold houses pushing down prices.

In Oakland County, median values fell about 12 percent -- double the rate last year -- with the steepest drops in Lathrup Village and Hazel Park, at about 22 percent. In Macomb, preliminary estimates indicate a 14 percent average decline countywide, the greatest annual drop in more than three decades.

"This is the worst I've ever seen it," said Steve Mellen, equalization director for Macomb County. "The values are so low right now."

The result?  No one can sell.  Retirement nest eggs are disappearing and folks currently paying old mortgages wind up spending a lot more than their home is even worth.  Dollars get stretched to their ripping point and then stretched a little further.

Now, if you're a good lefty you know your talking points... it isn't your Democratic elected officials who have failed to do anything to fix these problems who deserve the blame.  It is the autos.  That's the easy fallback position, just blame the autos.  

Meanwhile the overwhelmingly Dem controlled Congress refuses to bail out the Big Three, stock prices plummet, Granholm cancels her overseas vacation to fly to Washington and proves entirely ineffective (shocker). the Dems kick Detroit's Congressman off of his leadership position and replace him with a California liberal... The Democratic Party has proven in the last two days to be hostile to both Michigan and the Big 3 and along comes John Hertel with a hammer and spikes, ready to nail shut the coffin on our biggest industry... with your tax dollars.

The Ivory Tower reports that Mr. Hertel shot a little home movie and made a presentation, yesterday, to SEMCOG about the desperate need for mass transit in and around Detroit.  New bus lines, dedicated lanes, light rail, you name it.  

Only two or three thousand problems... Mass transit is great when you have large or increasing populations--in and around Detroit you've got plummeting populations.  Mass transit is great when you want to take cars off the roads--in and around Detroit we'd like to sell more cars, not fewer (there are millions of Michigan jobs that depend on it).  Mass transit is great, too, if you've got a magical genie who will grant you three wishes.  You spend the first wish asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to magically appear, the second on an end to world hunger and the third on more wishes.  Alas, it appears Hertel has yet to find his genie.

"You need to demand of your state representatives and state senators and other officials that must pay the cost," Hertel said during a gathering of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. "It costs a lot of money, but it's worth it."

...Hertel's presentation drew enthusiastic applause from the group of local government leaders, including mayors and supervisors.

I can't help but wonder how enthusiastically local government leaders would applaud after their constituents storm their offices, upset over the hundreds of millions in new taxes they'd be forced to pay or how loud they'd cheer when they received notice that the biggest manufacturers and support industries inside their city's limits were closing up shop for good and taking the tax revenue they used to generated with them.

But by all means, let's pursue mass transit right away.