Opinion | Michigan’s utopian dreams: State officials aim for the impossible

As Gov. Gretchen Whitmer prepares to deliver her 2025 “State of the State,” Michigan residents can expect to hear some big ideas and audacious goals. But what goals should governments pursue? The public sector these days does much more than just preserve life, liberty and property. Michigan’s state government has countless objectives for the $80 billion it plans to spend next fiscal year. 

Setting goals is generally a good idea, but a growing number of the state’s ambitions are clearly impossible. Public officials seem to think there is no limit to what they can achieve through the coercive power of government. 

Lieutenant Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, for example, announced a goal in 2023 to eliminate all suicides among military personnel and veterans in Michigan. The state’s recent budget devotes $1.2 million to this cause. Can it be done? Almost certainly not: Nearly 900 veterans in Michigan committed suicide from 2016 to 2020, according to MIRS News. Merely identifying those at risk is a herculean task, not to mention delivering timely and effective preventative treatment. Maybe that $1.2 million will help with something, but it won’t accomplish Gilchrist’s goal.

The state Department of Transportation is keen to set impossible objectives too. Its Toward Zero Deaths campaign aims to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities from car crashes by 2050. A video from the department proclaims that zero deaths is the “only acceptable goal” and “a driving force in every decision, design and project.” But as the video later admits, 90% of car crashes result from poor driving, which is why we call them accidents. Yet, the department seems to believe it can engineer accidents out of existence. There’s already been more than 100 deaths on Michigan’s roads this calendar year so far.

To be fair, the Transportation Department knows it cannot accomplish this alone. “Achieving zero takes everyone working together,” it concedes. But its recommendations for the rest of us are naïve. We’re to believe that all car crash injuries can be avoided if police “[encourage] positive behavior,” schools and parents promote traffic safety to children, local governments “support safe communities” and businesses “[require] employees to practice safe driving behavior.” But, accidents will still happen. 

Whitmer promotes impossible goals, too. Her Sixty by 30 campaign aims for 60% of working-age adults to hold a postsecondary degree or certification by 2030. That would require half a million more people getting degrees. But the primary program the governor created to achieve this goal — Michigan Reconnect  — enrolled fewer than 20,000 people in its first 18 months. Only a portion of them will go on to get a credential. To meet the 60% mark, enrollment in this program would have to grow astronomically. Only a handful of other states have ever met this metric.

The governor has a history of puffing up promises to the public. She’s been pledging to “fix the damn roads” for years. But roads are always degrading, so the best the state can realistically do is put the roads back together faster than they’re falling apart. But that’s not exactly catchphrase material. Whitmer also once upon a time promised to “eliminate COVID-19,” which was an obvious pipe dream. She also vows to make Michigan carbon neutral by 2050 — 24 years after she’ll be out of office. 

Goals like these permeate state government. The Whitmer administration’s 2024-2028 strategic plan is chock full of half-baked and impossible objectives. The state aims to “close economic inequality gap,” and “end food debt shaming,” whatever that means. The Michigan Department of Education strives to make more kids eat breakfast and exercise regularly. It also aims to decrease how many students use tobacco products, feel sad or consider suicide. How bureaucrats in Lansing could possibly prevent kids from experiencing negative emotions is difficult to even imagine. 

These fantasies cause trouble in the real world. Ambitions and elusive goals make it harder to measure the success of government programs and hold politicians accountable for them. The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity aims to “expose 200,000 students to STEM careers,” lift 20,000 families out of poverty and get 50,000 women to “re-enter or remain” in the workforce. Those things may happen, or not, with or without the help of the Labor Department. How are we to hold it accountable for these goals, then? Or how will we know if the state eradicates food debt shaming or children’s sad feelings? How will we know if the roads are fixed? Setting unrealistic goals avoids a basic level of accountability we should demand of policymakers. 

Setting unrealistic goals also distracts the government from dealing with issues that it can actually do something about. Instead of trying to zero out veteran suicides, for instance, the state could improve services for all veterans. The resources devoted to an impossible goal are resources that cannot be used for initiatives that could improve people’s lives in real ways. 

Efficient and effective government should be laser-focused on its mission. Audacious objectives may make a splash in the media and signal one’s sincerity, but they do not help the government accomplish its most important goal: serving the interests of the taxpaying public.