Tom Watkins makes a great case in the Detroit News for state government reform. Read his column which reflects much of our thinking at Detroit Renaissance that state government needs to adopt a strategic principles and actions to achieve a sustainable fiscal structure. One of those principles is to enact meaningful structural reforms to minimize the need for new sources of revenue such as bringing state employee health care benefits in line with the private sector and bringing local government and public school health care benefits in line with those of state employees. The private sector is making drastic adjustments to its healthcare plans.

As Watkins government should follow their lead by making "...the tough and necessary structural changes in prisons, consolidate school districts, and local units of governments, and address the runaway state employee health and pension benefits that were once modeled after the auto industry and that are no longer sustainable."

Read more about our recommendations to immediately improve the health of our state's economy and improve our overall economic competitiveness on
our website at: http://www.detroitrenaissance.com/agenda/improving-competitiveness