NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE M ichiganders remember the Aughts as our “Lost Decade.” During that time, the state suffered a severe economic downturn and population losses under former governor Jennifer Granholm (now President Biden’s secretary of energy). Granholm is not at fault for the Great Recession, of course. But Michigan fared far worse under her leadership than most other states. The state experienced essentially uninterrupted job losses until the last year of Granholm’s tenure, which began five years before the recession. Michigan was the only state to lose population between 2000 and 2010.

Now, under another Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan is shrinking again. We lost a congressional seat in the last reapportionment after a decade of slow growth, and the state lost population for two consecutive years following the 2020 Census. A recent poll suggests this may be a sustained problem: Over a quarter of Michiganders ages 18 to 29 said they expected to live elsewhere within ten years and another 18 percent were “unsure.”

In response, the governor recently announced the appointment of a chief growth officer for the state, as well as the creation of the nominally bipartisan Growing Michigan Together Council. The council is supposed to set a population goal for 2050 and design policies to “build, attract, and retain a skilled workforce.” Republicans are skeptical, however, that the effort will bear fruit. State senate minority leader Aric Nesbitt described the effort as an attempt to “circumvent the Legislature” and provide cover for tax hikes.

Broadly speaking, Whitmer has tasked the council with focusing on the right policy areas: the economy, infrastructure, and education. Unfortunately, her record on these issues is not encouraging. Having failed to learn from Granholm’s ineffective investments in green energy, Whitmer is giving billions more to the industry. As Michael Lafaive has reported at National Review, these tax breaks are part of Whitmer’s habitual doling out of corporate welfare. She also recently signed the repeal of the state’s right-to-work law, another attack on the competitiveness of Michigan businesses.

One of Whitmer’s main proposals on infrastructure was to raise additional funding for repairs by hiking the gas tax 45 cents a gallon. The abandoned idea would have made Michigan’s gas tax the highest in the nation, a serious blow to working-class families. And despite the state’s borrowing billions of dollars through a bond initiative to fund construction, a May 2022 poll found that 93 percent of likely voters rated Michigan roads negatively, suggesting the governor has so far failed to follow through on her signature promise to “fix the damn roads.”

Her response to the coronavirus pandemic didn’t help either. Only in April did the state return to its pre-pandemic unemployment rate after her shutdown orders sparked widespread layoffs. Similarly, most indicators of educational outcomes have fallen compared with what were already rather poor standards before the pandemic. According to a study from Michigan State University, the pandemic marked a “20 percent increase in the proportion of” students eligible to be held back in third grade due to an inability to read under a since-repealed law. Whitmer also disastrously required nursing homes to house coronavirus patients. Per the Detroit News, the governor shielded nursing homes from legal liability for mishandling Covid cases despite “167 complaints about nursing homes’ handling of COVID-19 or staffing” within a two-month period.

Then there’s Whitmer’s efforts to expand abortion access. In the wake of Dobbs, she supported successful efforts to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution. And in April, she signed a repeal of the state’s pre–Roe abortion ban. It is a cruel irony that, having made abortion a cornerstone of her reelection campaign, she now concerns herself with Michigan’s declining population.

Oddly, despite the governor’s desire to retain Michigan’s youth, her council is required to have only one member below the age of 25. So what are Michigan’s sons and daughters looking for when deciding where to make our permanent homes? We want to feel confident that the economic stagnation that our parents’ generation has dealt with for decades will abate. We want to know that our kids, when we have them, will attend high-quality schools. We would love to see Detroit reclaim its place as one of the great American cities, and, yes, we want someone to “fix the damn roads.”

I don’t mean to suggest that Michiganders don’t love our home as it is; in fact, Louisiana is the only state with a higher proportion of native-born residents. But those Michiganders who are leaving want to build their futures in a state that has one, too. And if we intend to attract residents who didn’t grow up loving “bonfires by the lake,” as the governor recently put it, then Lansing will need to make serious progress toward these goals. If Whitmer wants to avoid another lost decade, then this new council will need to prove more than a rubber-stamp of her failed platform.