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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > May > 12
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Martin Gottlieb: Voinovich holds bipartisan dream and maybe another
Meeting with Sen. George Voinovich on Monday — as he happened through town — was a little like stepping into another political time.
Not that he has somehow been left behind because he’s in his 70s and not running for the Senate again. That could hardly be less true. He’s fully engaged and in touch. It’s just that he was talking bipartisanship.
Seems like kind of a quaint, old-fashioned term, doesn’t it? In a season when D is D and R is R and the wrong one Arlen Specter has chose (a reference to a song that you have to be almost as old as Voinovich to remember), Voinovich isn’t reconciled.
He’s got an agenda that sounds genuinely bipartisan (as opposed to just having a stray member of the other party co-sponsoring something, an old cosmetic, political game).
When you think about it, this makes a certain sense. Not being a flaming conservative causes Voinovich problems with some Republicans. So he might as well take advantage of its upsides. The more rigid Republicans couldn’t realistically offer a serious legislative agenda now, given Democratic control.
He has a plan with Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat or Independent or something from Connecticut. They’d create a bipartisan commission to investigate tax policy and entitlement programs with the goal of coming up with a plan for confronting future deficits. Those deficits will be monumental if no policies are changed. Entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, mainly) are key to any major progress.
The commission would propose something, and Congress would have to either adopt it or reject it, not use it as a blueprint to be amended. In that sense, the process would be modeled after BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure process that locals have heard so much about, relating to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
It would be a huge deal.
Voinovich has another project that would have the U.S. government invest in international efforts to spur the development of clean, alternative forms of energy, such as solar, geothermal and cleaner fossil fuels. Washington would put up money and China, India, Japan, Korea, Australia and Canada (members of something called the Asia-Pacific Partnership) would match it. He’s talking about a billion-dollar American investment over five years. Several Republican and Democratic senators are on board.
Asked whether he really thinks the political atmosphere in Washington will change enough fast enough to result in action on his watch, he says that all he can do is take the various projects one at a time and see what happens.
Well, stranger things have happened. Both parties have reasons for engaging in bipartisan thrusts now. In reaching out to moderate and independent voters, the Democrats need to prove that they are not out on some lefty bender; the Republicans need to show that they are more than the party of “no.”
In Dayton, Voinovich was also on a bipartisan path. He toured parts of the city and met with bankers, eager to probe their use of government funds.
When he got to a meeting with this newspaper’s editorial board, he was juiced. Before being asked a question, he was off, talking about how much he had enjoyed his morning, about what the city is trying to do about vacant houses and what can be done. He said it was like being a mayor again, as he was in Cleveland in the 1980s.
He waxed so enthusiastically about being mayor — indicating, in an answer to a question, that it was his favorite elective position — that he left one observer wondering if being mayor is completely behind him.
He was noncommittal about his future — after leaving the Senate at the beginning of 2011, at 74 — except that he will live in Cleveland. He didn’t swear off elective office, but he did say that what makes him most enthusiastic about retiring from the Senate is not having to raise the millions that are necessary for a statewide run.
A former senator running for mayor is not something that happens every day. But Voinovich has said he tires of the partisan wrangling in Washington. When he first went there, a lot of people said he wouldn’t enjoy it as much as being governor or mayor, because he likes running things, that is, making things work.
By all accounts, he was a popular mayor of that hyper-Democratic city. But when he first ran for the Senate in 1988 as mayor, he lost the city to incumbent Sen. Howard Metzenbaum. The Voinovich camp’s take: the voters wanted Metzenbaum for senator and Voinovich for mayor.
Late in the 2008 campaign, Voinovich called Barack Obama a socialist. Now, however, he’s quick to say — without being asked — that he thinks highly of the president’s appointees generally and feels he can work with them. The transition of a potential candidate in Obama country?
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Edward Ryan: Auto industry should retool its business model
Edward Ryan, of Kettering, worked as a project manager for the automotive industry for three years and in the supply chain for 20 years.
It’s not too late to save the American auto industry, if only the car companies would embrace their traditions as innovators by trying a new approach to making and selling cars that might seem radical but, in truth, would make a lot of sense.
Remember, beginning with the moving assembly line, it was automakers who pioneered many of the ideas that have made manufacturing everywhere more efficient.
Even so, the basic business model that underlies today’s auto industry has remained virtually unchanged for a century. It needs an overhaul. By combining forgotten mass-production concepts with new ideas from high-tech industries, the auto companies could revolutionize their businesses and save $4.9 billion a year. For an industry that’s borrowing billions from the federal government, change is overdue. The common problem for car makers is proliferation — too many brands, too many models, too many dealerships, too many parts and too much inventory. With hundreds of models and millions of configurations, car companies gamble that the vehicles they make will be the ones customers demand. When they’re wrong, vehicles stack up and cost big money. The solution would require a major change in the way we buy cars. In the altered business model, you would not be able to walk into a dealership, buy a car and drive it off the lot. But by waiting a day, you’d ensure you get the exact vehicle with the right features, and the dealers won’t have to waste lot space in hopes they have the car you want. Here’s how this would work: • Dealerships would be completely reimagined. The days of massive car lots would end. Buyers would see and test drive a few standards models at the dealer. They’d order a car, specifying options and color, from a regional “finishing” location, to be delivered the next day. • Vehicle engineering would have to change. Borrowing a concept from the computer companies, auto companies could design vehicles to have standard components. If you want to take out your CD player and install a combination GPS/MP3 player, you pop out the old component and put in the new. This concept could be used for everything in the car, including body panels, seats, etc. Following this plan, dealers would need far less inventory, reducing a huge carrying cost and avoiding the problem of end-of-model-year excesses for vehicles that don’t sell. A lot depends on your assumptions, but it’s a conservative estimate that dealers average 60 days worth of cars on their lots (2.7 million vehicles on lots nationwide). Using Toyota’s 2008 vehicle cost of about $22,900, an 8 percent carrying cost would yield more than $4.9 billion in annual savings by eliminating this inventory. These changes wouldn’t be easy. Dealers will wonder if consumers will be willing to wait in an era when buyers expect immediacy. But this process of choosing your options and waiting for delivery is no different than the way many of us buy computers from companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The benefits would be huge — a more responsive auto industry with lower costs, greater customer satisfaction, smaller dealerships, a simpler buying process and better forecasting. The current economic climate is forcing change on the auto industry. This is its best chance to really re-think the way it does business ,which will ultimately make the industry far more efficient.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, Guest Columns
