We all know John Cherry as the Democratic front runner for the gubernatorial race in 2010, but what many people fail to realize is that John Cherry didn’t just recently appear on the state scene. In fact, John Cherry played a huge role in reforming our state’s system of education and evaluation. It was the “Cherry Commission” that made several recommendations for reform to the governor five years ago, among which was the Michigan Promise and the Michigan Merit Exam. Last Thursday, Lt. Governor Cherry, President Mary Sue Coleman, the current President of Meijer, and several others who contributed to the commission came together on our campus to celebrate its 5th anniversary of the commission and the strides that were made in its wake. Recent events, however, put a damper on what could be celebrated. As panelists spoke to address the recent cut of the Promise, there was a crushing sense of lost progress. After so much hard work and dedication on the part of state leaders, they saw their brain child dismantled by the obstructionist Republican State Senate. Instead of lamenting this defeat, Lt. Governor Cherry in particular looked forward and made a proposal to bring the Promise back.

I love the feeling you get when you hear a politician make a proposal that just makes sense, and you find yourself asking why it had never been done before. This is how I felt after Lt. Governor Cherry proposed a fee that would be charged to those companies that take water from Michigan aquifers. Water Bottlers are withdrawing an incredible amount of water from our ground and are doing so largely for free. As John Cherry put it: would it make sense for Oregon to give away its timber or for Texas to give away its oil? Of course it would not, so why do we give away our most valuable resource, water? The answer to this question is that we should not be giving this resource away . According to the Lt. Governor, the revenue from imposing a 10 cent per bottle fee on water bottlers would more than fund the Promise Scholarship. I will cling to belief that are state needs a graduated income tax until the day it is implemented, but it also just makes sense to correct this drastic error in resource management, and if it allows us to fund the Promise in the meantime, we have all the more impetus to get on board with John Cherry.

Later that same day, I attended one of our Kick Ass Thursday events where State Rep. Rebekah Warren expressed worries about the Cherry Proposal. She said that once we put a price on our water, we won’t be able to stop selling it to people. The points Rep. Warren raised were good ones, but I feel that we would be able to impose Cherry’s fee and still be able to regulate who can withdraw water and who cannot. As the Cherry proposal becomes more discussed, I’m sure we will hear more objections along the lines expressed by Rep Warren. I, for one, will need more evidence that the Cherry proposal really is a Pandora’s Box. For now at least, it just seems like common sense.