Like Connors, TV weatherman from the 1993 comedy 'Groundhog Day,' we're still waking up to the same scenario hoping for greater change. Picture was too rosyDetroit autoworkers and executives for years rose each day insisting that the situation wasn't nearly as dire as it really was. Executives refused to adequately adjust their sales forecasts (many still do), and workers demanded -- and got -- benefits that didn't compute in any economy, never mind one that was swirling into oblivion. They said it was part of the cyclical downturn. Some years it was. Then the bottom fell out, we think. Detroit's response was historic. Contracts with the United Auto Workers were settled that fundamentally changed the way health care would be offered, and other savings were written into the agreements. But not until 2010. That could wait for another day. Direct action neededOnly it couldn't. By that time, there likely won't be a Big Three. Failing to match revenue with expenditures or supply with demand has pushed Detroit's automakers to the brink of extinction in varying degrees. Certainly, layoffs, plant closures and restructuring plans are steps in the right direction, though they're long overdue and unable to make a significant difference today. Home- and business owners here, including those who aren't tied to the auto industry, are watching to see how the state responds to the current crisis and wondering if it will get better. It's a situation that we've got to correct ourselves with even more direct action lest we be written off further by people outside Michigan. 'Too many people, falsely, think the auto industry doesn't matter to them or their state. And they're dead wrong. It matters to every state,' U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills, told me Tuesday. 'It matters to America. The saying is still true: What's good for GM is still good for America.' He's absolutely right, but America won't care until we fix what ails us here, first. And we've got to find a way to do it today, not tomorrow. Auto Editor Manny Lopez's column runs Wednesday. Reach him at (313) 222-2536 or [email protected].