Quote:
Originally Posted by PiKA2001
WHOA! Come on Dee, you really don't think that, do you? The writing has been on the wall ( Michigan's economic blight) since the 90's when NAFTA was signed. Michigan had all of their economic eggs in one basket......the manufacturing industry, which had been in decline well before Bush took office. To blame GWB is so....partisan.
I'm glad to have a Republican Governor back in office in MI. Do you really think two penny Jenny Granholm was better than Engler??
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Who said GWB??? I said "Bush" to start with. He was the one who refused to tax imports when other countries started to put such high tariffs on our cars that Europeans couldn't afford them. That was when the foreign auto companies started building plants here. Bush 2 did the same with foreign steel and put our steel companies out of business. The nail in the coffin was the de-regulation of the banking industry and the credit freeze in 2008, during GWB.
Michigan had all their economic eggs in one basket for a century. How can you blame Granholm for that? When Engler took over, our state coffers had a huge "rainy day fund" and he spent it all and left the state in debt! Engler instituted Proposal A which totally screwed up our funding for education. After we voted it down twice, he offered up two options, one of which was far WORSE than Prop A so we had to pick Prop A since it was the lesser of two evils. Engler was the worst governor we ever had. He shut down the entire mental health system in the state leaving the chronically mentally ill to live on the streets. Granholm's push for tax breaks for the film industry, her securing of contracts to build alternative energy methods have helped a lot (new car battery factories and wind mill factories opening soon). It takes time for the results to come to fruition.
As for EW: Congress has the capability of more power if they have a high enough majority to override vetoes and block filibusters.
Unions: Compare teachers' salaries in states with strong unions and states with weak unions. Union oriented states pay their teachers more. Compare hourly wages between a grocery store with unionized employees to the grocery store across the street from it with non-union employees. Union employees are above poverty level. Non-union are not. Where do you think our economy would be if all manufacturing jobs paid what they do in China or Mexico?
Dingell pulled it off, and by a 13-14% margin. Those early figures must have been from Ann Arbor. Thank goodness.
Rick Snyder's big thing is "get rid of the Michigan Business Tax". I realize that significant tax breaks can attract business and eventually bring more jobs into the state, thereby increasing the income tax and property tax revenues for the state. However, that will take time. There will be a lag between losing those tax dollars and the long term increase in revenues. What he hasn't told us is where is the money going to come from to continue state operations during that time? Or, what is going to be cut? I can't imagine what else could be cut. I'd like to know how state operations are going to be paid for in the interim.
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