State of the State
When I was in High School I remember watching President Jerry Ford give the State of the Union Address; he started with a line that a raised a few eyebrows saying, "The State of the Union is not good."
Jennifer Granholm should have used that line last night.
She gave her annual State of the State address last night. That was not an easy job considering the sorry state of the Great Lakes State right now. She had a few general ideas; some of which are good and some are just plain brain-dead.
One of the good ones is for the state to administer a 401K program for companies that are to small to attract 401K providers. The day of the company pension is over, probably for good and it is time to look for another way to do it.
A non-starter is opening Michigan up to stem cell research. She seems have forgotten that Michigan is actually a purple state (economically blue, culturally red) and that would probably go absolutely no where with the people of this state.
The dumbest of her ideas is raising the minimum wage in Michigan. That is a sure-fire way to drive away investors and make people look to other states as a place to do business. People seem to have missed one of the lessons of the Carter Administration. You cannot eliminate poverty by using laws to increase wages; that inevitably only feeds inflation and prevents investment, thus destroying jobs.
The Republican response was more accurate, on how she had a lot of rhetoric but no concrete answers to Michigan's real problem, which is how to get more businesses to be started and old businesses improved in Michigan. Granholm is a decent person, but I don't think she has any idea how to do it; she still sees government as the solution rather than the problem.
Jennifer Granholm should have used that line last night.
She gave her annual State of the State address last night. That was not an easy job considering the sorry state of the Great Lakes State right now. She had a few general ideas; some of which are good and some are just plain brain-dead.
One of the good ones is for the state to administer a 401K program for companies that are to small to attract 401K providers. The day of the company pension is over, probably for good and it is time to look for another way to do it.
A non-starter is opening Michigan up to stem cell research. She seems have forgotten that Michigan is actually a purple state (economically blue, culturally red) and that would probably go absolutely no where with the people of this state.
The dumbest of her ideas is raising the minimum wage in Michigan. That is a sure-fire way to drive away investors and make people look to other states as a place to do business. People seem to have missed one of the lessons of the Carter Administration. You cannot eliminate poverty by using laws to increase wages; that inevitably only feeds inflation and prevents investment, thus destroying jobs.
The Republican response was more accurate, on how she had a lot of rhetoric but no concrete answers to Michigan's real problem, which is how to get more businesses to be started and old businesses improved in Michigan. Granholm is a decent person, but I don't think she has any idea how to do it; she still sees government as the solution rather than the problem.
posted by shoprat at 9:07 PM
4 Comments:
I'm not familiar with Michigan's economy so can't comment. It's to bad one of the states doesn't come up with a way to prefab all these upgraders or some of the components that are going up here. These projects are billions and billions of dollars, and we have a severe labor shortage. The min wage here is 5.75, but even slinging burgers will get you 11.00-12.00 min.
Wow! $12 for working at a burger place? Maybe thats how I pay for my vacation to Canada this summer!
She sounds like a Jimmy Carter protege.
In doing my series on Reagan this week I ran across many of his good quotes and this one is good: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." :-)
Heh .. cost of living is really high here lone pony, economies to hot. I bought a condo for 85K a year ago, and it's already valued at 130K ... climbing to fast, and it's bound to crash in about 5 years.
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