The Michigan Example

A central belief in Washington and most state capitals nowadays is that government should "invest" in certain businesses—"clean tech," say, or manufacturing—to drive job creation. We hope it all turns out better than it has in Michigan. For the past 14 years, Lansing politicians have offered $3.3 billion in tax credits through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and spent another $1.6 billion in outlays to create and retain jobs. The subsidies have ranged from tax breaks for Hollywood, to money for new industrial plants, to millions for TV ads starring Jeff Daniels and Tim Allen talking about business and tourism in the state. It's one of the largest experiments in smokestack chasing in American history, but one thing it hasn't done is create jobs. An exhaustive new 100-page study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, has reviewed where all the money has gone and what came of it. The study finds that for every 100 jobs that were promised with these tax credits over 14 years, only 29 arrived. Dare we call this cash for clunkers?

I’m originally from Michigan and still have family and friends there. I visit often and am amazed how they all think Michigan will come back to all it’s glory soon. They dont see what is happening. Almost every 50 something male I know there is without a job and has resigned to an early retirement. Fortunately their wives are teachers and nurses and they can manage on just the one income. They dont see the deterioration of the infrastructure that is so noticeable to me. It doesn’t seem to bother them all the boarded up buildings and zillions of “for lease” signs on office buildings. They are all pro-Obama as he is their only hope for salvation.

I lived in Michigan for five years, and my wife is born-and-raised there with much family still in-state. When I lived there Republican John Engler was the Governor, which seemed to keep some of their more negative proclivities under control (even though he allowed himself to get head-faked into raising the state sales tax from 4 to 6 percent in exchange for property tax relief that never came). Under Commie-babe Canuck Gov. Jen Granholm, it sounds like anything goes. Observing as an outsider, I would say most of their problems seem to stem from self-inflicted attitude problems.

- An inherent and unquestioning faith in the ability of Unions to improve their lot in life. (can’t really blame them if they are basing this on the status-quo from, say, 1958. But times have changed. The mentality has not) Many will tell you they’d prefer no job to a non-union one, and that wish is increasingly coming true.

- A reflexive tendency to blame others for their problems, instead of looking in the mirror and addressing their own attitudes first. (if jobs are scarce, it is the fault of Greedy Fat Cat Industrialists, Global Trade, George W. Bush, the GOP, Toyota and Honda, non-union labor in Alabama, the Trilateral Commission, and Space Aliens....never that we want 40 hours pay for 25 hours work, plus time-and-a-half and retire with full lifetime pensions at age 50)

- A tendency for their default position to fall back to Alinsky-style confrontation. I would sum this attitude up as “Gee, we’re not getting what we want, so we must not be demanding it loudly enough. Scream louder!”

- They’ll gladly make the mess, but they won’t hang around to live in the muck they created. Perhaps no other state sees so many people take their generous pensions and flee to the very Southern states they decry ten minutes after they clock out for their last shift. (paying the taxes to support this mess is now sombody ELSE’S problem, dontcha know) I think Michigan lags only New York in the number of residents who flee to the Sun Belt each year.

Harsh generalizations, I know. But I saw enough living there to suspect that’s the root of the problem.

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