[Jwo85]

Pew study: Michigan on track for California-style money woes | detnews.com | The Detroit News

[MTUCache]

"Granholm and lawmakers recently approved a budget that used $1.3 billion in cuts and $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money to wipe out a growing deficit..."

That sentence right there is the what I feel was/is the most wrong with the State of Michigan and how its government has treated this entire situation. $1.5 Billion federal stimulus dollars used by the state to stimulate.... nothing. Creditors. Who don't create new jobs, but are simply waiting to get paid for previous jobs.

The token gestures (Green energy! Yeah! Movie Studios! Yippie!) and false hope (Retrain yourself! No Worker Left Behind!) have amounted to nearly zero. Zero current help, and even less future help. Upwards of 20% of healthy, eager, and desperate adults in the state can't find anyone who is willing to give them a job to support their families, regardless of what industry its in or what type of education they have. And meanwhile we're focusing on balancing the budget, putting in a couple dozen windmills and giving tax incentives to movie studios. The only bright spot in the entire state is the Pure Michigan tourism dollars. Disgusting.

All that being said, I don't think there's many people in the Detroit area right now who wouldn't gladly swap positions with a Californian if it meant a better chance at getting a job, no matter what kind of taxes would be taken out of their paycheck.

[junior 88 fan]

Amen to that bro. Because she is not a leader but a follower, a finger pointer and a mirror image of the shameful mess in DC. There is no positive leadership at the state level, nor the national level. BTW, Cali just passed a 10% income tax proposal effective Nov 1st. To think, people there continue to vote for taxocrats just like here and then complain when they have less disposable income to work with. Sound familiar?

[Indentured Servant]

Well, let’s not create distinctions without much actual difference. People keep talking about how Michigan and the governor is doing it wrong, without juxtaposing it with who is doing it right. I would submit that people are arguing, implicitly, a high degree of distinction, or abnormality, in what exist in Michigan politically and fiscally, without demonstrating the difference (who has got their stuff together and what it is due to).

I hate to burst partisan bubbles, but the problems are not political, they are economical. We cannot legislate, use fiscal (taxes-less taxes, spending-less spending), monetary (Open Market control of interest rates by the FED), borrowing, or the issuing of bonds to prevent the decline in the standard of living that is going to sweep America and National, State and local governments. The different parties simply have a different route to the same fate.

I wish people really would stop creating State and Party distinctions when the problems we face as a nation go much, much broader than that. There may have been a time when such distinctions were actually with the same degree of difference, but that time has now passed by. People….turn the page!

[junior 88 fan]

That would be a good thing to do, but a certain party believes in taxes, increasing them and finding new avenues to fund thus requiring more taxes (SCHIP, Cap and Trade, NObama Care), so it has become a very distinctive pattern here. Smart people are fed up with it. How many dozens or major corporations in last last six years, have moved or BUILT new modern manufacturing facilities in TN, AL, AR, MS, GA, SC because of low or no tax abatements and those being right to work states??? No/low tax status, either permanent or for an agreed period of time + no forced upon UAW bloated rates = people going to work every day. Sounds pretty good to me. Tell us how many large companies want to come here, deal with this mess and have the potential to be penalized with increasing high taxes in order to fund the hole Jenny created? My guess would be zero (unless they get a secret deal). Shhh.

[RememberMee]

Southern states sometimes spend upward of $150,000 per ($10/hr) job created in land&tax&infrastructure give aways (not speaking of being generally anti-labor) to corporations, yet many of those close their shops and move them to Mexico etc.. Southern states are not called "rust belt" in media but there are plenty, lots and lots of abandoned plants sprinkled around.

How long will it take $10/hr worker to pay $150,000 in state taxes? Forever? Since corporations are getting a break, who's paying the balance? It's race to the bottom, it's just matter of time.

[todd00]

looking at the unemployment rates in the southern states mentioned, seems they are also having a bit of a bad time, even with all their major corporations. i saw an article dated dec of last yr saying tennessee had projected their unemployment fund would be out of money in a yr. not all happy pple down south either, yall. now those rich ceo's that got the land/tax give aways, and still laying off pple, well they are probably happy...thinking about the free trips to mexico they will be getting after moving the plants, due south.

donde hace mi trabajo ir? or where has my job gone?



Map: LA

[magellan]

Originally Posted by junior 88 fan

That would be a good thing to do, but a certain party believes in taxes, increasing them and finding new avenues to fund thus requiring more taxes (SCHIP, Cap and Trade, NObama Care), so it has become a very distinctive pattern here. Smart people are fed up with it. How many dozens or major corporations in last last six years, have moved or BUILT new modern manufacturing facilities in TN, AL, AR, MS, GA, SC because of low or no tax abatements and those being right to work states??? No/low tax status, either permanent or for an agreed period of time + no forced upon UAW bloated rates = people going to work every day. Sounds pretty good to me. Tell us how many large companies want to come here, deal with this mess and have the potential to be penalized with increasing high taxes in order to fund the hole Jenny created? My guess would be zero (unless they get a secret deal). Shhh.

Reminds me of the saying "shuffling deck chairs on the titanic." These large corporations are locating in the South NOW, because they can get literally $Hundreds of Millions in corporate welfare/tax credits/grants to build there. But it's just a matter of time before they take that production elsewhere.

Just like you can't tax your way to prosperity, you can't "tax cut" your way to prosperity either.

[junior 88 fan]

Good points. Tax cuts do work. When people have more money to spend and corporations have more people working, the demand for consumer products- at all levels, goes up. That is what is missing currently in these parts. People like to spend money. We're all good at it. But, if you have no job, no source of income, the trickle down effect is in place. If these companies must take their production elsewhere as you fear, MI could be in the sight planners eyes. My complaint in the above posts is that it will not happen here and MI will not be competitive with the current mindset in state government/UAW. That is why I am so frustrated. I, like many, do not care what tax breaks the corp is getting- if it works to get them here- perfect, give it to them. All I want to see is the help wanted sign out in front of it and I am sure thousands would agree. That is not happening, will not happen anytime soon and here we sit waiting while we're told green energy is the savior. Bull.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by magellan

Just like you can't tax your way to prosperity, you can't "tax cut" your way to prosperity either.

Why not? Cut taxes way back and businesses will thrive and grow, they'll hire more people, people can live with lower incomes if they have thousands of fewer tax dollars to give up. With more of their own money, people can spend more, go out to eat more, save more.