Michigan: Blueprint to crisis…A lesson???
March 12th, 2009 by Saul AnuzisDaniel Howe has written a powerful piece in the Detroit News that should serve as a lesson for America…I hope President Obama reads it.
"Back when Michigan's economy was merely troubled — before $4-a-gallon gas
and frozen credit markets pushed the auto industry into free-fall — Gov.
Jennifer Granholm warned the Big Mitten's deepening economic problems could
presage what lay ahead for the nation.I and other skeptics chortled, figuring the collective denial of economic
reality, anti-business rhetoric in Lansing, rote acceptance of labor's
influence in policy-making, and higher tax loads on individuals and
companies here couldn't possibly go national. The combination was too toxic,
too self-defeating, too steeped in a last-century worldview that had been
discredited by events and chronic failure.But I was wrong.
Less than two months into a new administration in Washington, much of the
tone and substance coming from the Obama White House and its allies in a
Democratic-controlled Congress sound eerily familiar to weary Michigan ears.
At least they should.There's money for education, health care and alternative technology. There's
the prospect of higher tax loads for some individuals and higher energy
prices for all. There's a push to increase the influence of the labor lobby
by making organizing easier. There are rhetorical shots at business, some
undeserved. There's even a Harvard Law-educated CEO who gives a great
speech.Been there, done that."
It sounds so familiar that it's truly scary. American can and SHOULD see Michigan as a model. As I said rhetorically during the campaign, if you like what Jennifer Granholm has done to Michigan, you're going to love what Barack Obama is going to do to America. More truth than not?!?
Come to Michigan, America, to see where some of this could lead if a) it's
not accompanied by plain recognition that business is the most effective
creator of jobs and b) the boss slow-walks remedies to serious problems, as
Obama is doing on the banking crisis.We have a state capital whose strongest leaders aren't the governor, the
speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader. They're the heads of the
United Auto Workers and the Michigan Education Association, the two biggest
obstacles to the structural reform of state and local government despite
steadily declining tax revenues, population and per capita incomes.Most of all, we have a penchant for addressing the symptoms of problems
because attacking the root causes is too hard. It doesn't work.
This is a very powerful article that every policy should read and take into consideration as America slips down the same road Michigan has been on!
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