Monday, March 28, 2011

Just What Michigan Needs--A Less Attractive Business Landscape

Editorial: Pull the plug on power plan


How many jobs will this kill in a state from which struggling employers and the unemployed are already fleeing?

Forcing businesses and consumers to arbitrarily pay vastly more for what the free market could provide more efficiently, will cut at the heart of both business productivity and consumer viability. Productivity, if you have not been reading up on your economics, is one of the most important factors in generating wealth, and the absence of consumer viability is what drives residents into either the welfare or the U-Haul moving van lines.

This plan is tantamount to passing a $600 million tax on Michiganders over the next few years for which they will not even receive shoddy road work--it is money thrown down a rat hole, and to make matters worse, it is a rat hole located in Iowa.

If Michigan is ever to recover it must do so by becoming a fertile ground for business profits. There is no other way. We can play around with Pure Michigan and we can lecture forever on how our highly skilled labor force is unmatched, but if prospective and current Michigan businesses cannot clearly see a future of profits they will dispense with all the drama and build or move their livelihoods to exotic locales such as Texas where entrepreneurs are actually encouraged to operate profitably.

We have a state government that has spent the better part of the last decade making Michigan uncompetitive on purpose, and we have a federal government that is more than willing to make Michigan more uncompetitive though arbitrary geography.

Michigan must become more competitive and not simply by degrees for it must become attractive when compared to states that have outmaneuvered us over the past few decades.

Lowering our business expenses to the national average will not be enough to secure adequate business investment--we must be lower, and significantly lower. This plan pushes us horribly in the wrong direction and will make whatever recovery Michigan might experience that much more difficult.

A multifaceted progressive agenda helped push this state to the brink of collapse and now we are dependent upon progressives like Debbie Stabenow to save us from the initiatives their ideals have spawned.

Enjoy.

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