AMERICAN ISSUES PROJECT

The children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way is how the song goes. Here in Michigan, the young and college educated are the future and they are leading the way right out of the state. It's gotten so bad that now half of Michigan's college graduates leave the state within a year of receiving their diplomas to move to states with more job opportunities, and who can blame them? College graduates are filled with excitement for what lies ahead in their future, so naturally they want to live where the economic prospects will take them to that exciting future. Unfortunately, that destination is anywhere but Michigan.

The economy in Michigan is in such decline that it is not just college graduates who are leaving. Last year about 109,000 more people left than moved in, and those who moved out were the educated high income earners who lost their jobs and couldn't find any new jobs in the state. One of those was Dave Stefanic, a former Ford engineer. He hoped to stay in Michigan but the only job offers he got were out of state, so eventually he and his wife Cindi moved to South Carolina in January. And when others like Dave moved, the very people needed to rebuild the state's economy, they took with them about $1.2 billion more in earnings potential than those who moved into Michigan. And the size of their exodus is staggering. According to a United Van Lines 2008 migration report, 67.1 percent of Michigan-related moves last year were from people moving out of state. This trend, unfortunately, has not only not reversed at all in 2009 but it has only gotten worse. UVL issued a mid-year report for 2009 and, as of June 30th, that number has risen to 70 percent. Not one state in the country has an out-migration rate of even 60 percent.

What's particularly discouraging is that this statistic won't turnaround any time soon because Michigan's leaders insist on moving in a direction that will only deepen the state's economic problems. The businesses that currently are hanging on may not be able to for much longer if the liberals get their anti-business ballot measure up for a vote and it happens to pass. This measure is Michigan Democrats' cowardly way of imposing their desired mandates while keeping their hands clean when the inevitable failure happens. If this measure makes it on the ballot and becomes law, it would do the following:

• Raise the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour for all workers, which would require businesses to lay off additional employees in order to adapt to their increasing payrolls.
• Place a moratorium on all foreclosures for one year, which will shrink the already tight credit markets. This is especially bad for Michigan because of the large surplus of homes for sale.
• Require power companies to reduce rates by 20 percent, cutting into company profits and forcing more layoffs.
• Require all employers to provide health care for their employees, which will cause even more lay offs in order to fund this new mandate.
• Increase unemployment benefits and then extend them for six months. Unfortunately, all the layoffs mean more people will collect unemployment, thus leaving fewer taxpayers to fund the increasing demand for social services.

Since there is a diminishing number of small businesses left to employ Michigan's workers, common sense would dictate that the government do what will help those remaining businesses grow and prosper so they can hire more people. It seems common sense, however, has bailed out of Michigan as well. Instead of changing its tax and regulatory policies to power up its remaining businesses, the state is not only increasing their burdens but the state also has instead decided to make filling empty prison cells a higher priority. In early June, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan's 1st district asked Governor Granholm to reconsider closing the state's prisons in northern Michigan. It appears she has taken this advice and is now working on filling those prisons with inmates from other states. Last month, Granholm wrote a letter to Arnold Schwarzenegger and offered to take on the inmates he may be forced to parole in order to combat his state's bloated budget deficit. In addition to that, Rep. Stupak thinks it is a good idea to put the 241 detainees currently housed in Guantanamo Bay in Camp Manistique in the Upper Peninsula to bring in more federal dollars to bridge the state's worsening budget gap. It may very well do that in the short run, but in the long run, this will not improve Michigan's economy. Prisons, especially those that hold the worst terrorists this world has ever seen, don't grow economies. Prisons don't entice new residents and businesses to move in. Only businesses working in a thriving free market can do that, but apparently Michigan's leadership is determined to send them running from the state.

It seems the state's leadership is abandoning its productive work force and is instead focused on increasing its numbers of nonproductive residents. This strategy demonstrates a shocking level of incompetence at best and willful negligence at worst. Michigan's economic and demographic future is withering away right in front of its leaders, yet they have nothing to offer in the way of solutions except more of the same tired and suicidal liberal policies that are already destroying it. Michigan liberals are more and more becoming like medieval doctors who thought the way to cure all ills was to bleed their patients. Unfortunately, the patient is dying on the operating table.

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