It's Not My Job

(For me to be forced to pay taxes to help you keep your job)

Just so that we are clear from the start, let me repeat my title here again: "It's not my job for me to be forced to pay taxes to help you keep your job."

GET IT?

No you don't, because, unfortunately, I have to break something else to you:


"It's not YOUR job unless you are self employed or otherwise own the company you work for."


With these horrible revelations in mind, let's look at this story about Michigan unemployment.


"Michigan's jobless rate climbed to 7.3 percent in December, a new high for the year that could leave the state with the worst unemployment rate in the nation.

More than 369,000 state residents were out of work in December, reducing the number of people working in Michigan to a 2004 low of 4.6 million."


The numbers should tell you something about the kind of jobs available in the State of Michigan, and the kinds of workers that Michigan has produced or attracts. Read more:


"For 21 of the past 28 years, Michigan's unemployment rate has been higher than the national rate. I know everyone likes to the point to the Clinton boom times when we had one of the lowest jobless rates in the nation.

"But," she concluded, "we aren't in Clinton boom times."

Michigan State University economics professor Charles Ballard said he thinks it's likely the state's jobless numbers will begin to recede in 2005.

"It is still true that if the U.S. economy has a good year in 2005, Michigan's economy will probably slowly improve," Ballard said.

He added, however, that Michigan is going to continue to lag until its workers get better educated. "We rank 39th among the 50 states in terms of percentage of our adult population that has a college degree," he said. (emphasis mine,VRR)

That last little detail...39th among the 50 states (in college degrees)--says it all, as far as I am concerned.

Michigan residents have to face the tough reality that their historic love affair with big fat overpaid union manufacturing jobs has caused their state to be populated with tax-paying citizens that at best graduate from high school before they go to work on the local "widget" assembly line.

But you know what? Manufacturers are no longer willing and able to pay $35 per hour in union wages to employ a bunch of arrogant, undereducated, "worker-bees" that now spend their days lamenting "their" jobs being sent to China or Mexico.

Remember what I said? THEY WERE NOT "THEIR" JOBS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

"In July, Pete Noel became one of the thousands of Michigan factory workers who lost work to overseas competition. Noel was turned out of his machinist job of 36 years when the Keeler Die Cast. Co. plant in Grand Rapids closed, its work transferred to China.

"The only offers I get are $8 an hour with no benefits," said Noel, who was among 120 who lost their jobs when Keeler closed.

In April, welder Jim Downey lost his job making trailer hitches at the Veltri Metal Products plant in New Baltimore after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Now potential employers tell him he's no longer qualified for the job he held for more than two decades.

"The job I used to do, now they suddenly want a college degree," Downey said.

In September, Downey became a part-time custodian at Warren public schools.

Former factory workers are the least likely of all workers to find new full-time jobs. A third of them will eventually accept work for lower pay, often 20 percent less with reduced benefits, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."

Imagine the uproar among buggy whip and horse shoe manufacturers in the early 1900's as 15 million of Henry Ford's Model T automobiles poured off of the assembly lines. Don't you suppose that the advent of readily available, affordable cars put a minor dent in their income and employment base (not to mention putting about 30 million horses out of work?)

The workers stopped making buggy whips, sold their hammers and anvils, and went to work bolting cars together. People across the country feverishly bought train and bus tickets (or walked and rode horses) by the thousands to move to Michigan or other cities like Atlanta where Ford plants were located in order to take on the new auto manufacturing jobs.

The new autoworkers probably had to learn new work skills since Model T's didn't have a lot of braided leather in their austere interiors and cars rolled down the road on four rubber tires rather than clomping along on four hand forged horseshoes. Even so, times changed and so did the employee base of our country.

Not so today. People want the Government to take care of their employment problems. They don't want to change.

And leave it to the rocket scientist Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan to come up with a brainstorm solution. She wants to INCREASE the taxes on successful non-manufacturing businesses in order to support cutting the taxes on the struggling manufacturers.

Typical Liberal BS. "YOU make too much money and YOU don't NEED all of it so the GOVERNMENT is going to step in and confiscate YOUR MONEY under force of law and give it to some lazy, under-educated, unemployed voters that supposedly do NEED IT."

"Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposed Michigan Jobs & Investment Act is a ray of sunshine for Michigan businesses struggling through the worst economic times in decades.

It's a gutsy move to remake the way the state taxes businesses.

It's not an overall tax cut."

Imagine that. "WELL OF COURSE IT'S NOT AN OVERALL TAX CUT, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TAX A LOSS." Also notice the use of the word "investment" in the name of Ms. Granholm's new government program rather than the word "tax." Just like I recently wrote about the meaning of the words "budget cut", the liberals and the government have changed the meaning of the word "investment" from "putting your money into something expecting a return on your investment" to that of "redistribution of other people's income through taxation."

Read further with me and get angrier:

"Nor does it increase the money that Michigan gets from businesses.

It's a shift.

Now, the Single Business Tax formula concentrates on manufacturers' payrolls.
In general, the more people on the payroll, the more tax a company pays.

It's punishing businesses big and small for employing people."


Aaah...excuse me...but Michigan did this to themselves by passing the law in 1975...

"That could be at least one of the reasons why Michigan's unemployment rate is the highest in the nation - 7.3 percent.

Instead, Granholm wants to turn the formula around, and base the Single Business Tax more on profits.

Those companies that are making money would pay more in taxes."

Everyone...give me a big old collective Duuuuuuhhhhh here on the relevation that companies making more money pay more taxes...

"The result would be a tax cut of 37-40 percent for 72,000 Michigan businesses. That includes most small businesses, manufacturers and retailers.

The tax would rise for 22,000 businesses, mostly consulting-type operations with low overhead, few employees and high profits.

This just might work."

I'm sorry, I don't want children to go hungry and I'm not supporting causing Michigan families to be forced to live in their mini vans, but this is typical liberal CRAP.

Rather than the government encouraging the employees to modify their employment skills to suit the needs of the current workplace (or even relocate to where the jobs are to be found,) they want to attempt to somehow modify the state's business climate to suit the abilities of the workers.

And the idea will not work--not for very long. You know why?

BECAUSE I DON'T NEED A BUGGY WHIP OR ANY HORSESHOES, I DRIVE A CHEVY SURBURBAN BUILT IN CANADA.

Any further questions?