As Michigan Goes Down, So Does the Rest of the Country

Detroit Landscapes Coming Soon to a Town Near You

Things aren't looking so hot for my beloved home state. Unemployment is sky high at 9.6%, funds to get people back to work have dried up, and the Lions are having another stinker of a season. Since the auto industry and the well-being of Michiganders are inextricably linked (even at the spiritual level), Gov. Granholm (D-MI) is making the rounds in the media circuit to plea for help from the feds in the form of an auto bailout. From Politico:

States, in particular, cannot afford inaction at the federal level, as we are already being forced by tight budgets to make wrenching decisions: either cut the very services that people need most in tough times – health care, job training, new job creation and education – or ask citizens to pay more to provide those services when people need them. Either option would freeze any hope of an American economic recovery.

The Michigan state budget was teetering on bankruptcy just last year, and they had to enact some 11th-hour legislation to slap the citizenry with more service taxes on everything from psychic palm-reading to ski lifts. Obviously, Granholm has been a poor steward of fiscal responsibility if she is forced to ask the federal government for cash, and she is pushing "universal health care" to relieve the Big Three of the UAW pensions that are crippling them. But, just like expensive health benefits have caused the manufacturing industry to be uncompetitive, taking it to a federal level will make all of America uncompetitive in our downhill slide to irrelevance.

The funny money being cranked out in the bailout is causing the dollar to become as useless as toilet paper, and the federal deficit is projected to be over a Trillion dollars (that's like two Iraqs!). So as much gratitude as I have for the auto industry and the state of Michigan, I just can't stomach the rest of the country going down like that. And that's why I've been against the bailout bonanza.