Michigan, The New Disneyland
January 15, 2008
So the Republicans are going to fix what’s wrong in Michigan? To hear them tell it, the plan to save the auto industry and to secure Michigan’s economic future is only a vote away.
On Monday, Romney, McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee toured the Detroit Auto Show, highlighting the economic problems of the struggling auto industry.
Michigan has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country — 7.4 percent, compared with 5 percent nationally — and the top-tier Republicans have vowed to make the revival of Michigan’s economy a top priority.
“I want to bring Michigan back,” Romney said Monday. “I’m not willing to sit back and say, ‘Too bad for Michigan. Too bad for the car industry. Too bad for the people who’ve lost their jobs; they’re gone forever.’
Claptrap, garbage and out and out deceit.
The American automobile is bigger and better than it has ever been.
From Alabama, to Kentucky, to South Carolina, to Ohio, to Illinois, to Missouri, to Georgia, to Mississippi, to Oregon, and other states, the automotive industry is booming in this country.
Michigan is has lost jobs because the auto unions in that state refused to negotiate contracts that cost the automobile companies a minimum of $60 dollars per hour when benefits are added in.
Many union collective bargaining wage agreements are based on the federal minimum wage. In many industries, union wages are calculated as multiples of the federal minimum wage.
Suppose the minimum wage is $7.00 an hour. If the collective bargaining agreement calls for a 3 times minimum wage base, that means the union employee would be paid $21.00 an hour.
If the minimum wage is raised to $8.00 an hour, the same union employee would see his or her wage raised to $24.00 per hour. The additional cost to the employer union would be $6,000 per year for each employee. There are many union employee contracts that call for wages at 5 and even 6 times federal minimum wage levels.
Lets do the math. At 5 times the minimum wage set at $7.00, the union negotiated hourly wage is $35.00 per hour. At 6 time the minimum wage, that negotiated wage is $42.00 per hour.
If the minimum wage is raised by $1.00, those hourly rates rise to $40.00 and $48.00, respectively…
Even though almost 90% of all Americans earn in excess of the minimum wage, the cost of new minimum wage legislation is astronomical. Who do you think pays for all that ‘feel good’ legislation in the form of higher costs for goods?
The automobile jobs left Michigan and found a home in other states because labor refused to deal on wages and absurd benefit guarantees.
You wanna play, you gotta pay.
The senator from Arizona also said it’s unrealistic to think all jobs can be restored, and he instead focuses on the retraining of workers.
“I would be ashamed to tell the people of Michigan or South Carolina that all of these jobs are coming back. I won the New Hampshire primary because I told people the truth: what they wanted to hear, what they didn’t want to hear. These people know that a lot of these jobs aren’t coming back,” McCain said over the weekend.
Whether you agree with McCain or not, at least he’s telling the truth.
If the voters in Michigan can’t see that, they are living in Disneyland.
January 15, 2008 at 11:02 AM
You’re 100% on the money, Siggy.
January 16, 2008 at 4:00 AM
Gentlemen:
I know the AFL-CIO is loving THIS post.
You’re right on, as always.
Passing thought if I may, regarding the teen angst warbled homage to Hillary Clinton. Thanks for posting that video.
The freeze frame shot in the beginning…you know, the one depicting of a very zaftig Mrs. Clinton, proved something that I always thought—Hillary IS a breast man.
LK
January 16, 2008 at 7:56 AM
They are living in Disneyland, Siggy. I was born in Michigan (Ann Arbor) and lived there until I graduated from college in 1979. Then, I (with much of the other graduates of ’79) left the state to find a real job, because there were no opportunities in Michigan.
Well, that process has been going on ever since then. After 25 years the only people left in the state are those that are retired, those that work for the government, those that work in the ever-dwindling pool of union jobs and those without ambition. Pretty much everyone else has left to pursue the American Dream.
Michigan is the only state in the union experiencing a recession from 2002 to the present. So what do they do? Re-elect the Democrats that caused the recession on a state level, and raise taxes on businesses to pay for a bloated budget the state legislature is unwilling to cut. And more businesses leave, resulting in more job loss, resulting in more productive people leaving the state for real work, leaving the state more Democratic than ever.
Disneyland? That’s kind. Try cloud-coo-coo-land.