|
|
||
|
|
This letter is in response to comments made recently by two of our elected officials regarding the visit by Vice-President Cheney on June 25th, 2004. As communications coordinator for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Saginaw County, I had the privilege of attending this function and was startled by the lack of sophistication some of our city leaders displayed about the local jobs market. Mayor Ham criticized the Bush/Cheney Administration for the lack of jobs in Michigan. Has she forgotten that the STARS fiasco, which cost taxpayers over $1,000,000 directly and led to the loss of over 60 jobs, occurred on her watch? I understand the issues enough to know that, to Mayor Ham's credit, she has had to make the best of a situation she inherited, much like president Bush. If she is to lay the blame of job loss solely at the feet of this administration because it happened during their tenure, then shouldn't she be culpable for issues that occurred during her administration as well? I am not suggesting any misdeed on Mayor Ham's part, but let's use that analogy to elucidate how flawed her argument about jobs is. President Bush inherited an economy that was on its way down. The attacks on 9-11 certainly didn't help that situation and we have come through it with a stronger outlook than we had in 2000. Further, many employers either leave Saginaw or never come to Saginaw because of corruption at City Hall and a less than business friendly environment which is a direct result of years of ineffective city leadership. Mrs. Ham further states that Saginaw has lost 6,400 jobs locally since the Bush administration has been in office. 6,400 jobs lost in 3 years? With a total working population of 98,000 people (2000 census data), the mayor would have us believe that fully 7% of the jobs in Saginaw have been lost in 3 short years? Has she driven down Bay Road or Fashion Square Blvd. lately to see the various new businesses that have opened their doors in the last couple of years? Mayor Ham also states that the Bush administration _wants to hide the fact that the administration sided with big business to the detriment of businesses like Durolast. She states this with no basis in fact whatsoever; indeed, in spite of the facts. In
addition to tax cuts, this administration has increased the annual deduction for
equipment purchases from $25,000 to $100,000. This puts more money into
the pockets of small businesses like Durolast who can then use that money to
expand their business and hire more workers. Another of our city leaders who is perhaps more uninformed about the real jobs picture is 95th District Representative Carl Williams. In a June 26th article, Mr. Williams states that he had hoped Cheney would talk about how the White House would restore hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in Michigan since Bush became president. Hundreds of thousands of lost jobs in Michigan? Did I hear that right? He would have us believe that at least 10% of the jobs in Michigan have been lost in the last 3 years. Even if we had lost this many jobs since 2000, let's look at the reality of the situation From 1996-2000 Michigan lost 152,000 jobs. This was during the Clinton administration and during the Internet boom when virtually every other state was creating jobs. According to the Lansing Journal, 76,000 jobs will be added in Michigan this year with another 75,000 or more in 2005. This can be attributed directly to tax cuts and a recovering economy for which our president gets full credit. Mr. Williams also states that Electrolux moved jobs out of Michigan to Mexico. This is not entirely true.
For one, Electrolux was not in his district, it's in Greenville. For another, approximately half of the jobs went to Anderson, SC. And finally, Electrolux is a Swedish company, so they technically outsourced jobs TO Michigan in the first place.
If the job market is so bad that Mr. Williams feels he has to spend a day while he is on the public payroll among the maybe 20 people protesting the Vice-President, maybe he should have walked into Durolast and picked up a job application for one of the 20 jobs the company is adding this month. People are leaving Michigan in search of better wages, a better working climate, etc. As Congressman Dave Camp said, "Both the state and federal government must immediately reduce its taxes and fees to stem the loss of jobsŠI will renew my efforts to lobby Senators Levin and Stabenow to finally pass the Energy Bill". This
is exactly what the Bush administration has done and, as the recent economic
news continues to show, it's working. How can our local politicians be so
unaware of this trend? Is it really ignorance or are they actually seeking to
lay the blame for a poorly managed city at the feet of the federal government? You
probably don't realize this, but the Mayor & Council had absolutely no control
over the STARS fiasco because they lacked the authority to take action. At that point it became a matter for the Saginaw County Board of Commissioners to control, which they eventually did. But the only authority council (or the Mayor had) was to appoint a few council representatives to the STARS Board of Directors. Eventually they got Ken Horn (a Republican, I might add) appointed and since then he's been doing a very good job of getting it cleaned up. But to blame the Mayor for this is inaccurate, because all the city could do was fire & hire their allotment of board members. Frankly, it's the Board of Commissioners that has the authority & responsibility for overseeing Public Authorities that the County (which the city is a part of) pays for. Additionally, even after the scandals broke it was Tom Basil (a Republican I might add) that actually defended the leadership of STARS. Secondly, Republicans love to claim that President Bush inherited an economy that was declining. They also love to take established facts and treat them as opinion. The reality is that under President Clinton the United States economy was doing very well and it wasn't until Congress enacted an unprecedented $1.3 billion tax cut early in Bush's administration that the federal deficit ballooned, the stock market tanked, and the job exporting accelerated.
Regarding your criticism of Ham and Williams on job loss in Michigan, I just
looked up unemployment statistics and the U.S. Department of Labor
just released new state-by-state unemployment and job loss figures showing
Michigan at
6.6% unemployment
- a 2% increase. The
152,000 additional jobs lost during the 1996-2000 period you reference in
your letter can be directly traced to NAFTA and government incentives
(such as granting Pillsbury $11 million in tax incentives to move jobs to
Mexico) that encourage unemployment in the state.
The nation has lost jobs in 25 of the 31 months that President Bush has been in
office, making for the worst jobs record at this point in a presidency of any
administration since Herbert Hoover. Including last month's loss of 44,000 positions (when economists had predicted a 10,000-job increase), our economy has shed more than 2.5 million jobs and 3.2 million private-sector jobs since the president took office.
o say that adding 75,000 lower paying jobs after hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in the State while Republicans have been at the helm is like giving an arsonist an award for building one house for every four that he's burned.
|
|
|
|
Enable frames | |
|
home | out/about | events | personal | store | classified | real estate | forums | archives | contact |
||
