CasaSugar

Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state

Cassandra57 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:58:37 -0700

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Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state

Outflow of skilled, educated workers crimps Michigan's recovery
Ron French and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News

Joe LaCross drives American cars. Always has. Born and raised in the blue-collar suburbs of Detroit, this son of a welder wouldn't dream of rolling past his autoworker neighbors in a Toyota. But not long ago the 38-year-old pulled into the driveway of his Sterling Heights home in a vehicle wreaking even more havoc in his home state.

A moving van.

"I grew up here," said LaCross, as he packed to move to Florida in search of a job. "My family is here. My wife's family is here. I love everything about Michigan.

"Everything," he said, picking up a plastic storage tub, "except the economy."

People are leaving Michigan at a staggering rate. About 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is one of the worst rates in the nation, quadruple the loss of just eight years ago. The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving -- young, well-educated high-income earners -- are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.

Long treated as a symptom of Michigan's economic woes, outmigration has exploded into a massive problem of its own, a slow-motion Katrina splintering families, gutting state coffers and crippling an already hobbled economy, one moving van at a time.

"I never thought I'd leave," said LaCross, looking around his empty Michigan home. "What happens now?"

Poorer, less educated

Michigan's exodus is one of the state's best known but least understood problems. Long ignored or downplayed, outmigration has been shrugged off partly because it was assumed that those who were leaving were unemployed blue-collar workers and retirees, groups that, in economic terms, don't cripple the state with their departure.

But a Detroit News analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service data reveals that every day, Michigan gets less populated, less educated, and poorer because of outmigration.

The state's net loss to outmigration -- the number of people leaving the state minus those moving in from other states -- has skyrocketed since 2001. Although the Census Bureau does not report totals moving in and out each year, Internal Revenue Service records show that the population decline is a result of two disturbing trends: The number of Michigan residents leaving the state rose 25 percent between 2001 and 2007, while the number of new residents moving in plummeted by nearly one-third.

Since 2001, migration has cost Michigan 465,000 people, the equivalent of the combined populations of Grand Rapids, Warren and Sterling Heights -- the state's second-, third- and fourth-largest cities.

Population loss of that magnitude is so rare that its impact has never been studied. But The News' analysis discovered some sobering trends:

• Those leaving Michigan are the people the state most needs to keep -- young and college-educated. The state suffered a net loss to migration of 18,000 adults with a bachelor's degree or higher in 2007 alone -- the equivalent of half the staff of the University of Michigan crossing the state line.

"We're home-grown," lamented Dave Stefanic, a former Ford engineer, who with his surgical assistant wife, Cindi, moved to South Carolina in January, leaving behind the dream home they built in Brownstown Township. "To have to leave Michigan because of the economy ... it's depressing."

Dave and Cindi both have college degrees. Dave was laid off from Ford six months ago, but didn't put his house on the market for four more months, hoping to find work in the area. "All the offers I got were out of state," he said.

Those with college educations were more likely to move than those without a degree. One-quarter of adults still in Michigan have at least a four-year college degree, compared to 39 percent of those who left.

In simplest terms, those with the skills to leave Michigan are doing so; high-skilled people from other states who once might have moved to Michigan are choosing to go elsewhere.

"Migration is good for the migrants but bad for the state they're leaving," said Mark Partridge, an economics professor at Ohio State University who specializes in the study of migration patterns. "It's a vicious downward cycle; the best and brightest leave; entrepreneurs don't come to the state because the best and brightest are elsewhere; as more people leave, that leaves fewer people to pay for services. Neither one will make Michigan a very appealing place."

• Michiganians who fled the state in 2007 took with them almost $1.2 billion more in paychecks than the paychecks of those moving in. That represents a 45 percent increase in lost wages in just one year, money no longer spent in Michigan businesses, paying mortgages or paying taxes.

Those leaving Michigan had incomes 20 percent higher than those who moved here ($49,700 to $40,000), a disturbing reversal of a long-standing trend.

And those figures don't take into account the "ripple effect" those paychecks would have had here -- an estimated $3.7 billion.

• The net loss of school-age children was more than 12,000 in 2007 alone, costing individual school districts roughly $84 million in state aid.

• With about 36,000 more households leaving the state than moving in, that leaves 36,000 empty houses and apartments, damaging already weak home values. "When there are more properties on the market, it drives down prices," said Ron Walraven, a real estate agent in West Bloomfield. "With the layoffs and the buyouts at the auto companies, people are leaving. Some are just abandoning their homes."

• People moving from state to state are disproportionately young. While almost 13 percent of Michigan's population is over 65, only 2.5 percent of those leaving are that old. That means outmigration is adding to the costs associated with an aging population, such as the state's share of Medicaid payments to retirement homes.

• There will be fewer tax dollars to pay for those services, maintain roads or run schools. According to Senate Fiscal Agency estimates, the income leaving the state cost Michigan more than $100 million in personal income tax revenue in 2007 alone.

The impact on communities is harder to quantify, with each departure pulling a thread from the social fabric. The loss of LaCross means a group of buddies will no longer have his trailer to use to go to deer camp; his brother-in-law, Steven Selva, who moved to Florida with LaCross, left a girls softball team without a coach.

"We've got deep roots -- I've got tons of family here," said Vivian Matti, who told her parents over Thanksgiving dinner that she and her family were moving to Coco Beach, Fla.

Over turkey and dressing, the 35-year-old told an achingly familiar story of lost jobs and a foreclosed home. "I've been in Michigan for 15 years and my husband for 30," Matti said. "We're all depressed we're leaving, but there's no other choice."

• As Michigan loses population and other states gain, the state is likely to lose more congressional seats, resulting in less clout in Congress. Electoral votes -- based on congressional seats -- probably will decline, giving Michigan less influence in presidential elections when votes are reallocated in 2010.

"These numbers -- my God," said Kurt Metzger, a demographer who heads a local nonprofit. "It's like a perfect storm -- the education, the income, the young people, everything is going in the wrong direction."

Recovery gets harder

As bad as the outmigration numbers are now, Metzger worries they may get worse.

"The pattern used to be that people would move away from Michigan and then move back," Metzger said. "Now, people are moving and then drawing the rest of their (extended) family with them."

Gina Damuth's husband, Fred Damuth, was laid off from Pfizer in 2007. Later that year, they moved from Farmington Hills to North Carolina.

Now, Gina Damuth has convinced her parents to move to North Carolina, too.

"I feel so bad for the people stuck in Michigan," said Damuth, 34. "I was in the Detroit area recently and I didn't realize the number of people who walk with their head down. You can see it if you pay attention -- nobody smiles, everybody looks depressed. My dad says it's scarier now. People are talking about how they don't know if Michigan is going to recover this time."

That recovery will be harder because of the people who have left, said University of Michigan economist Don Grimes. "You can't grow your economy if you're shrinking. You basically have an infrastructure built around a certain size of economy, and if you shrink below that scale, you have fewer people to support the infrastructure."

That can mean higher taxes, poorer services or both.

Some of those costs won't be felt for decades.

"When you lose people in their 20s, in five years, you won't have their kids entering school; in 20 years, you won't have their kids entering the work force," Grimes said. "It puts you in a downward spiral."

Indeed, demographers have said the sharp population losses from 1979 to 1983, when the state lost nearly a half-million people in four years, created an "echo dip" in the state's population nearly two decades later. The current migration, which has seen similar total losses, has lasted twice as long.

'What can you do?'

In Sterling Heights, Joe LaCross Jr.'s father, Joe LaCross Sr., tears up as he helps his "No. 1 son" load his belongings into a van to move across the country.

"You may never see me again," LaCross Sr. said.

"Oh come on," said his son.

The father brought a bottle of his best home-made cherry wine for his son to take to Florida; a piece of the family, a piece of Michigan.

"It's terrible for the people in Michigan," LaCross Sr. said. "It's a beautiful state. But what can you do? You have to work."

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090402/METRO/904020403/Leaving+Michigan...

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This is exactly what I've been predicting for California for two or three years, now.

Cali will be in an even worse condition, though, because of the Legislature's free-spending ways and the disproportionate number of illegal immigrants, who are low-paid workers and frequently do not document and pay the full tax load on their income. Also, reputable studies have been done showing that they consume more in taxpayer-funded services than they contribute in taxes.

This makes for a very delicate and unsustainable balancing act. Even after all of the fiscal drama over the last several months, the state budget is still not as feasible and stable as it should be: there are some unfounded underlying assumptions which could derail it all over again, and soon.

From the December 20, 2007 (not a typo...over a year ago) Los Angeles Times:
California's population continued to grow modestly in the last fiscal year despite a significant exodus of residents to other states, according to a state report released Wednesday.

The annual study by the Department of Finance showed that 89,000 more people moved out of California than moved here from elsewhere in the United States. California's population did grow in fiscal 2007 -- but the growth rested on births and the arrival of more than 200,000 immigrants from other countries.

California's population continued to grow modestly in the last fiscal year despite a significant exodus of residents to other states, according to a state report released Wednesday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-me-growth20dec20,1,4888994.st...

And more recently (March 17, 2009):
"CA: 2nd Largest Rate of Out-Migration BEFORE New Higher Taxes"
http://www.cehwiedel.com/blogs/redcountycalifornia/?p=5087

Michigan News: Update: Lawmakers, Granholm endorse plan to reduce spending by releasing inmates early

Cassandra57 — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:06:35 -0800

Yup, this should go well.

Update: Lawmakers, Granholm endorse plan to reduce spending by releasing inmates early
by David Eggert | The Associated Press
Thursday January 22, 2009, 6:37 PM

LANSING -- Lawmakers and Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Thursday endorsed changes in parole policies that would drop Michigan's prison population by thousands and save $262 million in corrections costs by 2015.

The key proposal: automatically releasing inmates once they serve their minimum sentence unless they don't complete prison rehabilitation programs or were convicted of crimes such as rape and murder for which the maximum term is life. The parole board could hold offenders beyond 120 percent of their minimum sentence only if they pose a "very high" risk of re-offending.

"It's the length of stay that is driving our high incarceration rate in this state," Department of Corrections Director Patricia Caruso told reporters. "People just do a lot more time."

About 12,000, or one-fourth, of Michigan's 48,000 prisoners are beyond their earliest release date. That's down from 17,000 when Granholm took office in 2003.

Policymakers want to pass laws limiting the parole board's discretion to hold inmates beyond their minimum sentence. The requirement would start with prisoners sentenced after April 1 of this year, so those in prison now wouldn't be affected -- though the board already has taken steps on its own to reduce the number of inmates being held beyond their earliest release date.

Outside experts analyzed the prison system during a yearlong review requested by the Democratic governor and legislative leaders. The bipartisan report released Thursday by the Council of State Governments was backed by legislators and administration officials who worked on the project.

The analysis found that minimum sentences in Michigan are similar to the time served by criminals in other states. The difference is Michigan inmates stay in prison considerably longer than is the case nationally.

In 2007, Michigan was one of just four states to spend more on prisons than universities and community colleges. The nearly $2 billion prison budget has come under scrutiny in recent years as Michigan grapples with less tax revenue.

Critics have said many low-risk offenders could be released without jeopardizing public safety. Defenders have said only the worst criminals end up in Michigan prisons and they deserve to be there a long time.

Republicans and Democrats applauded the study for not just focusing on reducing prison costs but for proposing that savings be spent to deter crime and lower recidivism.

Michigan, for example, has the lowest number of law enforcement per capita in the Great Lakes region despite having the region's highest violent crime rate.

"The paramount concern is public safety," said Sen. Alan Cropsey, a DeWitt Republican.

The violent crime rate dropped 2 percent between 2000 and 2007 while arrests for violent offenses fell 22 percent during the same period.

The report suggested hiring more staff to reduce backlogs at state police crime labs; increasing job opportunities for at-risk youth, parolees and probationers; ensuring first-time parole violators sent back to prison serve no more than nine months; and setting up local pilot projects so probation violators get a quick, short stay in jail.

Probation violators often see no punishment until they break multiple rules and are sent to prison -- where it costs more to incarcerate them.

If all the options to reduce corrections spending are adopted, Michigan would have 5,572 fewer prisoners than expected in 2015, according to the study. About $262 million would be saved from 2011 to 2015 -- not a huge amount considering the state probably will spent upwards of $10 billion on corrections in that period.

Policymakers defended the savings as a good first step that can gain bipartisan support.

The study didn't consider other big policy changes such as scaling back truth-in-sentencing laws passed in 1998 that require offenders to serve their minimum sentence. Michigan used to reward inmates with disciplinary credits for good behavior.

Other proposals include re-establishing a sentencing commission to examine sentence lengths and replacing the parole board's political appointees with civil servants.

John Andrews of the Michigan Association of Substance Abuse Coordinating Agencies said he hopes the state will spend more on drug and alcohol treatment because nearly two-thirds of new inmates have abused drugs, alcohol or both. That often is the root cause of crime, he said.

Andrews said he's worried Michigan's high unemployment rate will make it even tougher for criminals to turn their lives around unless they get more help once they are released.

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/report_michigan_can_reduce_s...

You Know You're From Michigan When...

x_juicyfruit — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:10:11 -0700

- You show people where you're from by pointing to a spot on the back
of your left hand. (Especially useful if you're from the Thumb or the
Little Finger.)

- The only place in the world can you experience
all four seasons in one day.

- You know what a 'party store' is.

- You've never met any celebrities.

- "Vacation" means going to Cedar Point.

- At least one member of your family disowns you the
week of the Michigan / Michigan State game.

- Your idea of a traffic jam is 40 cars waiting to pass an orange barrel.

- Half the change in your pocket is Canadian....eh?

- You drive 86 mph on the highway and pass on the right.

- You know how to play (and pronounce) Euchre.

- It's easy to get Vernor's ginger ale, Better Made chips, Sanders hot fudge
sauce, and Faygo pop.

- You know how to pronounce "Mackinac."

- You've had to switch on the heat and the air conditioning in the same day.

- You bake with SODA and drink POP.

- The movie "Escanaba in Da Moonlight" wasn't funny. You consider it
a documentary.

- Your little league game was snowed out.

- The word "thumb" has geographical rather than anatomical significance.

- Traveling coast-to-coast means driving from Port Huron to Muskegon.

- You measure distance in minutes.

- When giving directions, you refer to "A Michigan Left."

- You know that Kalamazoo not only exists, but isn't far from Hell.

- Your year has two seasons: Winter and Construction.

- Home Depot on any Saturday is busier than toy stores at Christmas.

- You know when it has rained because of the smell of worms.

- When owning a Japanese car was a hangin' offense in your hometown.

- You believe that "down south" means Toledo.

- Your idea of a seven-course meal is a six-pack and a bucket of smelt.

- You know that Big Mac is something that you drive over.

- You can see a car running in a parking lot with no one in it, no matter what
time of the year.

- You end your sentences with a preposition; example: "Where's my
coat at?"

- All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain,
or animal.

- You think of the four major food groups as beef, pork, BBQ sauce,
and beer.

- You carry jumper cables and snow chains in your trunk.

- You design your kids' Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

- Driving in the winter is better because the pot-holes are filled with snow.

- Your favorite holidays are Christmas,Thanksgiving, and the opening of
Deer Season, which you consider a National Holiday.

- You have 10 favorite recipes for venison.

- You learned to drive a boat before you could ride a bike.

- You owe more money on your snowmobile than your car.

- Your snowblower has more miles on it than your car.

- Shoveling the driveway constitutes a great upper body workout.

- You’ve ever used the word “bogue.”

- The "Big Three" means either Ford, Chrysler and GM,
or Little Caesar's, Domino's, or Hungry Howie's.

- You think alkaline batteries were named after a Tiger outfielder.

- Your definition of a small Michigan town is one that doesn't have a lake.

- You define summer as three months of bad sledding.

- You attend a formal event in your best clothing, finest jewelry, and
snowmobile boots.

- The municipality buys a zamboni before a bus.

- You have experienced frostbite and sunburn in the same week.

- The orange barrel is considered Michigan's 'other' lighthouse.

**
**
**
A lot of those are true for me, lol.

Post one from your state!

Source

Politico: McCain pulling out of Michigan

Woop — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:30:17 -0700

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1008/McCain_pulling_out_of_...

"John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.

McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush.

McCain's campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Republicans had been bullish on Michigan, hopeful that McCain's past success in the state in the 2000 primary combined with voter dissatisfaction with Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and skepticism among blue-collar voters about Barack Obama could make it competitive.

McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin spent the night after the GOP convention at a large rally in Macomb County, just outside Detroit. The two returned later last month for another sizable event in Grand Rapids.

But recent polls there have shown Obama extending what had been a small lead, with the economic crisis damaging an already sagging GOP brand in a state whose economy is in tatters.

A McCain event planned for next week in Plymouth, Michiigan, [sic] has been canceled."

Wow.

Rogue Wave-Lake Michigan

miss-britt — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:47:38 -0700

Heaven is a switchboard that you want to fight
she would even miss you if you taught her sight
power politician leaning to the right
baby's got a trust fund
that she'll want to go off like that
get off of my stack
leave a little window
get off of my stack

Now we wear same-colored yellow uniforms
sky is burning
but at least we're warm
go and run yourself a million miles
hoping that the colors run out
and you go off like that
get off of my stack
leave a little window
get off of my stack

You can never see yourself
ringing all around it

No one is on lake michigan
you labored on, lake michigan

Not another payoff
get off of my stack
leave a little window
get off of my stack
you know it won't do
get off of my stack

Call your state legislaturs

Grandpa — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:42:31 -0700

For health-care opponents getting a busy signal when calling the capitol, Rep. Pete Hoekstra has a message for you: All politics is local, so swamp the phone lines of the state legislators too. “If the people in Washington aren’t willing to listen, if the Democrats aren’t willing to listen, then call your local state elected officials and tell them that you’ll hold them personally accountable to what Nancy Pelosi is going to do the American people in Washington this week,” Hoekstra told The Daily Caller of his “Make it Local” idea. Hoekstra has taken to Twitter with a number of Make it Local messages, claiming that lines are jammed in part because some Democrats have taken their phones off the hook. The busy signals have also been attributed to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who earlier this week gave out the capitol switchboard phone number over the airwaves, encouraging listeners to call in. In one tweet, Hoekstra wrote, “Switchboards clogged or turned off in DC. Problem? NO Opportunity! Call every state elected D and tell them how furious you are!” In another, he tweets, “MAKE IT LOCAL. Call D state reps and state senators. Hold them accountable for what Pelosi is doing. People loving this idea! Make it work!” Hoekstra said he and other Washington lawmakers devised the idea. “I was talking to all the other members, we’re taking a look at everything we can do to try to influence this debate and we thought we had kinda run out of ideas,” he explained. “And we started hearing that Democrats were starting to take their phones off the hook and no longer taking constituent phone calls and we said ‘you know, where else can they call?’” A number of Tea Party groups are encouraging their activists to go the local route too. In an e-mail to supporters last night, Tea Party Patriots encouraged those who oppose the bill to call and visit the local district offices of the targeted members of Congress. They also pushed activists to call state elected officials to “remind them that they have political influence and you want them to exercise it.” It’s something Hoekstra said is an effective means of putting pressure on Democrats. “There’s no doubt that if my state reps’ phones started ringing off the hook on a federal issue they would call me and want me to know, and say, ‘Hey Pete, you know the people in Michigan are really feeling passionate about this.’” Hoekstra, who is running for governor, flew into West Michigan for a campaign swing on Thursday and plans to be in Detroit on Friday, though said he’s prepared to fly back to Washington for the vote if called this weekend. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/18/hoekstra-tells-health-care-opponents-to-swamp-the-state-legislatures/#ixzz0iYSWurQ1

Call your state legislaturs

Grandpa — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:39:16 -0700

For health-care opponents getting a busy signal when calling the capitol, Rep. Pete Hoekstra has a message for you:
All politics is local, so swamp the phone lines of the state legislators too.
“If the people in Washington aren’t willing to listen, if the Democrats aren’t willing to listen, then call your local state elected officials and tell them that you’ll hold them personally accountable to what Nancy Pelosi is going to do the American people in Washington this week,” Hoekstra told The Daily Caller of his “Make it Local” idea.
Hoekstra has taken to Twitter with a number of Make it Local messages, claiming that lines are jammed in part because some Democrats have taken their phones off the hook. The busy signals have also been attributed to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who earlier this week gave out the capitol switchboard phone number over the airwaves, encouraging listeners to call in.
In one tweet, Hoekstra wrote, “Switchboards clogged or turned off in DC. Problem? NO Opportunity! Call every state elected D and tell them how furious you are!” In another, he tweets, “MAKE IT LOCAL. Call D state reps and state senators. Hold them accountable for what Pelosi is doing. People loving this idea! Make it work!”
Hoekstra said he and other Washington lawmakers devised the idea. “I was talking to all the other members, we’re taking a look at everything we can do to try to influence this debate and we thought we had kinda run out of ideas,” he explained. “And we started hearing that Democrats were starting to take their phones off the hook and no longer taking constituent phone calls and we said ‘you know, where else can they call?’”
A number of Tea Party groups are encouraging their activists to go the local route too. In an e-mail to supporters last night, Tea Party Patriots encouraged those who oppose the bill to call and visit the local district offices of the targeted members of Congress. They also pushed activists to call state elected officials to “remind them that they have political influence and you want them to exercise it.”
It’s something Hoekstra said is an effective means of putting pressure on Democrats. “There’s no doubt that if my state reps’ phones started ringing off the hook on a federal issue they would call me and want me to know, and say, ‘Hey Pete, you know the people in Michigan are really feeling passionate about this.’”
Hoekstra, who is running for governor, flew into West Michigan for a campaign swing on Thursday and plans to be in Detroit on Friday, though said he’s prepared to fly back to Washington for the vote if called this weekend.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/18/hoekstra-tells-health-care-opponents-to-swamp-the-state-legislatures/#ixzz0iYSWurQ1

Let the River Wind Take Your Split-Ends

tedchen — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:28:12 -0800

Inspired by an anime scene, we ran-and-grabbed a simple chair and bedsheet, planted it next to the Huron River in Michigan, and starting snipping and snapping in the cool fall breeze. We took a few different angles but felt this was the best because of the angled river. Shot with a Canon 5D.

Hard Stimulus Data Reveals That Michigan "Saved Or Created" Only 397 Jobs For 620 Million Stimulus Dollars

Grandpa — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:44:43 -0700

Disaster: Hard Stimulus Data Reveals That Michigan "Saved Or Created" Only 397 Jobs For 620 Million Stimulus Dollars, FAR Short Of 19,500 Claim

Michigan received $3.7 billion is stimulus money, of which $620 million was to be used to "create and save" jobs, while the remainder will be used by Granholm to backfill the budget deficit that she has created with her overspending so that she doesn't have to make any substantial cuts before she leaves office. When she walks away, she will have lost more than 1,000,000 jobs in a state with a population of only 10 million. A few days ago, Granholm claimed that stimulus money "created or saved" 19,500 jobs (Enron accounting: Stimulus saved or created 19,500 jobs in Michigan). Turns out, the number is an utter fabrication, as I suspected when I wrote that prior post. Fact is, that $620 million "created or saved" 397 jobs.

Let's just do the math. $620 million divided by say 400 jobs = $1,550,000 per job! That is an outright waste of taxpayer dollars. Worse yet, the rest of the $3.7 billion is going to keep Michigan in perpetual deficit that will be even more painful to deal with since we have had an AWOL governor for 6 1/2 years running. From The Detroit Free Press: So far, stimulus contracts aren't big boost for Michigan jobs.

Despite Michigan's worst-in-the-nation unemployment rate, not many jobs -- 400 or so -- have been created or saved in the state so far by federal contracts under the stimulus bill, according to new data released Thursday by the Obama administration.

Recall back when the stimulus bill was passed that it was done so with such haste that nobody read the bill. Because the economy needed a "quick shot in the arm." Then Obama sat on it for 4 days while he took a vacation before signing it. What did he know back then? I suspect that the stimulus bill was no stimulus at all. Just payback to unions and hacks that helped elect him. The stimulus is an utter disaster and a waste of $1 trillion that we didn't have to start out with.

So far, the outrageously inflated jobs claims coming out of Democrats is akin to the outrageous claims of carnage coming out of reporters after Katrina. As happened then, it's just not panning out.

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/10/disaster-hard-stimulus-data-reve...

Hard Stimulus Data Reveals That Michigan "Saved Or Created" Only 397 Jobs For 620 Million Stimulus Dollars

Grandpa — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:42:48 -0700

Disaster: Hard Stimulus Data Reveals That Michigan "Saved Or Created" Only 397 Jobs For 620 Million Stimulus Dollars, FAR Short Of 19,500 Claim

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/10/disaster-hard-stimulus-data-reve...

So far, the outrageously inflated jobs claims coming out of Democrats is akin to the outrageous claims of carnage coming out of reporters after Katrina. As happened then, it's just not panning out.