Picking a Governor is hard work!

Friday the 13th.. October 13th that is and one might suspect that I would be blogging about bad luck and Halloween and maybe Jason and such. Nah, what fun would that be. I’ve found other goblins. Let’s talk politics.

The election is only 25 days away and the campaign hype is reaching a fever pitch. TV and radio ads bombard us and it has gone quite negative in some cases. Expect it to get worse. But if you try to pick a candidate by their advertisements, you are going to have a tough time. Voting along party lines, for or against based on party alone is such a cop out. Oh I’ve done it in the past, but this mid-term means a lot in Michigan with the economy the way it is. In my last blog I researched quite heavily and found what I believe to be a good explanation of why the state is in the shape it is in and what needs to be done to turn it around, long term. Since then I have taken a hard look at the gubernatorial candidates and their economic plans. And here is what I found.

First let me preface this with a fact about myself. I am a registered Republican voter. I have voted Republican pretty much for most of my life, with an occasional deviation. I voted against Granholm the last time. And yes I admit, I voted for “W” instead of Kerry in 2004. Massachusetts Democrats just make me cringe when they step to the podium and a Democrat is a Democrat. So keep that in mind as you read on.

First let’s look at each candidates plan, there are 5 candidates for governor by the way. I evaluated them against the information I found discussed in the last blog. In summary:

Problem: Michigan’s economy is drowning because of our over dependence in basic manufacturing, particularly automotive manufacturing. We can no longer compete in these low knowledge areas because of the Flat World and low labor rates in other countries.

Solution: Shift Michigan’s job base towards high knowledge, high pay jobs such as information, financial/insurance, professional/technical services, education, health care, bio-medical technologies and management of companies. The key to this is having a highly educated work force. Taxes are somewhat of a non-issue, we are competitive in total tax burden. It is availability of talent that drives growth.

Keys to get there:

• A top notch well funded education system. K-16 and beyond.
• Attract and retain top talent, this requires a welcoming environment and good infrastructure. Attractive, safe vibrant communities.
• Shift focus, priority and money away from trying save those jobs we can’t be competitive into attracting replacements in high pay/high knowledge jobs.
• Find effective ways at retraining our current work force to thrive in the future.

Let’s look at the three alternative choices before we look at the major party candidates.

Green Party Candidate, Doug Campbell. Mr Campbell doesn’t have a major economic plan, though he does outline his stance in his platform statement on his web site. Interestingly, his top platform priority is world peace through recalling Michigan’s National Guard from the Middle East, and state divestiture in Palestine and Tibet. Number 2 in priority is Jobs. Main points here are Michigan creating it’s own currency to replace the dollar and setting up state import/export taxes for things entering and leaving Michigan. At this point I stopped, cause this is way out there and well won’t work.

Libertarian Candidate, Gregory Creswell. Has no economic plan or platform statement. Is running cause both DeVos and Granholm oppose the Equal rights ballot proposal and he is for it. I’m not kidding, see his website. And oh yeah, DeVos is soft on tax reform.

US Tax Payers Party Candidate - Mr. Bhagwan Dashairya. No Plan, No Platform, No Experience, not much information on his website other than Biographical.

No winners in the alternatives.

Next the Republican challenger, Dick DeVos. DeVos’s is entitled the Michigan Turn Around Plan. The pre-amble contains a lot of campaign rhetoric. It talks about leadership and pushes the DeVos reason for the state’s problems, lack of leadership and taxes. There is some stats and a discussion about the states strengths. A couple of pages make the case for how his experience leading Amway qualifies him to lead the state. I find this somewhat of a distortion. He levels all the blame on the current governor. Not surprising since he is running against her, but what about the Republican controlled State House and Senate? What about the previous Governor? What about our US Congressional Representation?

The body has four main missions, each of these is further broken down into a total of 18 “Jobs”. Here is my summary of these jobs:

Mission 1 - Create a Job Climate Second to None

• Job 1 – Create a Pro-Jobs Tax Structure. Here is the crux of this plan. Tax Cuts. The message is business taxes in Michigan are too high and un-fair. The main culprit the Single Business Tax. I should note the plan was written before the action to put a stake in the heart of the SBT. But it hadn’t been updated when I printed it. But the message he is putting forth is clear the reason that we cannot compete with the world in Manufacturing is our taxes are too high. A couple of note worthy items here. First when talking about taxes he only talks about Business Taxes, not total tax burden which also includes personal income tax, sales taxes and property taxes. Second there is no mention of foreign labor rates and the global market. Third, and this is the biggy… Nowhere does it detail what he would replace that $1.8 Billion with. He finishes this job with the statement that he will not raise taxes. This goes against what my research told me. Taxes is not the issue.
• Job2 – Give Small Business a Chance to Succeed and Provide Jobs. I found this job to be a lot of repeat and rhetoric or what I call “fluff”. And the SBT is mentioned again.
• Job 3 –Improve Education: Give Our Kids the Skills They Need. Talks about more money for schools. Enhancing programs for those who are not going to college. College Tuition will go down. Ok so here is where I start to quickly question the viability of this plan. Job 1 slashes taxes and Job 3 spends more on schools? And tuition is going down? And we are going to spend more money on to enhance programs for non-college bound students, low knowledge workers?
• Job 4 – Making Health Care More Affordable Means Jobs. The message here is that Michigan’s Health Care Costs are driving people away. No comparison here with who we are higher than. I suspect the truth is that we are not that far out of line with the rest of the US. However, unless we want third world country health care it will be hard to lower them to the point we are competitive with China….
• Job 5- Protect and Promote Michigan’s Environment – Fluff.
• Job 6 – A comprehensive Energy Policy to Move Michigan Forward. Here he says that Michigan’s Electric Costs are too high, not sure why? Suggests we move towards more alternative fuels (aren’t we already doing that). Talks about more Federal aid money. Isn’t that kind of the job of our representation on the US House and Senate?
• Job 7 – Build a Transportation System that Encourages Job Growth – Yawn.

Mission 2 - Overhaul State Government

• Job 8 – The Governor’s Job is Jobs. He is going to overhaul the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Mentions Tax Credits for companies.
• Job 9 Force Government to Help Job Makers. Fluff with a sob story about Freddy Meijer not getting his name on a bike trail.
• Job 10 – Give Michigan Workers the Tools they Need – Jobs training here. Spending more money.
• Job 11 – Reduce the Size and Cost of Government. No mention of what services get axed, though he will reduce..
  

Mission 3 - Diversify our Economy

• Job 12 – Provide our Kids the Opportunity to Stay in Michigan – Fluff
• Job 13 – Cultivate Michigan’s Entrepreneurial Spirit – SBT again, Tax Exemptions, and fixing the Michigan Venture Fund?
• Job 14 – Support Michigan Agriculture – Tax Cuts for Farms. Are farmers in trouble? Ok so here is some campaign rhetoric that needs to be flushed out of the bushes and shot. Most productive farms are now owned by large corporations, with massive feed operations and millions in equipment, NOT Mom and Pop Green Acres, one tractor and a good dog operations. I’m not sure that we need tax breaks for the corporations, but maybe some environmental controls that stop manure injection that stinks up the country side and pollutes our lakes, streams and ground water.
• Job 15 – Revive Michigan’s Tourism Industry. The current Governor killed state tourism! Or was it high gas prices?
  

Mission 4 - Conquer the International Marketplace

• Job 16 – Fight for Michigan Jobs All Over the World – Fluff
• Job 17 – Demand Fair Trade – Fluff
• Job 18 – Get Better Results from the Federal Government – Fluff

Yes it was long and repetitive. It made me sleepy, but most of all I was disappointed. Here is how I summarize it: You kill the SBT, and lower taxes. Then you can increase funding in education, jobs training, roads and tourism. Dick with all his business experience will have the manufacturing plants rolling back into town and we don’t need concrete plans to at least hold revenues at their current level.

The SBT is on its way out, Dick and the boys killed it, and I don’t yet see the stampede.

Last the incumbent, Jennifer Granholm’s plan, titled “Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow”. This plan is not new, but is the plan the Governor put in place this year. The pre-amble talks about the problems Michigan faces with it’s dependence on Automotive Manufacturing. It also says this has been building for a long time. This is right along the lines with my research. In addition it points out that NAFTA and CAFTA has accelerated this, opening the door wider to low wage paying countries like Mexico and China. She also points to an inherited 4 billion dollar state budget deficit when she took office.

The next section outlines the plan which has seven major thrusts.

Create Jobs Today. This program is in place today as such. It provides $4 Billion Dollars into infrastructure improvements in the state, homes and pollution cleanup. A direct result of this can be seen locally in the freeway construction on I-94, the US 131/I-94 Interchange project, all the orange barrels and the Oshtemo Township Supersite Pollution Cleanup to name a few. These projects state wide have put a lot of people to work, and are creating a better communities to attract more talent.

Diversify the Economy. Jobs Tomorrow puts forth $2 billion to target growth in four industries: alternative energy, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and homeland security. It also talks about attracting knowledge based industries. Again you can see examples of this in the Google announcement to go to Ann Arbor and the acceleration of alternative fuel plants such as the Bio-Diesel plant in Bangor.

Michigan Opportunity Partnership – This is also a current program to place people in new jobs when the lose their job due to plant closings. Includes retraining.

Prepare all Students for Success. During her first term formed the Cherry Commission which created and got passed bill to raise K-12 education standards and curriculum. Proposes a $4000 Scholarship for every Michigan College Student. She agrees that talent attracts the High Knowledge, High Wage Jobs.

Making Health Care Affordable – Some Fluff

Continuously Improve Business Climate. She proposed an Alternative to the SBT which was rejected. Said she would veto any bill that eliminated the SBT unless it contained a replacement to generate the same revenue. The State House and Senate (with DeVos’s backing) did an end around and killed it anyway. Talks about streamlining government and how Michigan was selected as most e-friendly state government in 2005.

Protect the Quality of Life – Fluff

The next sections contain some repeat and more detail on the same subjects, most information a repeat.

An easier read than the DeVos Plan. Not nearly as negative. I summarize it as: The problem is stated fairly clearly, and my research agrees with the assessment she has put forth, that we need to break our dependence on Low Knowledge based Manufacturing, particularly automotive manufacturing. You do this by creating a talent base and climate that is attractive to those types of business. You can see evidence of this plan taking hold all over. Taxes are not the problem our diversity and talent base are.

Ok so now that we know the plans, eliminated the alternative parties from the running, I will look at the debates, which give us in sight into each candidate’s character. I know we still have one to go, but I expect it to be much of a repeat. Besides it will be in that stupid town hall format which allows people to waste time on irrelevant questions.

Debate # 1 on WKAR Public TV from MSU in Lansing. This was one of the most entertaining debates I have ever seen. And a lot had to do with the format. There were no opening statements, just two guys firing questions and they wasted no time getting to the meat. My take:

Granholm – Good debater, knew her stuff. Knew her plan and stuck to it’s primary points. Gave concrete examples. Talked about a “Michigan Promise” like the Kalamazoo Promise to fund higher education. Up beat. Concrete proposals in programs.

DeVos – Poor Debater. Very Negative. Harped on the SBT and Taxes. Said he had a plan to replace the SBT but failed to detail it. Spent most of the night trashing Granholm but never elaborated on any details about what he would do differently.

Negative Spin, both had it. Granholm stuck to her guns on the facts about Amway building in China at the same time they were cutting jobs in Michigan. DeVos fumbled this. Granholm dropped a big bomb about a DeVos nursing home investment that had some sexual misconduct issues. May have been a low blow, but executed to perfection. Score one knockout for the incumbent.

Second debate – Wood TV in Grand Rapids. DeVos’s home turf, Susan Geha moderating. Traditional debate style. Toned down, less meat, more fluff. It seemed such a repeat that I only watched about half of it and compared to the Lansing "free for all", this was boring. (And the Tigers were on) What I took away was DeVos going more and more negative. Granholm backed away a little from the negative spins, rather pushing her successes. I think this was planned after the knock-out last time. DeVos was refuting the nursing home stuff and grasping for a counter. Again, he said he had a plan to replace the SBT, but no details. He also pushed his position against Embryonic Stem Cell Research also, Granholm is for it. ( I bring this point out because if we want to attract research in life sciences, we need to be more open in areas like Stem Cell research. The religious right meddling in research won't attract many businesses). Tigers won!

This week they both gave speeches at the Detroit Economic Club, though no debate. A couple of bombs. Granholm spoke first and there were no headline revelations, she held to her previous platform. DeVos opened his speech by accusing Granholm of mismanaging Child Protective Services in the state (which he has done before) and then read the names of children murdered in their homes in the last four years. It was an obvious retaliation to the nursing home low blow, but this was off the chart in bad taste. Second, he proposed eliminating the personal property tax for small businesses…..More tax cuts.

So I have made up my mind and if you are still reading this you probably can guess. For the first time in my life I will vote for a (gulp, swallow hard), Democrat for Governor. I think Granholm understands the problem we face better and has a good plan already in place to start the turn around. If she has one bad habit, it is trying to put a time line on the turn around, it took us over a decade to get where we are it will be hard to turn it around let alone over night. I’ll bet she is regretting the “in 5 years you’ll be blown away statement”. I appreciate the enthusiasm and upbeat demeaner though.

DeVos is disappointing. Taxes aren’t the problem, though I suspect that with his personal wealth they cut him to the core. The state isn’t Amway and can’t be fixed the same, simply because you can’t cut work force from the state population. They just come back to haunt you in the un-employment line. Also, he seems more and more mean. We don’t need the negativity.

So Granholm it is, let’s give Jenny four more years.

Now I’ve got to figure out who to vote for in State House, State Senate, US Senate, US House…… And only 25 days to go. Stay tuned.