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Calif. Press ♥ Ex-Michigan Gov. Granholm
OCT. 19, 2011 By KATY GRIMES When a politician rides into town on a book tour, makes an easy presentation before a friendly Press Club and gets tossed softball questions, the line between politics and press is far too fuzzy.
Currently on a book tour, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm was the featured speaker Tuesday at the Sacramento Press Club’s monthly luncheon. She co-wrote with her husband, Daniel Mulhern, “A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future,” and they spoke at the luncheon. But it was all too easy — this was no press event. It appeared that the Press Club luncheon was coordinated by Granholm’s public relations people as a just another stop on her book tour. PR people were all over the room, introducing themselves and offering Granholm’s books. They knew they were in friendly territory. Granholm’s speech centered around how she decided to write the book. “Everything happening now in the country happened in Michigan first,” Granholm said. She described her book as “lessons from Michigan.” But there is a tale of two Michigans — the Michigan Granholm touts, where she made 99 tax cuts during her first term, attracted business and industry to the state with tax incentives, and “cut more out of government than any state.” The other Michigan had the highest unemployment in the country for 40 months straight during Granholm’s terms, 630,000 jobs were lost, businesses closed in droves, the state had the highest net-migration in the country and the state’s per capita GDP dropped to 41st place from 24th. Granholm said that, with her tax cuts, the corporate tax rate “dropped faster and deeper” than it ever had, but it still did not help the economy in her first term. Granholm’s solution was a “strategic co-investment with the federal government and the private sector.” Using federal subsidies, Granholm said that she attracted certain industries to Michigan — primarily electric car battery makers and green-energy businesses — and she tried to attract the film industry. “Passive government is going to hurt our nation,” Granholm declared. “We must have smart, targeted, unique development in the country. We need a comprehensive economic development strategy.” Heads in the room nodded in agreement. So much for the adversarial press. More GovernmentGranholm advocated more government involvement in business, not less. In fact, on tour and in the book, she is pushing government partnerships with the private sector, but only for the chosen few. She has given up on manufacturing. Both Granholm and Mulhern bemoaned losing American manufacturing jobs to China, and said they saw the targeted tax breaks to certain industries as they way to win back jobs. But this is nothing more than crony capitalism — the government picking and subsidizing winners, and making losers out of other businesses and industries. When lowering taxes and cutting government “did not do the trick” in Granholm’s first term, she increased taxes on businesses and individuals. She decided that government and politicians are better equipped to decide how and what businesses are worthy of government “investment.” However, in public-private partnerships, the taxpayer picks up the bill for government subsidies given to private sector-businesses. And while some companies receive government subsidies, others end up fighting in an unfair battle against a heavily weighted opponent. When government steps in and picks winners, it only erodes the free markets and prevents healthy and real competition.
No economy can recover as long as politicians like Granholm continue to play God, picking politically correct businesses for subsidies, and redistributing tax payer money. Granholm and her husband have received a great deal of criticism for moving to Berkeley almost immediately upon leaving the Michigan governor’s mansion. They have a two-year contract teaching at UC Berkeley. Granholm said they made the move because she grew up in nearby San Carlos and her elderly parents still live there. The role of government is necessary, but should be limited. And if politicians want to leave a legacy, they should talk about restructuring the tax code, and work on labor and regulatory reform. Softball QuestionsThe questions from audience members were softballs. One reporter asked Granholm what she thought of Occupy Wall Street. “I am excited about Occupy Wall Street,” Granholm replied. She talked about the widening wealth inequity in the United States, and said low-paying manufacturing will never come back. More nodding heads from audience members. Bob Mulholland, a Democratic political operative and representative of Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, attended the luncheon. Granholm directed many of her comments to Mulholland. He asked her a snarky question about presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a former Michigan resident, and whose father, George, was also a Michigan governor. Granholm said, “Romney stabbed us in the back,” about Romney’s position on the government bailouts given to Detroit automakers. Granholm supported the bailouts, and even bragged about driving a Chevy Volt, one of the biggest auto failures to come out of General Motors in a long time. Volt sales are so bad, less than 1,000 sold, that GM is having to heavily discount and incentivize the electric car sales, which also get a $7,500 tax subsidy with each purchase. Another reporter asked Granholm if the migration out of Michigan has an ethnic component to it. Granholm said, “Population is going to move to where the costs are lower.” But then she immediately shifted the conversation. Economists specializing in migration have have long acknowledged that the issues driving migration to other states are taxes, welfare, weather, unemployment rates, labor markets and wages. States with lower income and corporate taxes and right-to-work protections are attracting people from high-tax, union-dominated states like Michigan. The Mackinac Center did a migration study which found that, nationwide, people are moving to states with lower taxes, more flexible labor climates and more days of sunshine. “Specifically, for every 10 percent increase in personal taxes, Michigan loses 4,900 people every year thereafter,” the study found. “So, the 11.5 percent personal income tax increase the Legislature imposed in 2007 has already driven more than 10,000 people out of Michigan.” “Some politicians give us failure. Some politicians give us failure mixed with spectacle. Once in a generation, a politician gives us failure and misunderstanding so colossal that his or her bad example rises to the level of public service,” wrote William McGurn in a recent Wall Street Journal story titled, “Granholm’s Perfect Bad Example.” After Granholm left office, Michigan elected a Republican governor. “Rick Snyder and legislators in Lansing are recognizing that the failed policies of the last eight years have not worked,” the Mackinac Center wrote. “They have made a good start in reducing government handouts and eliminating red tape through regulatory reform legislation, but this is just a start and much work remains to be done.”
Tags: budget deficit, Democrats, global warming, government, Jennifer Granholm, jobs, Katy Grimes, legislature, Public Employee Unions, tax increases, Taxes, unemployment, unions Comments(13) |
May 23, 2012
What’s amusing is that, just a few years ago, Granholm and Schwarzenegger were being touted as reasons to allow foreign-borns to run for president. They were moderates, a Republican and a Democrat, who would save us. Then their policies proved disastrous and their victims just wanted them gone from office.
– John Seiler
Granholm selling a book about jobs! ROFLMAO!
Granholm was a disaster for Michigan! She was so bad that reliably Democrat Michigan replaced her with a Republican, Rick Snyder!
A better title would have been, CLUSTERF*: ONE GOVERNOR’S FIGHT TO DESTROY JOBS AND AMERICA’S FUTURE (“If I could read, I’d this right after Dick & Jane” – Speaker John Perez (college dropout); “Is it nap time yet? I think I made boom-boom in my diapie.” – Gov. Jerry R. Brown).
Granholm was a disaster for Michigan! She was so bad that reliably Democrat Michigan replaced her with a Republican, Rick Snyder!
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The Gov before Granholm, John Engler, was a Republican. She did a decent job as Gov of Michigan, and I in fact spoke with her when she was running for gov, when she was the MI AG, she is very smart and did a decent job given the circumstances.
Granholm’s solutions were tax increases, bailouts, and crony capitalism. That’s not a decent job under any circumstances. EPIC FAIL.
WRITE HER A REVIEW:
http://www.amazon.com/Governors-Story-Americas-Economic-Future/product-reviews/1586489976/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/183-5626598-0777006?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
When the government gives money directly to a company, that’s called a “bailout” and it’s wrong. But when a government provides an enormous tax break to that company year after year that costs taxpayers far more than the bailout, that’s OK. Would someone kindly inform me what the hell the difference is?
And with the right wing’s love affair with the likes of the Koch Brothers, WalMart, big oil, big pharma, etc., etc., I LMFAO when I see someone accuse Gov. Granholm of “crony capitalism.”
This is not the National Press Club. You should know that Press Clubs are PR havens. They started as a forum for PR people and the press to meet on informal grounds. Today, the majority of members of so-called press clubs are public relations professionals — this is a fact.
“Targeted tax breaks for clean energy projects or any other favored cause of the political class simply do not work. The money has to come from somewhere else in the economy, which results in a penalty to companies not among the chosen few. Targeted tax breaks and other subsidies are increasingly unsustainable for federal, state and local governments that are going broke.
The call for public-private partnerships is just a code work for crony capitalism. In public-private partnerships the tax payer usually ends up paying the bill for companies that benefit from government subsidies and favored treatment which further erodes the free markets and competition that are essential to growing the economy and increasing the number of jobs.”
http://www.mackinac.org/15529
Hey, Rogue, are the tax breaks for big oil “targeted tax breaks”? If not, why not? Is it only the tax breaks supported by liberals that you object to?
If you truly believe that all tax breaks–including those for business–should be eliminated, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.
What tax breaks for big oil are you speaking of? Left wing political talking points aside, please explain specifically what you are refrring to and I’ll happily respond.
“If you truly believe that all tax breaks–including those for business–should be eliminated, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.”
Good. We agree then. However, it’s important to remember that the states tax income – not revenue. Under that tax regime, businesses are allowed to subtract expenses and to recover capital investment.
However, our income tax regime is absurd, and is used for divide-and-conquer, to reward friends, and to punish enemies. Remember, when government regulates the buying and selling of things, the first things bought and sold are the politicians.
It would be better to have a simpler tax regime that distributes the tax burden more broadly. (47% pay no federal income tax in the US.)
You were doing great until you got into the “tax burden” stuff.
We always hear how 47 percent pay no federal income tax. But a true test of the tax burden is the percentage of ALL taxes that various income groups pay. People stop paying Social Security tax at about the $120K salary level, for example. It is also obvious that a sales tax rate of 8 percent puts a much bigger hit on someone earning $30,000 a year than someone in the $250,000 plus group.
I would support a clean, easy to understand, progressive income tax with three or four brackets at most and absolutely NO tax breaks. I’d even give up the mortgage deduction, which would personally kill me. But please don’t tell me that the same tax income tax rate would result in the same real tax burden for a family with $25K income as for one with a $125K income. That dog won’t hunt.
Thanks Katy for exposing the fraud that is former Michigan Gov Jennifer Granholm. She’s a marvel at self-promotion and re-writing history. How disconcerting to think she’s doing her post-governorship act as a paid employee of our state government. Thankfully, she is out of political office, so her capacity to damage other people’s lives has been diminished. Maybe she should consider moving back to Canada after the gig in Berkeley. She probably believes her aging parents can get better medical care there.
Allen Shepard
Having lived in Michigan for a part of Governor Granholm’s tenure, I can testify that she was AWFUL. Have any of the pro-Granholm commenters above visited Michigan lately? She DESTROYED the economy there. Many of my friends and family members lost their jobs; many lost their homes. I’m not talking about lazy people or people who purchased more house than they could afford; I’m talking about hard-working, ethical, and financially responsible mid-class families. If Governor Granholm thinks that she created jobs, she lives in an EXTREME fantasy world. Ask any of the millions who lost their jobs unnecessarily as the policies she pushed drove businesses out of Michigan. I wonder if her book tour includes a stop in Michigan or if she is too afraid to face the people whose lives her policies destroyed.