The Map Ahead.

 

                 The last Granholm-era budget is done.  Now what? Well, where do we want to go? Everybody says the same thing:  JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Okay. So let’s start with this goal: PUT PEOPLE BACK TO WORK.

                That’s a nice sounding goal, but what does it mean in practical terms? Governor John Engler made it his goal to have Michigan’s unemployment rate consistently below the national average. He achieved it, too. So let’s take “jobs” and define it as a concrete goal: MICHIGAN’S JOBLESS RATE SHALL BE CONSISTENTLY BELOW THE NATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT AVERAGE.

 

Now We Know WHAT...The Question Is HOW.

 

                Great! Now we know what we want to achieve: JOBS.  To have a job, someone needs to hire somebody else. Who is that “hiring” person? We call him an EMPLOYER, someone who has two things going: 1) he has work to be done. 2) he is making enough money to make it worthwhile for him to hire someone to help him. So First off, the employer needs to be making money. Second, there has to be growth in the employer’s business, so he needs help. Third, it can’t cost so much to hire help that the employer can’t afford it, or he’ll do the work himself and not hire anyone, and there won’t be a JOB.

 

                So how do we get these EMPLOYERS? We’ve learned a lot in the last thirty years. There are things you do, and things you don’t do. If our goal is to GET MICHIGAN’S UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BELOW THE NATIONAL AVERAGE, we need JOBS, and that means EMPLOYERS, then we start with lowering the government overhead, the cement blocks we’ve tied to the employers’ feet. Start with three things:

 

THREE SIMPLE THINGS:

 

                1) Lower taxes and fees. Simplify tax rates, and remove the Preference Regime

                2) Sweep away the bureaucratic red tape jungle of permits. Lansing get out of the way!!

                3) Repair and invest in transportation infrastructure, so we can move goods and people freely.

 

               The other stuff:  services, education, etc., are functions of wealth, and if we’re generating wealth again, we can afford to fund them. But be warned!!! This doesn’t mean that we go back to the days of pouring revenue into institutions. Why? Here’s the next piece of the puzzle.

 

                If we’re going to cut taxes and fees, that means we have to cut spending. “But what about education? The poor? The needed government services?” you ask. Good questions. Answer is simple: government has to deliver them cheaper, leaner, and more efficiently, with fewer resources and better quality—like everybody else has to. Look at it all as an equation:

 

Government performs X SERVICES for Y COST.

 

                The Y Cost is the driver. Get that down and you can decrease the “revenue” or taxes, you need and maybe afford more X SERVICES. But first you need to look at revenue and see how many X SERVICES you can afford to begin with. Scrutinize every service the state provides, and rank them in terms of importance. For example, if your roof is leaking, you don’t go out to dinner. Saving for college beats out the cruise. Let’s rank our services and see what we really value, and fund them first.

 

Just Being a Priority Doesn't Make You Sacred.

 

                But just being prioritized and funded doesn’t mean the service is a sacred cow. Every service we will fund must be ruthlessly analyzed and judged as a DELIVERY SYSTEM. Government bureaus, schools, institutions, are really just delivery systems for services. What are they delivering, and can they do it better, faster, cheaper? Ask those questions of every delivery system in government. Yes, this includes K-12 Public Schools too.  And get one thing straight: these institutions exist to provide services to citizens, not to provide a comfortable, secure living for the public employees!

 

So Here's the Map:

 

                WE WANT TO PUT PEOPLE BACK TO WORK.

 

                 So our goal is:  TO GET MICHIGAN’S UNEMPLOYMENT RATE CONSISTENTLY BELOW THE NATIONAL  AVERAGE.

 

                 For that we need JOBS,

 

                which come from EMPLOYERS in the private sector,

 

                who need to MAKE MONEY AND ENJOY GROWTH.               

 

                Three things we do to achieve this are:

 

1) CUT TAXES/FEES AND END THE PREFERENCE REGIME,

2) REFORM THE PERMITTING RED TAPE JUNGLE,

3) INVEST IN TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE.  

 

                To be able to afford this, we shrink costs by looking at the equation X SERVICES for Y COST. We prioritize the X SERVICES and make sure the delivery system cuts the Y COST, which is the driver and the overhead that kills economic activity (see EMPLOYER, above.)

                Do these things and we’ll have JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Got it? Then let’s move.

    

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