Michigan Targets Bay State for Jobs

Following is an article that appeared in the Boston Globe that makes you wonder what state Deval Patrick lives in. Massachusetts employers are actually targets of Michigan, and I'm sure, many states to move on over, down, up, etc, and get out of the burdensome government of Massachusetts.

Now, before someone tells me all that is wrong with Massachsuetts is a tougher fiscal policy, think again. The SOCIAL programs drive our states budget! So unless a gubernatorial candidate is willing to say that he will look at and do something about the overreaching social programs Massachusetts mandates to employers, municipalities, and individuals, then it doesn't matter if he is a Fiscal Conservative, because the SOCIAL issues, which none will touch (a few may even want to expand them) are the problem. Cure that disease, and a healthy Massachusetts will follow. Unfortunately, none of the four announced candidates while fight the social issues.

Read this and ask each candidate what they will do to not only retain businesses and help them grow, but also what they will do to cut the massive government that has been built up by Democrats and even some Republicans.

Michigan luring Bay State business
Incentives, breaks on tax raise ante
By Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff November 9, 2009

Two years ago, Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm visited alternative fuel maker Mascoma in Boston with one goal: to persuade the company to build a factory in her job-hungry state.

“She personally had us on the list to recruit,’’ recalled Mascoma’s chief executive, Bruce Jamerson. “Massachusetts, they knew we were looking to build a plant. It wasn’t a priority for them at the time.’’

But Michigan made Mascoma a priority. Granholm offered the company tax incentives, grants, and promises of federal funding while promoting Michigan’s charms: manufacturing expertise, a workforce loaded with engineering talent, and a population of ready-made clients.

Today Mascoma, which makes a gasoline substitute from wood chips and other materials, is spending more than $200 million to build a factory in Kinross, Mich. Groundbreaking is set for next year.

Michigan is emerging as one of Massachusetts’ fiercest competitors in the race to become a hub for clean technology companies. And Massachusetts, despite being the birthplace of many of these technologies and the companies they spawn, is losing ground to Michigan’s money and determination.

During the last three years, Granholm has persuaded A123 Systems, the Watertown battery company, and Evergreen Solar, the Marlborough-based maker of solar panels, to build factories in Michigan. The projects from A123, Evergreen, and Mascoma combined are expected to create thousands of new jobs and generate millions of dollars in the economically depressed state. Those are jobs and revenue that Massachusetts won’t have.

Governor Deval Patrick acknowledged the competition, saying Granholm “busted my chops’’ over the A123 deal. Massachusetts “just couldn’t match’’ Michigan’s incentives, Patrick said, although he noted the Michigan project is expected to result in 100 new jobs at the company’s Watertown headquarters.

“We’d like it all, to be sure, but this is good for the country,’’ he said, “and we get the bragging rights of being the hometown of a pioneer.’’

Granholm said she’s just doing “what you’ve got to do’’ when trying to go from “the Rust Belt to the Green Belt.’’ She has traveled to California, Germany, and Japan to lure businesses to Michigan, which has the highest unemployment rate among the 50 states.

With the auto industry in decline, Granholm said, Michigan officials several years ago began identifying industries they thought could help diversify the state’s economy. They then created incentives and tax breaks, such as “advanced battery credits’’ for companies that build electric car batteries and an “anchor status credit’’ that rewards businesses whose presence attracts other companies.

Michigan also aggressively markets itself with an advertising campaign that features actor and longtime resident Jeff Daniels in national television commercials. The campaign, run by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, features slogans like the “Michigan advantage’’ and “Give your business the upper hand.’’

Michigan has an extra advantage right now because the federal government is eager to help the state recover from auto industry losses, said Nick d’Arbeloff, head of the New England Clean Energy Council, which promotes the region’s clean technology cluster.

“The federal government is being very generous with any company or organization that has some means to help Michigan up from its dire circumstances,’’ d’Arbeloff said. For many companies, he added, “the government dollars available make it an offer that they can’t refuse.’’

That was true for A123 Systems. In August, the company won $249.1 million from the US Department of Energy to build a factory in Livonia, Mich., to supply Chrysler Corp. and other customers with electric car batteries as part of $2.4 billion in stimulus aid to boost the auto industry in general and the production of electric vehicles specifically. More than $1 billion of that money went to companies and institutions with projects in Michigan.

Michigan, too, was generous with A123, promising the company a $10 million state grant for a research and development institute and more than $100 million in tax credits.

“Michigan has a lot going there,’’ said David Vieau, A123’s chief executive. But, he said, his company’s expansion there should not be viewed as a knock to Massachusetts. When A123 started trading stock on the Nasdaq exchange in September, Vieau singled out public support from Massachusetts officials as a key to the company’s success, along with the area’s technical talent pool.

“We’re very much a Massachusetts business,’’ he said then. “Our roots are at MIT.’’

Mascoma went to Michigan to be close to the nation’s automotive heart, and to take advantage of the state’s abundant natural resources, the raw material for its biofuel.

The company, which this year moved its headquarters from Boston to Lebanon, N.H., received $23.5 million in incentives from Michigan and $26 million from the federal energy department to build its factory in Kinross.

Add the visit from Granholm, and “it was hard to say no,’’ said Mascoma’s Jamerson. The new factory will employ about 60 people and help create more than 500 related jobs, Jamerson said.

Massachusetts officials have used some of the same tools as Michigan to court companies, including grants, tax breaks, and bids for federal money. And earlier this year Patrick spent a few days on the West Coast visiting technology and energy companies that have a presence in Massachusetts to encourage them to expand in the Bay State.

A champion of clean technology, the governor wants a cluster of such companies here. Last year, he signed a set of so-called green laws meant not only to make the state a renewable energy leader but to spur the growth of such businesses in the state.

Still, some think Massachusetts, with high costs for businesses, including real estate, utilities, taxes, and labor, could do better. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston president Eric Rosengren said the state might be more competitive if it better marketed Western Massachusetts.

“We may not have sold some of our low-cost areas,’’ he said.

Massachusetts is best at bringing new technologies to life and should play to that advantage, said Amy Glasmeier, head of the urban studies and planning department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. State officials need to figure out how to promote growth based on breakthroughs from that “font of innovation,’’ she said.

Massachusetts officials do have success stories, particularly at Devens. The Patrick administration persuaded Evergreen to build its first solar panel manufacturing plant in the former Army base by offering more than $76 million in grants, land, loans, tax incentives, and other aid. Some $67 million in similar incentives drew drug maker Bristol Myers Squibb to Devens to build a $1 billion plant and create several hundred jobs.

But betting on an emerging industry can be risky. Facing increased competition and plunging prices for solar panels, Evergreen executives said last week that they would shift some of the work at Devens to China, probably costing some jobs here. The company has 700 full-time employees in the state.

Even as it considers job cuts in Massachusetts, Evergreen is building a factory in Midland, Mich., helped by a $1.8 million tax credit and a 12-year tax break worth $3.9 million. The plant is expected to employ 101 people, and Michigan officials said it will help create 500 jobs.

Evergreen spokesman Chris Lawson said the company chose Midland because it will be close to Dow Corning, a major chemical supplier, and the area has workers with “experience with chemical processes.’’

Ian Bowles, Massachusetts’ secretary of energy and environmental affairs, acknowledged that keeping companies here will be difficult, but said the state will meet the challenge.

“Ultimately, companies start and grow in Massachusetts because of our assets - technological know-how, strong venture capital sector, and highly skilled workforce - and in the case of clean energy, because of our competitive energy market and high environmental standards,’’ Bowles said. “I expect that to continue and accelerate as the nation and the world move toward clean energy solutions.’’

Michigan will continue to compete, too.

“Any other company that wants to take its technology to scale, come on over,’’ Granholm said. “We’re hungry.’’

Erin Ailworth

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Salary Caps

I read an interesting post at the Red Mass Group site by Greenfield School Committeeman Keith McCormic advocating for a Salary Cap for State Employees. Check it out -

http://www.redmassgroup.com/diary/5946/mccormic-calls-for-government-salary-cap

Keith's writing brings up some great ideas for O'Bama's Pay Czar -

Salary Caps for Hollywood Celebs. If no CEO should make above whatever number O'Bama's Pay Czar says, why should a silly actor or actress make any more than that? If celebrities were not paid $20,000,000.00 per film, more poor people could see their movies and have less stress in lives and feel better about themselves (that's my liberal side speaking!).

Pay Caps for athletes. Same reason as above. ESPECIALLY any sports team that has taken GOVERNMENT money (ours) to build a stadium, or a nice footbridge like Do Nothing Deval just gave to Robert Kraft.

Salary Caps for Government employees. Let's go back to the days when a Government employee did not earn the greatest pay because they had great retirement and benefits. ESPECIALLY those at quasi-government agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.

Net Worth Caps for Politicians. Have you ever noticed that politicians enter office with little or no ne t worth and emerge MILLIONAIRES? HOW? How is it possible to become a millionaire while serving in a job that doesn't pay enough for anyone with a family to become a millionaire?

Salary Caps for any person working in the media. I mean those in the main stream who pretend to report the news instead of their opinion. These people should make no more money than entry level employees. They do more harm than good.

Dear Mr. O'Bama, please ask your Pay Czar to get right on these ideas. Let's stop the abuses!

Judge Napolitano on Health Care

This video of Judge Napolitano on what the Health Care takeover is really all about.

We are losing FREEDOM's every day and with every act of Congress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n2m-X7OIuY

Cut and paste this address and pass it along. Everyone needs to see this.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Is Thanksgiving on the Way Out?

Before it disappears from our calenders I want to wish you and your families the safest and happiest Thanksgiving possible.

Will Thanksgiving disappear from our calenders? Well, the way this country is going, I can see that happening. "NO WAY!", you might say. "It'll never happen!" "This holiday is too important and too special to disappear !" Or, "You're an idiot!"

Before anyone starts throwing stones, let's think about this out loud...

Christmas is insulting to some, although our country was foundedon Judeo Christin values. Although the majority of Americans, celebrate Christmas, it as come to be known under many diferent names to be less offensive. Merry Xmas (to take the name Christ out of the picture), Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, Celebrations, etc.

Think about this for a minute. Every year, every year, there i some sort of protest or lawsuit over a nativity scene somewhere in America. Christian and Catholic values are assaulted in the media. And our children cannot even sing Christmas songs just in case someone would be offended.

Yet, my children have been taught Hanukkah songs, Kwanzaa songs, and any other song that does not have ties to Christmas. I'm okay with that though because someone else's religion is not offensive to me. But I'm not most people.

Ten years ago, hell, five years ago, I would have said anyone who said we could lose Thanksgiving as a holiday should be locked up and protected from themselves. But not today. Today we have politicians who know absolutely NOTHING about Health care trying to "fix" what they say is broken. They know it's not broken, the media knows it's not broken, WE know that it's not broken, but that won't stop them because the main stream media is a partner of these egotistical bastards.

Thanksgiving is offensive to people because we Europen decendant white people took this land from the poor Indians. I call them Indians because I am a Native American like them (I was born here) and don;t want to confuse them with us.

So, with all that has gone on in the last year, would you be 100% confident to say that the Thanksgiving Holiday will last? Christmas has already been and continues to be assaulted. Indians (even those that own casino's) continue to protest the Thanksgiving Holiday and other whacked out sympathizers will continue to join them and try to outlaw this holiday as offensive.

Unless. Unless we stop the stupity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Poltical Correctness Gone Awry

Following is a fantastic article of the media's political correctnes gone awry, regarding the Ft. Hood shootings. Charles Krauthammer hits the nail on the head!

Medicalizing mass murder

By Charles KrauthammerFriday, November 13, 2009

What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs. "I cringe that he's a Muslim. . . . I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs.

" While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They suffered. He listened. He snapped. Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents? And what about civilian psychiatrists -- not the Upper West Side therapist treating Woody Allen neurotics, but the thousands of doctors working with hospitalized psychotics -- who every day hear not just tales but cries of the most excruciating anguish, of the most unimaginable torment? How many of those doctors commit mass murder?

It's been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic. But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, who National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious. And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won't find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as "compassion fatigue." The poor man -- pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity. Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people.

His business card had his name, his profession, his medical degrees and his occupational identity. U.S. Army? No. "SoA" -- Soldier of Allah. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It's a danger, clear and present. Consider the Army's treatment of Hasan's previous behavior. NPR's Daniel Zwerdling interviewed a Hasan colleague at Walter Reed about a hair-raising grand rounds that Hasan had apparently given. Grand rounds are the most serious academic event at a teaching hospital -- attending physicians, residents and students gather for a lecture on an instructive case history or therapeutic finding. I've been to dozens of these. In fact, I gave one myself on post-traumatic retrograde amnesia -- as you can see, these lectures are fairly technical. Not Hasan's. His was an hour-long disquisition on what he called the Koranic view of military service, jihad and war. It included an allegedly authoritative elaboration of the punishments visited upon nonbelievers -- consignment to hell, decapitation, having hot oil poured down your throat.

This "really freaked a lot of doctors out," reported NPR. Nor was this the only incident. "The psychiatrist," reported Zwerdling, "said that he was the kind of guy who the staff actually stood around in the hallway saying: Do you think he's a terrorist, or is he just weird?" Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague's religion? One must not speak of such things. Not even now. Not even after we know that Hasan was in communication with a notorious Yemen-based jihad propagandist. As late as Tuesday, The New York Times was running a story on how returning soldiers at Fort Hood had a high level of violence. What does such violence have to do with Hasan? He was not a returning soldier. And the soldiers who returned home and shot their wives or fellow soldiers didn't cry "Allahu Akbar" as they squeezed the trigger.

The delicacy about the religion in question -- condescending, politically correct and deadly -- is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: "Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center." Ah yes, those Jersey men -- so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.

*********************************************************
It is an insult to every member of the Military to diminish what this terrorist did and classify it as a "medical condition". And he is a terrorist. As the saying goes, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck,...

In The Dark Of The Night

The House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform late on a Saturday night. When is the last time these guys worked on a weekend? And why would Congress consider this bill so late on a Saturday night when all of the major media hs gone to sleep?



First, a good thief strikes when you're not home or sleeping. Same here, for our less than honorable members of Congress. While people were either winding down after a busy day, or out for the evening, the thieves stole from us.



Secondly, Conservative radio and television. There is NO DOUBT in my mind that these crooks wanted this vote when there as no regularly scheduled Conservatives on television and radio so they would not get flooded by opposition phone calls when people received the truth about what was happening in DC instead of the Obama PR crew at NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, etc.



Lastly, MONEY. FOLLOW THE MONEY on anything that comes out of Washington and you'll have your answers.



Please read this email from Dick Morris, it is telling. Our Members of Congress SOLD OUR FREEDOM!



The fight isn't over yet.



OBAMACARE ENDORSEMENTS: WHAT THE BRIBE WAS



By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on TheHill.com on November 6, 2009



As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the '09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these -- and the other endorsements -- his package has received are all bought and paid for.


Here are the deals:* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians' reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill...or else!

* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician.

So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues. Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP -- which supposedly represents them -- will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

* The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn't go along with Obama's blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

Jobless Recovery

This week I heard an oxymoron that almost rivals that of "Deval Patrick Shows Leadership on the Budget";

Jobless Recovery.

Think about those two words for a moment.

Only in Obama's America would a high ranking financial analyst have the balls to describe a GREATER THAN EXPECTED UNEMPLOYMENT number as a JOBLESS RECOVERY! What's worse is that he wasn't even challenges by the Obama sycophant financial talk show host about his JOBLESS RECOVERY comment.

The media is trying to prop up the our first Communist President, Barack Hussein Obama, by saying that even though there has been continued job loss, the economy is recovering.

Let's analyze this JOBLESS RECOVERY further:

The financial guy must have been thinking that just because the stock market has come back this year that people have all sorts of capital gains. For you Democrats, that means your stock is worth more than what you paid for it.

But wait, the Dow Jones Average is still down over 4,000 points from it's high. Hmm. The JOBLESS RECOVERY can't be because of the stock market.

Oh, he must have meant that people are selling their homes and taking the capital gain (Dems, see above) and spending it on everyday items. No that can't be it, because home prices are still down and we keep hearing how we have to shore up the housing market with even more government money to keep values from slipping even further than where they are now.

I got it! It must be the climbing dollar and shrinking debt, along with low oil prices that the nitwit financial guy must see as becoming a stimulus for our economy, right?

By now you obviously are getting the drift that this can't be what the "In the tank for Obama" financial guy was referring to.

The media, excuse me, the main stream media, and the financial shows are just like the rest of them, are trying to spin things as much as possible to make this economy look better than what is it. If W was still in office we 'd hear stories of people jumping off ledges as they did at the start of the Great Depression. You can't sugar coat crap!

While the US faces 10%+ unemployment, we lucky Bay Staters have to only put up with 9.3% (until we get the new numbers) unemployment. Lucky us!

What are our Democrat majority in Boston and Washington doing to turn this around? Other than spending money they don't have - I have no clue, and neither do they!

Ronald Reagan proved what it takes to turn the economy around. Hell, even John Kennedy proved that TAX CUTS to spur growth and investment, is the ONLY WAY to turn this around.

Jobless Recovery. Only in OBama's America and Deval's Massachusetts!!!

McDonnell Takes Youth Vote

Following is a post on the Weekly Standard Blog by a great young, energetic, Republican activist by the name of Rachel Hoff. Rachel's article illustrates what a great candidate with a great message can do in a campaign.

We've always been told the youth vote goes to the Dems. Bob McDonnell just proved that wrong.

Great job Rachel!

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The Rising Tide of the GOP Youth

Only one year after Barack Obama captured the hearts, minds, and votes of an entire generation of young Americans, those same voters proved that they are not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. Looking at election data from this week’s statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia, it seems that the loyalty of young voters may only have been to one man -– Barack Obama –- not a party or an ideology, presenting a real opportunity for the GOP despite calls of extinction after 2008.

According to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), turnout among 18-29 year olds was 19% in New Jersey and only 17% in Virginia. This compares with 53% and 59% young voter turnout in the 2008 Presidential elections in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively. Even considering the typical drop-off during an off-year election, turnout only in the teens is alarmingly low.

The young people who were the driving force of the Obama campaign stayed home in 2009. Claims that President Obama won a generation of young Americans to the Democratic Party were vastly exaggerated. The power of Obamamania, it seems, was personality politics -- not an actual commitment to the Democratic Party or principles.

Perhaps more amazing and disappointingly under-reported by the media is the fact that 18-29 year olds in Virginia voted for Bob McDonnell over the Democrat 54% to 44%. McDonnell proved that a dynamic candidate with the right ideas, an active youth outreach program, and strategic use of new media technologies, Republican candidates can win the youth vote. The McDonnell campaign deserves credit for its text messaging program, the Young Professionals coalition that leveraged both fundraising and grassroots organizing, and the energy that his daughters brought to the election.

The GOP needs to wake up and take note. Bob McDonnell did not invent a new way of campaigning. He was the right candidate with the right message who refused to cede Virginia’s youth to the Democrats and actually reached out to them. Republicans should take this week’s election results as a sign that the Grand Old Party still has a real opportunity to appeal to young voters.

Posted by Rachel Hoff on November 5, 2009 04:24 PM Permalink
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The Tide doesn't turn on its own. GET INVOLVED!