Don't Let Your State Become Like Michigan and Painfully Fade Away

I am a proud Michiganian.

For those of you who just looked at that and thought you mean Michigander, you are wrong, and you can read the piece below and find out why.

I was born here in the late sixties. I have lived here all my life, and God willing, I will eventually pass on from this Earth while still living in this state. So, while I'm too young to remember the phenomenal success of this state and boom after World War II, I'm now old enough to know this state has slid from its former greatness and sadly will probably never come close to seeing that time again.

That part both makes me sad and also infuriates me to no end.

The state of Michigan, at one point, was a haven for creating jobs for people of all skill levels and had a large hand in helping create the American middle class. People from all over the United States and, in fact, all over the world moved here to get well-paying jobs, start a family, and have access to good schools and thriving communities. In fact, just a decade after World War II, in a 30-mile radius of downtown Detroit, you could find an engineering firm that could lay the blueprints for any project to be done anywhere in the world.

However, for several reasons, which I might go into in another article, the state of Michigan, led by the decline of its largest city, Detroit, is just a pale shadow of its former self.

This state's last effective political leadership left office in 2002 when former Gov. John Engler left.

Since then, we've had a string of ineffective bumblers as the state's chief executive, and with ineffective leadership at the top came a succession of lack of vision and bumbling in the legislature. The state has suffered greatly for this, and the current leader, Governor Whitmer, who just won re-election by nine points in 2022, is showing no signs of slowing up on messing up in this state.

You may recall Whitmer and her famous Follies during COVID. I wrote about these instances many times back in the day, like this article.

When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was outed last month for a secretive trip to Florida in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, her office claimed that Michigan taxpayers did not foot the bill.
What they did not tell us, however, is that Whitmer asked a group of wealthy Detroit businessmen to supply her with a private plane they share.
Those businessmen have major dealings in and with the state of Michigan.
“We wondered why she reached out to us instead of booking a private charter,” said one of the plane’s owners, who exchanged his candor for confidentiality. “You can’t tell a governor no. Who needs that kind of trouble?”
Had Whitmer booked a round trip flight from Lansing to West Palm Beach through a private charter company, it would likely have cost her $10,000 to $20,000, or a whopping $40,000 for the actual jet she took, according to private jet websites. The latter is more than 25 percent of the governor’s salary — before taxes.
It is unclear whether Whitmer reimbursed the company – Air Eagle – which manages the aircraft owned by the businessmen. And, if so, at what price and from which bank account?
So some super-duper rich guys, the ones that people of Gretch’s ilk are always saying don’t pay enough in taxes and are used as a bogey man pinata, were guilted into letting her use their fancy jet to go to Florida for FOUR DAYS. I’m sure that the fact that they have business with the State of Michigan and she happens to be the Governor is a happy coincidence and there could never be any quid pro quo.
Must be one hell of a nice jet that it would cost 40K to rent for a round trip to Florida. Why fly with the heathens in first class when you can pull those types of favors? Woman of the people indeed.

Well, COVID is not the only sneaky thing that Gretch is up to these days. In a story I recently came across (here), you can see she is still up to her devious things.

An 86-page report ordered by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last year said the help of Michigan's philanthropic institutions would be key to increasing the state's population, but it didn't acknowledge it was those same institutions whose dollars bankrolled the findings.
The Growing Michigan Together Council spent five months in 2023 developing recommendations to draw people to the state, but officials behind the high-profile panel have been less than transparent about where the group's money came from and where it went.
While Whitmer, a second-term Democrat, announced the council at a June 1 press conference and formed it within the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, her administration arranged for nearly $1 million in funding to flow through a private foundation that faced fewer disclosure requirements than state government does.

You have to hand it to her.

After getting a report that says her state is lagging at the bottom of the other 50 in population growth, she creates a commission that looks like it is being paid for using taxpayer money to come up with solutions for all the reasons why the state is lagging but also uses enough private cash so you can step around public disclosure request and say government money wasn't really used.

Depending on your point of view, this is either genius or highly unethical. Whichever one you agree with, you have to wonder whose bread is getting buttered and if any of the solutions to the state's long-standing problems could be solved with any of the answers found.

As mentioned above, Whitmer was re-elected a little over a year ago by a nine-point margin. How she handled the COVID debacle should have sunk her re-election chances right there in a much more normal state with people filled with common sense in their voting ranks.

Michigan is currently outside that category.

Not only did Whitmer win re-election in 2022 for the first time in over three decades, but the Democrats now control both the House and the Senate in the state. The future isn't looking very bright.

Some incredibly good, decent people are working to change the state's trajectory so that it is not at least sliding down the hill into the abyss as quickly as we are now. I'm looking forward to assisting those efforts and plan on helping when possible. Yet, in the meantime, I suggest that everybody reading this in some of the more normal places politically in the United States not let this happen to your state.

Your regret will be eternal.