Before Governor Richardson hops a jet for another international jaunt he might consider this:
When things are going poorly for a politician, he or she will claim any victory — however small — as a sign of progress.
So it was with Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s recent trip to Japan, intended to entice Far Eastern businesses to invest in Michigan.
The governor trumpeted the promises she received from several Japanese companies to invest in Michigan, to the grand total of 630 jobs during the next five years. Let’s put that number in perspective.
Michigan’s June unemployment rate was a lofty 6.77 percent. Applying all of the 630 positions for the jobless now would reduce that rate all the way down to 6.76 percent, a tiny fractional victory in solving the state’s biggest problem.
Think about it a one hundredth of a percent difference. I don’t think Governor Richardson can even lay claim to that level of success. Actually, I know he can’t. Beckman goes on in the article to provide some interesting statistics comparing right-to-work states versus forced unionism states:
But again, let’s consider some facts from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Census Bureau comparing productivity in right-to-work states versus forced unionism states, like Michigan [and New Mexico], for the decade starting in 1993.
Private-sector employee growth was 24.1 percent in right-to-work states compared with 14.2 percent in forced unionism states.
Real or inflation-adjusted personal income during that period grew 37 percent in right-to-work states compared with 29 percent in the union states.
The number of people covered by private health insurance grew 13.6 percent in right-to-work states compared with 5.9 percent in union states.
And in the 20-year period between 1982 and 2001, the right-to-work states saw 7 percent growth in manufacturing businesses while the union states suffered a loss of 4.9 percent.
Keeping these figures in mind, what do you think the impact of ACORN’s follies are going to have on New Mexico’s future? Anybody heard from the Governor on this issue? Heck, anybody in New Mexico heard from the Governor on any of the crises occurring under his watch? Well, maybe we could call some folks in New Hampshire to find out the Governor’s views.