Rich Lowry, on the self-imposed economic woes of my home state. In a lot of ways, Michigan reminds me of California. A place of great national beauty, being run into the ground by its elected officials.

I'm from Indiana, and indiana has it's own pastoral beuty, but I LOVE michigan, and though it isn't "actually" Michigan, I LOVE the UP. Some of the most beautiful land god ever created. I guess god knows where the fresh water is.

We're helping subsidize Michigan by sending a daughter to MSU (the programs there were a particularly nice fit to her interests).

Shame about the dying auto industry, though. I heard GM and Ford are talking about merging. Dinosaurs mating, indeed.

We lived in MI for a short time and can't say it was a pleasant experience, but Ohio isn't much better. We've lived here for 10+ years and in that time it's become the 3rd highest-taxed state in the country.
Can't speak for businesses, but at the personal level we get stuck with:
1. State income tax (progressive up to I think 9%)
2. Municipal income tax (which can be for TWO cities depending on where you live and work)
3. School district income tax (in addition to property tax $$ towards the schools).

And that's been with Republican control of every branch of state gov't. Granted, they act like Dems so it's probably not a fair comparison of liberal vs. conservative economics. State spending has gone up well beyond inflation and net population increase is somewhere below 1%, so we have to ask, "where's the money going?"

Ex-Gov. Voinovich never saw a tax increase he didn't like. Gov. Taft (who put the "Goober" in "Gubernatorial") is spineless but he at least managed to get some tax reform passed. We'll see if it does any good in the long run.

...I lived in MI for six years as a guest of the US Air Force in the late 70s and early 80s, and I'd like to suggest one other major reason why Michigan has the problems it does - that 3rd world nightmare called Detroit. IIRC, more than half of the state's population lives within the Metro Detroit area, and it seemed very clear to me that unless Detroit can ever be cleaned up, it'll drag the rest of the city down with it. Effective one-party rule, an overwhelming welfare culture, and a refusal of the city to face its own problems are going to be a drag on the rest of that beautiful state for a very long time.

Mike

The best plan for what to do with Detroit appeared in the Onion.

I grew up in the suburbs (Livonia) and moved to Detroit in 1978. We left for AZ in 1986. It was clear even then the Big3 automakers would never recover from the local Depression of the early '80s. My husband worked for a car design firm, and everyone he knew there was shortly laid off, and scrambling for jobs. Nobody we know who worked in the auto industry is still in those jobs.

It was also clear in 1986 that the Detroit Schools weren't a safe place to send our boy, and our neighborhood, even, became a bad place to live. We couldn't even sell our house, which was very nice, and well-maintained. (4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and suprising -- two kitchens, one for summer in the basement.) We had to give that house away. Neighbors had been trying to sell for 5 years plus.

We went back for a visit in 1996, and the traffic, the weather, and the general negativity of the place made us swear we'd never go back.

Mike is right. It's a 3d world nightmare! I could go on for days.

The sad thing is there's so much wonderful stuff there. Green trees, grass in every park. Belle Isle. DIA.

Sigh.