What we get criticized for the most is being anti manufacturing. Specifically anti high paid factory work. The jobs that built middle class Michigan. Nothing could be further from the truth. Believe me if there were a way to recreate a factory based economy we would be in favor of it. We understand that lots of folks are getting hurt – through no fault of their own – by the decline in manufacturing.
The point we are trying to make is that this is not about right and wrong, it is about what is possible. Half of Americans used to earn a living on farms.Today it is less than 2%. Lots of folks got hurt when their farm job disappeared. But no matter how hard governments tried to help farming, those jobs never came back. And government has tried hard for more than a century. Farming is almost certainly our most heavily subsidized sector. Unfortunately the same is true for factory jobs. No matter what governments do, the proportion of Americans working in factories is in irreversible decline. In large part because machines are now doing the work factory workers used to.
We are not pro knowledge-based industries or anti factory-based industries. We don’t think government should pick any industry for special treatment. What we are in favor of is a Michigan state government helping people get ready for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Including preparing people for the higher skilled factory jobs of the future. It is something state government can do. What government can’t do is turn the clock back.
