"Pure Michigan" Sucks...
I would be thoroughly excited to see someone in this country come up with a plan to give away the entire state of Michigan, to Canada. With all the continuing cutbacks and closings, this state is slowly dying. It appears to me that “Pure Michigan” is no longer a desirable state to live in, IF you need a place to work, or you already worked for fifty years and are retired. If you ARE lucky enough to find a job, no need to plan on any type of retirement, because there is a very good chance that your employer will be gone before you reach retirement age. I do not understand how a family (young or otherwise) is able to survive in this state these days, when so many jobs are constantly being wiped out with the simple stroke of a pen. There aren’t very many families that I know of that can possibly survive above poverty level when the only available work is with a fast food chain. When I was growing up and working, health insurance/care was considered almost a normal benefit. Nowadays, health insurance has pretty much vanished for workers in this state. I would find it to be very aggravating to work 10 years at a job that abruptly ends, move on, find another job (for less money), work 10 more years until that job ends, and not even have the chance at any type of health insurance during any of that time. Maybe if Michigan was controlled by the government of Canada, anybody who wanted to have a job and work, might have a chance of working, while seeing the possibility of retirement someday; AND not have to worry about the time when they, or a family member becomes ill and requires medical assistance. I was lucky enough to work at a real job for 38 years, paid income tax, retired, and am now (soon to be) expected to pay this state a new income tax on the pension that I now receive. I don’t understand how this state has gotten by all this time, since it is one of the highest taxed areas in the country and it still finds the need to close up operations continuously. It seems a little strange to me that we have enough money to fund a “Pure Michigan” campaign, at the cost of 25 million taxpayer dollars, when no one that I know even understands what “Pure Michigan” even means. Does it mean “pure unemployment”, “pure poverty”, or simply “pure taxes”? Next, they close some more prisons to let half the prisoners go back home, or close up a few State Police Posts and furnish all those troopers with specially equipped vehicles to take home with them after their shift is over. Sounds to me like the state is more concerned with attracting tourists for a week a year, than it is with the welfare of the people who live in the state already. I understand that there are other states in this country who don’t even have an income tax; how do they ever get by? With everything that is disappearing here, I don’t expect to ever see this state recover, at least without some type of international intervention.