LANSING, Mich. - Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, pinning his hopes on winning Michigan’s primary vote next Tuesday to give his campaign a boost, delivered some bad news for the state on Friday as worries mount of a recession in the United States.
The state, already battered by the slump in the automotive industry and scores of home foreclosures, will see its unemployment rate hit 8.2 percent in 2008 and 8.7 percent the following year, Romney said during a campaign stop, citing just-released state forecasts. (The rate was 7.4 percent in November and the national unemployment rate is 5 percent.)
Almost as if he were running to be the state’s governor rather than president, Romney repeated throughout a day of campaigning his pledge to help bring Michigan — the state where he was born and where his father served as governor — out of the depths of what he called a one-state recession.
“I care very deeply about Michigan,” he said at the Small Business Association of Michigan. “I want to be sure that we bring Michigan back.”
But Romney also sought to broaden his message to warn that the rest of the country could follow Michigan’s woes. “Michigan is in some respects like the canary in the mine shaft,” he said.
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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Romney at the Republican debate in South Carolina on Thursday evening)
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Canary in a min-shaft? That’d be funny if it was not so intellectually insulting!
USA has lost the steel industry. Pittsburgh is gutted and about broke.
USA use to make televisions, now they don’t.
USA use to have a lot more tech jobs, alot more auto jobs..now they don’t. USA was the leader of autos for 8+ decades, now Toyota is knocking on the door. Japan has been accused of unfair trade deficits from the beginning..nothing was ever done about it. Now a bigger player has come to down. China’s trade deficits are much larger and NOTHING is ever done about them either.
India’s Mahindra is selling tractors here in the USA now..going against John Deer. India’s Tata and Mahindra both make cars and they may be selling globally soon. China will be selling cars globally soon.
US car companies ignored the first 1970s oil crisis. We have Hummers and other vehicles that make our current national average worse than it was 20 yrs ago. But now that we have even more foreign oil..we have Japanese auto makers leading the miles per gallon race.
We have a current president that set 2020 for us to have an average 35mpg, while Europe already has that NOW and Japan has 45miles per gallon.
We are sending droves of tech jobs to India and china and eastern Europe. What can be taught here, can be taught their. Those countries will support and protect their industries..we will not.
Losing our technical edge is also a security risk. Especially since every war since wars have began have won with technical prowess..USA has been steadily losing that technical edge for 20yrs and lately we’ve been giving in it away.
I don’t like the fact that our CEOs are stuffing their wallets even when they are laying off. During the last big layoff season 2001-2003, the CEOs of companies that laid people off averaged 75% pay increases for one yr.
I don’t like the talk about corporate tax cuts to American global companies, since the tax cut should be based strictly on the American portion of that global income. Otherwise we risk rewarding them for sending jobs over seas.
Plz don’t get me started on illegal immigration. People just don’t understand that the damage and financial burden of it is more than 100 times the financial benefit. And open border is a huge security risk letting in not only Mexicans but people from other countries…Saudia Arabia, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.
- Posted by Dennis Shumaker