April 14, 2006

Governor Says Michigan Needs a Partner in the White House

LANSING – In her weekly radio address, Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today sent a message that in Michigan, manufacturing matters.
 
“People work hard to give their children good homes and good lives,” Granholm said.  “My administration has taken action to help our manufacturers, on behalf of those thousands of people and thousands of families, to keep the jobs that we have at a time when Michigan is ground zero for the global shift in manufacturing jobs.”
 
In December, Granholm signed legislation giving manufacturers a $600 million tax cut.  The tax cut included incentives to create and consolidate jobs in Michigan instead of outsourcing them to other countries. 

Granholm has also been working closely with U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, as well as Michigan’s bipartisan delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives, to press the Bush administration to take action against unfair trade and help our manufacturers succeed in the global marketplace.  The U.S. manufacturing industry has lost more than 2.8 million jobs since 2001, including nearly 200,000 here in Michigan.  During that time, the Bush administration has failed to change its trade policies. 

Granholm has called on the administration to enforce trade laws already on the books, pressure countries like China to end currency manipulation, and protect American products from counterfeiting by other countries.

“As governor, I see every day what current trade policies are doing to our workers and our employers,” Granholm said.  “That’s why every day I am standing up for our manufacturers, because manufacturing and manufacturing workers matter to Michigan, and they matter to me.”

The Governor’s weekly radio address is released each Friday at 10:00 a.m. and may be heard on broadcast stations across the state through an affiliation with the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.  The address will also be available on the Governor’s website on Mondays as a podcast for general distribution to personal MP3 players and home computers.

Broadcasters Note: Governor Granholm’s radio address can be accessed through Sunday evening exclusively through the Members Only page of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters website. 

Publishers Note: The text of today’s address is attached.