June 27, 2005
June 24, 2005
Would Create Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow
LANSING – Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today spoke with local Chambers of Commerce and area residents while on a five-county visit to northeast lower Michigan, where she outlined a five-point economic strategy to fuel Michigan’s 21st century economy and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs.
“The foundation of a good life is a good-paying job,” Granholm told residents in Alcona, Arenac, Gladwin, Ogemaw, and Oscoda Counties. “The cynics will look at this plan and say we can’t do it. But, I argue we must. The naysayers will say we can’t afford to do it. But, I say, with the changes in our global economy, we can’t afford not to.”
A centerpiece of Granholm’s economic plan is the Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow initiative to create jobs immediately and diversify and grow Michigan’s future economy. It will:
• create 72,000 high-wage jobs by investing $2 billion to establish Michigan as a global center of research in new technology and emerging industries;
• create 36,000 jobs over three years and make Michigan a better place to live and do business by accelerating $800 million in critical state infrastructure projects, by giving local communities new tools to carry out their own public investment projects, and by sparking private development projects;
• give children in school and adults in the workforce greater access to higher education and to the skills they need to fill both the jobs of the future and job vacancies that exist in Michigan today.
To create jobs of the future, Granholm announced a 21st Century Jobs Initiative that will make Michigan the nation’s epicenter of alternative energy research, a leader in the biotech industry, and a hotbed for homeland security R&D. The initiative calls for a $2 billion investment over 10 years to grow Michigan’s economy by increasing research in our university, corporate, and non-profit research institutions and by stepping up efforts to turn new ideas into new commercial products. Michigan voters will be asked to approve a ballot measure this November that would authorize the Governor’s plan to create 72,000 jobs over the next decade.
Granholm said her plan will have revolutionary impact on the state’s economy: “Imagine Michigan, the state that put the nation on wheels as the state that made those wheels run on pollution free fuel cells, the state that made these United States independent of foreign oil.”
To put thousands of Michigan residents to work this year, Granholm proposed a Jobs Today Initiative that will speed up state and local infrastructure improvement projects that were scheduled to begin over the next decade and provide incentives that will lead to new private development and renovation projects. This acceleration will create some tens of thousands of new jobs over three years in the building trades, construction, and related service industries. By repairing roads, modernizing schools, cleaning industrial sites, and renovating downtowns, the Jobs Today Initiative will also improve Michigan’s quality of life and make the state more attractive to job providers.
Two other pieces of Granholm’s five-point plan are:
• The Mi Opportunity Partnership to cut unemployment by rapidly filling 90,000 job vacancies that exist in the state today. Granholm said the new MI Opportunity Partnership could match and place as many as 30,000 citizens who are looking for work with a job this year through training programs focused on the skilled trades and health care fields. “If Michigan hospitals can run ads for nurses in Montreal, surely we can train people on Mack Avenue or in Monroe or Munising for those career opportunities,” Granholm said.
• The Michigan Jobs & Investment Act (MJIA), the administration’s plan to make business taxes in Michigan more attractive for job providers. The MJIA will broadly restructure business taxes in Michigan, cutting the existing Single Business Tax rate by 37 percent for those businesses that pay it. Under the plan, three out of every four businesses that pay the SBT will see a reduction in their tax rate. Granholm’s proposed changes will help ensure that existing major employers continue to keep jobs in Michigan, will help small businesses grow, and will encourage research and development companies to create new high-growth jobs in this state.
“Job growth, coupled with a great quality of life, will make Michigan a magnet for jobs, investment, growth, people and opportunity,” said Granholm. “This proposal helps Michigan retain jobs, attract the jobs of the future, and protect schools and health care for our citizens. The changes we’re introducing today make Michigan’s business tax structure simpler, fairer, and more attractive for the job providers we want to stay and grow in Michigan.”
