June 29, 2005
June 29, 2005
LANSING – Governor Jennifer M. Granholm participated in grand opening ceremonies today at the new Karmann Manufacturing facility in Plymouth and reiterated her call for Republican lawmakers to act on her 5-part economic plan to stimulate the state’s economy and create tens of thousands of good paying jobs.
“Karmann Manufacturing is an excellent example of the high-tech automotive work already being done here in Michigan,” Granholm said. “If the Republican-led Legislature will act on my economic plan, we can create more good paying jobs like these in communities throughout the state.”
Granholm said facilities like the new manufacturing plant being opened today are evidence that Michigan is poised to be a leader in tomorrow’s technology. The German-based company is opening its first North American manufacturing facility at the site where it will produce the new Pontiac G6 convertible. The new high-tech manufacturing facility is expected to employ 250 people by 2007. The company already does advanced automotive research at the Plymouth campus.
Granholm’s Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow initiative will not only help companies like Karmann that do automotive research, but will 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 is calling for a 21st Century Jobs Initiative that will make Michigan the nation’s epicenter of alternative energy and advanced automotive 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.
“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,” said Granholm.
To put thousands of Michigan residents to work this year, Granholm has also 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
• 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 economic plan helps Michigan retain jobs, attract the jobs of the future, and protect schools and health care for our citizens. But, to make all of these things possible, the Legislature must act with urgency and speed.”
# # #
