So we have established the situation is bleak, but I cannot accept it is hopeless and not worth trying something. Remember that
our main goal is to save the state, not the city.
I think the first place to start is with the churches. Encouraging non-US, preferably black, missionaries to go to Detroit would be beneficial in rooting out a lot of the corruption. The problem is not simply that Unions are running amok or that Democrats are keeping the poor poor. The problem is simply the human condition – pride. It is not money that is the root of all evil, it is pride. Men seek power and glory out of pride. Men are selfish out of pride. We are also lazy. This problem needs to be addressed first and concurrently with any other program one decides to institute.
Secondly, professional black businessmen, actors, and artists of good character need to get into the inner city and start mentoring not only children, but adults, including in the prisons. Natural leaders from within need to be supported in every way possible. Maybe Alfonzo could lend a hand by coming into the high schools and middle schools and giving talks similar to his videos.
The social programs need to be reveiwed for success/failure and be deleted as found necessary. If the people are being held down by the “helping hand” of the government, the hand needs to be removed. Basic needs (food, water, and warm clothes) must be met; beyond that we only weaken the poor by making them comfortable.
Michigan needs to hire Rudy Gulianni to come and run Detroit like he ran New York. He turned that city from one where you were afraid to walk around in, to one where you felt safe. Of course, it has to be safe, not just feel safe.
A bipartisan organization must be formed to weakenthe Unions. “The Next Job Could Be Yours” campaigns would be started state-wide. The idea is not to remove and completely destroy the unions; the unions have done great things for the American worker over the last 150 years. But the UAW in particular has increased wages and benefits so much that fewer jobs are available. If you can pay $100 per hour in wages and benefits, would it be better for a city to hire 2 people and pay them $50, including benefits, or to hire 1 at $100? When you push the wages too high, you either destroy the business you work for and everyone loses their job, or you just make it impossible for the company to pay both you and your fellow worker. So who gets fired? You or him? Worth the risk? We’ll have to go deeper than this. I don’t know yet how Gettlefinger thinks.
Detroit could take a while to fix. In the mean time, we must focus on other cities and strengthen them, like Ann Arbor or Grand
Rapids. My vote would be to strengthen GR. The population is mostly Republican and that can only bode well for the state. The city was on the rise before the recession, but they are hurting like everyone else. Instead of moving large companies into Detroit, we should subsidize construction in Grand Rapids. Plenty of infrastructure exists already. Opportunity will take people away from Detroit and push them to GR. As the population of Detroit continues to fall, our job of fixing it will get easier. A red Michigan could be a game-changer in national elections.
So this is what we have so far with regard to key components necessary to revitalizing Michigan:
1. Cut taxes, at least short-term (do we want to put an unemployment goal in here before we raise taxes a little? 4.5%?), for the top 1-2% income earners to create jobs.
2. Fight the unions. Now, let us discuss this approach. Do you convince people one by one, to drop out of their union? How do you bring down that establishment?
3. Cut spending. This will require us to look at the Michigan State Budget. We could create a website that reviews the budget and proposes cuts to programs and then allow people to give there a opinion of the cut (or increase).
4. Happier people are more active and social, or is it more social and active people are happier? Any way, the State could subsidize companies to install full spectrum lights in their offices or install them in street lights so that they are full spectrum lights during cloudy days and normal lights at night. Thoughts?
5. Force businesses to build alongside the Detroit river and create a waterfront park like Wyandotte has.
Anymore?
Yes, just picture it. We could have a bar (English or Irish bar) like the O’Shallaly (ever been there – fricken blast). And in the summer we could show movies in the park.
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Raging Kitty