America's High Five Needs a Hand

by: skarefamena

Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 10:51:06 AM EDT

Hey Michigan, let's be patriotic about something other than tax cuts!

For more from Nathaniel Krefman visit http://www.youtube.c...

Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts -- the mantra is slowly choking Michigan. Our state is suffering from a severe economic downturn and a massive brain-drain. Companies are packing up and leaving, taking our jobs and our best and our brightest with them. Wake up Kalamazoo, wake up Michigan, the sky is falling.

Now is not a time for stinginess. Now is not a time for penny-pinching. Now is the time for major investment. We need to invest in our infrastructure, our students, our environment, our future.

The Democratic Party has been arguing of late that America needs an Apollo-like program to solve the global climate crisis and to develop clean, domestic energy. Well, Michigan needs an Apollo-like program to diversify its economy, and thereby reduce our dependence on manufacturing.

Yet, instead of building bridges to the future, we're pillaging our public universities and community colleges, the Michigan Conservation Corps, and our brand new 21st Century Jobs Fund.

But the Michigan Republican Party, in all its myopic glory, can only think of one thing at a time. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts! That has always been the Republican solution for everything. But tax cuts are only an answer if the question posed is how do you make rich people richer?

Do people in Kalamazoo still believe in civic republicanism? I hope Republican state Sen. Tom George and Republican state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk are listening. Repeat after me: ask not what Michigan can do for you, ask what you can do for Michigan.

Paying taxes is a patriotic duty. Taxes represent what we are capable of doing together for the common good. Tax revenue is the font of the common wealth. And what we pay in taxes, when we elect Democrats, comes back to us in services, in savings, in safe communities, in a friendly economy and a clean environment.

"America's high-five" needs a hand. And Michigan's wealthy will have to bear the brunt, to be blunt. But why not? We created a market environment favorable for wealth accumulation, and the wealthy have benefited most. Even the wealthiest cannot afford to disinvest in Michigan, because we're all in this together.

To paraphrase Democrat John Edwards, it's time for people in Kalamazoo to be patriotic about something other than tax cuts.

From http://www.mlive.com...