Issue Position: Economy

Issue Position

Energy, energy, energy! Affordable energy is the key component to RE-build the foundation for manufacturing growth in Michigan. Manufacturing in China isn't working. Nationwide, thousands of companies are pulling out of China. We need to make Michigan irresistible to them! The cost of energy is the biggest cost in manufacturing second to labor and equipment.

Michigan had the opportunity to open up our energy market to more competition but we fell short on the votes to win. This time. In 2018 and beyond, our energy policy makers will have crucial decisions to make that will make or break our future. We are currently competing with several southern states that have almost half the energy cost as Michigan. If you're in the plastic injection or stamping industry and you can run a 20 ton stamping press in Tennessee for a hundred dollars a day less than you can in Michigan, where are you going to do business? When your cost of profit can be pennies per part, you're going to take advantage of every opportunity you can to make your business stronger! This is one of the reasons we have lost an estimated 1/2 to 3/4 million manufacturing jobs and another million jobs to support these manufacturing jobs. Imagine what Michigan would be like if we gained five million people instead of losing a million people over the last 30 years. Let's do this!!

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