“Tort Reform is Poison” –Lots of Hits–Michigan Economy Tanks

Image by roberthuffstutter via Flickr

Well, apparently putting out the article yesterday that labels tort reform as “poison” has people in Michigan, and nationwide actually, riled.  That was my top post yesterday, and has remained my top post today, on a Friday, which is a day known as notoriously hard to capture readers.  I even got international hits from my posts lately.  Hooray, I think.  But maybe the news is out that Michigan is suffering an image problem.  (But, I am not the first one to point that out.)   As you know, I have gone through a series of featuring Michigan personalities, artists, politicians, and I have just started moving through the courts/political systems.  The responses to Michigan’s tort reforms, birthed by the former governor John Engler, who now has self-listed Michigan as a “top business state” (posted about this yesterday Tort Reforms in MI) are vitriolic.

Summary:  Michigan business bedroom fellows mixed with the Republicans with the idea of giving businesses legal breaks to “encourage” businesses to want to come to Michigan to invest in Michigan’s economy, which judging by the forecasted 25%unemployment rate here, was a spectacular failure. Businesses and Republican politicians just took advantage of legal loopholes and still decimated Michigan’s economy.  Now lots of investigations are taking place to determine which businesses dumped unseemly amounts of cash into Republican campaigns in exchange for kickbacks and laws favoring their industries.

Great, apparently all elders, in their back-woods desperation to strike it rich, paid the businesses to come to Michigan, gave them unfair and maybe illegal breaks (like not investigating their campaign funding histories and not enforcing the law, Old White Man’s Club overlooking a few things) and now Michigan’s economy is bleeding uncontrollably and corruption investigations abound.  Wonderful.

The facts speak for themselves as Michigan tops the unemployment rates nationwide.  The medical care has gotten worse in this state as bad doctors aren’t removed by being held responsible in the courts (so now all the bad doctors flock to ole Michigan here where they won’t get caught), and insurance companies don’t have to pay for the care of mentally impaired children.  Makes you proud to be here, doesn’t it?  I had been so excited about Michigan’s prospects when looking at its artists, bu now looking at the politicians, the shit is about to hit the fan.  Spectacular.

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