Local News

Granholm vows to restore Promise, increase jobs

By Jenny Whalen GVL Editor in Chief
2/3/2010

Addressing the concerns of student protesters outside the Capitol and some 96,000 Michigan students across the state, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced during her final State of the State address her plan to restore the Michigan Promise Scholarship in the 2010 budget.

With restoration of the Promise Scholarship, Granholm vowed not only to find a "creative" way to pay for the scholarship, but to give it a new focus and keep "our young people in Michigan when they earn their degrees."

Granholm added she would "draw the line" against additional education cuts in 2010.

"Common-sense tells us that to create a new economy we have to invest in education," she said. "Virtually every economist and anyone who's read the want-ads recently would agree -- today's jobs demand a college degree or technical training. That's why it made absolutely no sense to abandon the Michigan Promise Scholarship last year and break a promise to 100,000 Michigan families counting on it to send their kids to college."

She also proposed a series of money-saving reforms, one of which will contain incentives to encourage retirement for 46,000 state and public school employees.

"State government and our schools will definitely miss the contribution of the most experienced employees, but we will save money," Granholm said. "That money we can put toward education and job-creation."

The governor also said she plans to accelerate efforts to improve Michigan's K-12 education in line with President Barack Obama's Race to the Top Initiative, to ensure the state has the opportunity to win a share of the $4 billion in federal-education-reform funding now available.

In addition to restoration of the scholarship and education reforms, the governor introduced proposals to help small businesses, encourage entrepreneurs and teach unskilled workers how to read and write.

"Let me be clear," Granholm said. "Our world has changed, utterly. The old Michigan economy is gone. Anyone who believed that Michigan would just naturally rebound without making deep and lasting change had a rendezvous with reality in 2009. The year that just ended was a dividing line -- the finale of what Time magazine has called the 'Decade from Hell.'"

No doubt considering Michigan's nation-leading 14.6 percent unemployment rate and the loss of more than 400,000 jobs in the past two years, Granholm promised to "continue to go anywhere and do anything to bring jobs to Michigan," including frequent trips to Washington, D.C.

While vowing to do her part, Granholm also encouraged legislators to do theirs by passing a balanced budget "with urgency."

"So first, we must begin by passing a budget that allows us to target every possible dollar on creating jobs, investing in education, and protecting people," she said. "And next week, I'll present a comprehensive proposal that outlines all the steps we'll have to take to enact a balanced budget that protects our priorities."

Priorities including strengthening the foundation for Michigan's new economy and allocating resources to grow six new economic sectors.

"Where the old Michigan economy was all about autos and manufacturing ... the new Michigan economy is much broader: clean energy, life sciences ... homeland security and defense, advanced-manufacturing, film and tourism," she said. "We have steadily focused on the unique attributes that give Michigan a competitive advantage. No state has the skilled workforce we do. Nobody has the capacity and the manufacturing know-how we have. Nobody has the natural resources -- the forests, the diverse agriculture, the water -- that we have."

editorial@lanthorn.com

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