Finally, after years of dark clouds, Michigan received some good economic news: General Motors announced yesterday it would be firing 2,000 autoworkers... In Tennessee. The Springhill plant, which helps produce the Chevy Traverse, is to be shuttered.
Some 800 of those employees will transfer to factories in Michigan. That means 800 more paychecks, 800 more taxpayers, 800 more homebuyers, 800 more shoppers driving demand in the state that has been hardest hit by the recession caused by former president Bush's domestic ineptitude.
As for Tennessee, they'll have to make do however they can. The people there should also really reconsider whether or not they want to be represented by conservative wing-nuts anymore, because the blame for the Springhill plant closing can be laid at the doorstep of one man, Senator Bob Corker.
Yes, elections have consequences. Back when Washington was cobbling together the bailout plans for the Big Three, Corker was one of the Senate's most vociferous obstacles. It was his moment in the spotlight; until then, nobody had much heard of him.
It's not hard to get attention when you're running around lying about how much union workers are making. Corker was one of those (along with Alabama's Jeff Sessions) who perpetuated the "$70-an-hour" myth. He chose to stand with foreign automakers whose employees enjoy a lower standard of living than their American counterparts.
No wonder. Tennessee is a "right to work" state. A red state. A scab state. This furthers the obvious notion that Republicans are just not as bright as the rest of us. Study after study has proven that scab states have median incomes that are 20 to 25 percent lower than states in which workers can bargain collectively with their employers.
Here in Arizona, we also have the "right to work", which really means the right to make less money. The only discernible union in these parts is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which upholds fair wages for grocery store employees. Only one grocery chain, Basha's, has resisted the union. And they're in bankruptcy.
Getting back to Corker, who used his 15 minutes of fame to call the bailouts "surreal", he may not find so many supporters when he comes up for re-election. Along with those 2,000 GM jobs goes a like number of supplier jobs, and votes become easier to siphon off (even if the result is just another dumb Republican).
It may have felt good to Corker to harden up and criticize the bailouts and the UAW, but in the end it cost his state dearly. Call it political science, or just plain science, whether conservatives believe in such things or not.
Hot air has consequences.
pH 12.o1.o9
