(T)he cuts are at least a minor setback to Michigan's efforts to grow its health care industry as one way to make up for the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent years...

The nonprofit expects to lose about $177.4 million in bad debt and uncompensated care in its 2008 fiscal year, which ends June 30, a 25-percent increase from the year before. Its profit margins are also expected to fall to less than 1 percent in 2008, down from 2.35 percent the year before on net patient revenue of $1.7 billion.

They're still looking for nurses though.  Become a nurse.  Seriously.  People are always going to get sick and as long as there are nuts like Michael Moore out there driving the bullet-train to socialism there'll be some amount of compensation out there for your efforts.  

Speaking of movie makers, Jennifer Granholm wants you to know that a lot of them might come to Michigan now.  Ready to throw a party?  Maybe schedule a ticker tape parade to welcome George Clooney or Meryl Streep or Robert Redford or any one of her other pseudo-hippie icons.  Oh, right, when they make movies they don't exactly do those sorts of things.  They have "closed" sets, shut down traffic for days, weeks, months, close off sections of cities...but gee whiz they're cool.

I don't know about you but I'm excited.  Nothing gets me going more than the idea that somewhere in the State of Michigan there's going to be some famous person filming some piece of cinema.  How cool will it be to go to the theatre one day and look up and say "hey, I recognize that building!"  You know?  

And, bonus, all you have to pay for the privilege is somewhere around twenty-million dollars a year.  

Last week we talked about the fantastic package of legislation that'd moved through the House and Senate.  Under the bill a movie maker gets a tax credit worth up to 42% of the cost of production.  Not a tax break.  A tax credit.  In other words, you spend $10 million shooting a "low budget" flick here in Michigan you're going to get $420,000 from the State of Michigan.  

Apply that against the taxes the movie makers would normally be asked to pay.  Say it's $250,000.  In this example the people of the State of Michigan would literally cut a check to some Hollywood producer in the amount of $170,000 and thank him for visiting.  We're not just taking less... we're PAYING them to come visit for a few weeks.  The final estimated bill according to the Ivory Tower:

State officials said the amount of state spending on movie and TV production credits will depend on the number and size of qualifying projects. The initial estimate on the cost to the state in the 2009 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, is about $19 million, said Deputy State Treasurer Scott Schrager.

Although an analysis by the state Senate Fiscal Agency suggested the incentives are so generous the net effect could be a decline in state tax revenues, Granholm insisted the immediate economic impact from filmmakers is worth it.

Sorta like a New Deal for Hollywood?  Pay multi-millionaires nineteen million dollars so they'll spend a couple bucks on coffee and sandwiches?  

I've said it before and it's no less true now.  This reminds me of that old playground insult... you're so ugly your mama has to tie a steak around your neck to get the dog to play with you.  

What are these people thinking?  And how does some other industry, any other industry, get this sort of package from the Governor?  Promise ANY company in ANY industry to completely eliminate their tax burden and then to write them a giant check and guess what, folks will come flooding into Michigan.  

If you're looking at it strictly as a job creation endeavor, hey, bully on you.  It'll work.  No doubt.  Just like it worked when FDR paid people to dig holes and fill them back in again, or to chop down trees or, whatever... just remember that it took a World War to get us out of that economic mess.  What's going to save Michigan?  And does anybody smell sizzler?