Attn. Michigan Teams: $2,000,000 FIRST Pledge Cancelled

[Alexander McGee]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

As much as I hate to be the one to play devil's advocate, I'm going to.

Those of you who live in Michigan know what the economy is here right now. My father works for GM. I worry every day that when he goes to work, he won't have a job when he comes home. And we aren't the only family living that way. People with 30 years at the same place are getting fired because there's no money.

And we want to put 2 million into robotics teams? Seems a little bit like a trivial matter to me, when there are so many businesses going down the tubes.

Anyone who knows me, or has read my stuff on CD knows how passionate I am about this program, how much I've sacrificed. But in this case, I'm saying no. The house and senate made a choice. I hope that they use the money that would have been used for FIRST to revive these businesses so that we don't have to worry anymore about whether or not we will have a job. Jobs mean money, healthcare and a way of life. Right now, in this state, none of that is safe, no matter how many years you've had with a company, how much education you have or how respectable a company you work for. Frankly, I think money for robotics teams should not be at the top of the money list. We don't need future planning, we need the solve the problems now.

Beth,

While I respect your point, I disagree. We both know that this money is either goign to M-DOT or will be used to reduce our deficit. Both of these things will happen anyways, as they are high priorities, but this is a great way NOW to jumpstart FIRST in Michigan and provide our state with more exceptional engineers and technical expertise. I think that this is a much better return on investment, and have a stamp on my letter that tells them this.

A mere 2 million dollars isn't going to do much for our unemployment, and it certainly isn't going to save jobs. Ms. Granholm has been campaigning to Toyota and Honda, encouraging them to build plants in Michigan as a way to stimulate the job market and to gain more American (or Michigan ) acceptance of their products. I think this is a much more satisfactory solution than putting the money back into the budget for “unemployment relief”. The state of Michigan cannot create jobs for all of those who have been or may be laid off; it can only encourage businesses and corporations to build on our land by offering them tax incentives.

Politicians have only one job, to try to get re-elected. Think about that. They may have other responsibilities, but that is their “job”. Dollar amounts like this fly to and from the hands of politicians from lobbyists and supporters to encourage certain bills to be pressed through and others to stay back. This kind of money gets thrown around all the time, and now is our chance to get a piece of it for our program.

So, anyone writing letters like I am, I suggest that mention why you think the return on investment is higher for this program than for some other sort of “short-term relief program”. Again, 2,000,000 is chump change compared to our deficit and our near 7% unemployment. Let us make a long term investment for this program, and Michigan will certainly reap the benefits.

-ASM

[Bill_Hancoc]

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