Oakland County (MI) Board of Commissioners Meeting Report

My wife just got back from the latest Oakland County (Michigan) Board of Commissioners meeting and told me all about it. If there is anything our President has taught us, it is that the people at county and township meetings could be Senator or President soon enough, so understanding how they think and act is important.

The first issue that occupied a lot of discussion and political maneuvering at the meeting was a resolution that was introduced by the Democrats in the County Commission would have Oakland County (the most influential county in Michigan) publicly declare its support for two bills in the Michigan House of Representatives (HR 4785 and HR 4786) and direct the Oakland County lobbyist to work to get these bills passed.

As I understand it, these bills are sponsored by Democrats in the House (who are in the majority), and would expand unemployment benefits to cover those individuals who work part-time, and once those benefits are exhausted, would further pay for job retraining.

In the past, salaried full-time employees were comforted to know that there employer was being forced to put money aside for them in case they ever lost their job. Employers account for this cost, and adjust their business plans accordingly- some firms hire less employees knowing that they have to pay for this unemployment insurance and other firms try to seek out the best competitive advantage by going to states or countries that demand less unemployment insurance.

Michigan has decided to ignore this fact of life and instead use the power of the state to force employers to save money to pay for part-time employees once they are let go from their jobs due to the employer not having enough money to run his company.

Oakland County has anywhere from 800 to over a thousand part-time employees, and if these bills were to be passed, they would now have to pay for unemployment insurance for these employees. Knowing this, they would hire considerably less employees- not only because they would have to pay a fee to do so, but also because the county would have to protect itself if it had to lay off people. No estimates were given as to how many jobs Oakland County government would destroy if the State of Michigan passed this bill, but it is a given that many jobs will be lost.

The Democrats support this resolution because, according to them, the benefit expansion is "free." My taxpayer money and yours was given to the states in the form of a bribe to encourage them to expand unemployment benefits and welfare programs in the form of a 'stimulus bill,' and now Democrats want to leverage that money. This reasoning is poor though- the stimulus money is only given once, and the expansion of unemployment will be forever.

Democrats talked about how this expansion of welfare benefits would save houses and keep people spending money and keeping the economy going. This is another case of poor reasoning- the amount of money one is going to earn from unemployment benefits from a part-time job is not going to be enough to save a house, and taking taxpayer money and redirecting it through government agencies to another person to spend is not going to improve the economy.

One Democratic commissioner went so far as to say that employers should be happy to pay the extra money like he was, as he owned a business and gladly would foot the bill for increased welfare payments. I'm going to contact this guy and see if he will send me the check directly so I can pass it on to a good charity, but I suspect that like most Democrats, he is only generous with your money and not his own.

For all of the politics, posturing, anecdotes, and quibbling about details that went on for hours, I never heard the following phrases- "personal responsibility," "founding fathers," "constitution," "core principles," or "limited government." Democrats firmly believe that the purpose of government is to redistribute wealth from those who earned it to those who have not, and Republicans get sucked into this mindset and also start to discuss resolutions such as these on unfavorable ground.

The reason why Republicans voted not to support this resolution and why you should also oppose it is that it is not the role of government to force employers to save money for your possible job loss. That is your own business, and should be your own responsibility. By making you give up that liberty and freedom, by using the power of the state to take responsibility away from you, our society is less free and less responsible, and ultimately suffers. The reason why this resolution should have been defeated is because our Founding Fathers would not have supported resolutions such as this one, would not have believed that a crisis should be used to radically remake America this way, but would have thought long and hard about the core principles that make America great.

This resolution does not in any way improve the protections of my liberty and property, and actually works against these, and thus should have been rejected. In this case, it wasn't (the resolution passed because a couple Republicans surrendered the moral and logical ground and didn't want to pay 'a political price'), but in the future, remember what you read here and do the right thing- think to yourself "what would Jefferson do" and then vote. Our nation will be better because of it.

For further questions or comments about this issue, contact anyone on the Board of Commissioners who you would like to.