 batteries and the promised land  president obama and gov jennifer granholm recently appeared at the groundbreaking ceremony for the electric car battery plant owned by the korean firm lg chem in holland it was another presidential dog and pony show to tout their latest attempt at creating jobs in michigan in this transformational age of renewable energy the facts are the federal government is contributing 151 million in stimulus money and michigan taxpayers are paying another 100 million from our taxes as seed money to get the project started obama and granholm were giving their usual stump speech about how this was going to bring about michigan s economic recovery they didn t bother to tell everyone that each of the 400 people the company is expected to employ will cost taxpayers 62500000 michigan s contribution to the subsidy will be about 250000 per job with this investment and others in battery technologies in michigan it appears that the government knows the people of our state and country are all on board for smaller vehicles it makes you wonder if the people who are making these decisions have done their homework analysts state that electric vehicles will account for just 06 of total industry by 2020 this doesn t appear that everyone is ready to jump on the electric car bandwagon the good news is that we will have created jobs the bad news is we are nothing more than a supplier vendor segment to an industry that is not from this country the question also arises about what happens when the subsidies that have been given to these companies expire do the jobs disappear also what about government regulatory mandates we need to ask ourselves is the electric and hybrid car market likely to survive with government motors charging 4100000 per vehicle for the volt who do they think will be able to afford it even when they are chipping in 7500 of your money to buy it the bottom line is the government is picking winners and losers and we have to pay for it if battery technology were a lucrative enterprise to begin with a entrepreneur would have jumped into the endeavor with both feet i didn t see any jumpers did you it is time we get the politicians out of our pockets and let business do what they do best create jobs vote for constitutional conservatives this fall submitted for publication to the dewitt bath review the clinton county news the st johns dewitt informer the laingsburg independent the owosso indepnedent the perry independent on august 6 2010  