What Difference Does Politics Make in Isabella County?

Anyone who has spent time going door to door in Isabella County or even spoken with neighbors has run into the person who feels politics doesn't matter -- that it has no impact on their very busy lives.

But over the past 25 years political decisions in Washington, Lansing and Mount Pleasant have all had impacts on how people in Isabella County go about their daily lives and how they and their families live out their futures.

It often seems that what happens here doesn't matter because so many larger factors are in play that we have no control over. The evidence is overwhelming that politics in Washington and Lansing has rearranged the order of things so the average American has lost ground, while the rich and powerful have gained ground. The Walmartization of America characterized by lower wages and less worker benefits and outsourcing of jobs to lower wage countries is happening at the same time the richest have never been richer.

Journalist and author Holly Sklar sums up the situation both in her co-authored book, "Raise the Floor," and in her latest article as seen in the Providence Journal, "American Road Leads Off a Cliff."

The Michigan Democratic Party is pushing back hard against the Republican tidal wave in an effort to increase Michigan's minimum wage. It is not just a symbolic effort either since tens of thousands of lives will be immediately affected. The Isabella County Democratic Party is solidly behind the effort to increase Michigan's mimimum wage and we will be working hard to gather the needed signatures to place the issue on the ballot in 2006.

Politics does matter and reversing the decline of America begins right here at home -- one political battle at a time.