Lansing insider publication MIRS reported last night that Michigan owes the federal government over $860 million in unemployment insurance.  That happens when you have more people drawing bigger unemployment checks than you have employers paying the unemployment tax each year and, since we're talking about the federal government, a group of bureaucrats and politicians who never have a hard time spending other peoples' money but cannot fathom a delay when it comes to taxpayers paying THEM, we're officially in trouble.

And did I mention that the feds charge interest on that outstanding debt?

Here's what it means to Michigan job makers: 45,000 businesses with former employees drawing unemployment, the folks who still scribble those paychecks for your family and your loved ones every-other Friday, will be paying an extra $67.50 PER EMPLOYEE.  Its what they call a "solvency tax" and it won't go away until that $860+ million debt does.

But wait, there's more... next year every job maker in the state will be charged an extra $21 for every man, woman and teenager they give a job and they'll do that every year until the state is paid up in full.

Once you factor in interest payments and the expectation that we'll be making them for years, these are tax hikes that will hit job makers to the tune of a billion dollars.  

Makes you proud to call Jennifer Granholm "Madame Governor," doesn't it?  And even prouder to know that next year you'll have a chance to cast a ballot to give her "right-hand man" John Cherry four more years to deliver the same nonsense?

I know that prospect gives me the warm fuzzies.

Oh, and yeah, I know, its all Engler's fault.  Just for the sake of being thorough, though, it should be noted that the $860 million in red ink and tax hikes Michigan Democrats are passing along to job makers is the largest deficit the state has seen since the end of 1983 when this cat named Jim Blanchard was running the show under the Capitol dome.  

As for the argument that its due to Michigan's manufacturing base and that other Midwestern states are struggling too... yep, that's true.  Other Midwestern states are struggling.  Indiana owes over $180 million themselves.  Problem is, if you take the 49 states not named Michigan, the Midwestern states and everything, and add up all of the unemployment insurance cash they owe and then take that number and multiply it by two, you still don't get a number as big as Michigan's.  

And the Democrats' answer is to raise the taxes a business pays on the function of employment, incentivizing struggling job makers to lay off even more employees.  Because that won't exacerbate the problem at aaaaaaaall...