Payne: Stabenow solves the Eastern Market ‘crisis’ ( The Michigan View 04.11.11)

Posted by hpayne on April 11, 2011

You think Michigan’s economy is in crisis? That there’s an entitlement crisis? A spending crisis? That the Mideast is in crisis? Small potatoes.

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow wants to solve the Eastern Market crisis.

“U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow says she is working with officials of Detroit’s Eastern Market to help them increase the number of days the outdoor and shed merchants are open for business,” reports The Detroit News’ Dave Shepardson of the downtown Saturday farmer’s market.

Yes, Senator Stabenow has spotted the real crisis threatening America: Businesses in the permanent shops around the market’s perimeter are open weekdays . . . but the sheds and open-air parts are not!

“Why should Eastern Market only be open on Saturday? Why not Sunday? Why not every day?” demanded Stabenow at a Detroit Economic Club appearance, throwing her weight around as the new chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The chairwoman aims to fix this historic injustice – with your tax dollars. Stabenow is seeding the market with funding from the U.S. Agriculture Department that will add two new Detroit neighborhood markets and boost advertising for other markets at Wayne State, the North End, the east side, and elsewhere.

Remember that the next time Democrats scream that the federal budget has been cut to the bone.

“It’s difficult to get new markets started,” mumbles Eastern Market President Dan Carmody, his lips clamped firmly on the federal teat. Naturally, then, we taxpayer have to make it less hard. Heaven forbid that the market has to prove it self in the, well, market.

.”I told the mayor I’d never thought I’d be helping him from the Agriculture committee,” Stabenow says of her plan to micromanage market business hours.

Michigan’s junior senator is just getting started. She has more dreams of government-funded utopia. Two permanent food halls (just like Philly and D.C.!). A 35,000-square-foot north hall with a new restaurant. A Whole Foods store. Making Michigan Number One in pickle processing. She wants to make the next generation of cellulosic ethanol biofuel. And so on.

Playing with other people’s money is fun.

And so is E85 ethanol, which Stabenow has decided is the fuel of the future. “There has to be a couple of choices there,” she declares whether consumers want the choice or not. Whether it makes economic sense or not. What’s important is Debbie Stabenow thinks it’s a good idea.

Lucky for Michigan, its junior senator sees the big picture.

Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com.

 

 

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