Detroit -- Last night, a source told me there were fabulous Arab restaurants that stayed open late in Dearborn. I misunderstood exactly where he meant and when I took my rental blue Chevy through road construction and over potholes after the debates, I couldn’t find anything. The pictures I had of people eating hashing out what Kerry and Bush had said over fresh tabouleh didn’t fit the well-lit and busy Bob’s Big Boy I passed. I ended up at Kroger’s, a super-super grocery store, where working-class families and crazies were still shopping.
The sales clerk said she works nights and her husband works days, because they can’t afford daycare for their daughter. I’m in Michigan to learn about the sea-change in Muslim voting during this election, and have been hearing a lot about the issues argued in the debate. But it’s hard to ignore that all of Michigan was hit hard by the recession. In poll after poll, residents say economy is their number one concern in the election, and whoever runs the country has to solve the problems.
I interviewed a business professor who said that when the economy turns south people stop buying cars, and so Detroit is the first hit by a recession and the last to recover. So, what would bring Detroit back up? His answer was to get cash into the pockets of poorer people. It was a trickle-up theory, where the poor will spend the money they get, not save or invest. That spending will circulate cash back into the economy and create demand. He pointed out they may not spend it where policy-makers and economists want it spent. Cars, I thought, aren’t cheap, and I doubt the government wants to give enough cash out so everyone gets a new Mustang. So, I don't know how this would help his specific region, unless it becomes a service economy.
In other words, while the debates last night were illuminating and exciting, the ones that matter in Detroit are still to come. And neither man running for president may be able to do anything that really helps.
Posted by Lisa Lambert at October 1, 2004 08:33 AM