When General Motors announced plans in January to locate four electric vehicle assembly plants in Michigan, it generated international media attention.

The plan is contingent on Michigan taxpayers paying out $824.1 million in state subsidies in return for 3,200 jobs promised by the automaker.

That may sound like a lot of jobs. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the regular annual job churn that is part of modern economies. In a dynamic economy such as Michigan’s, thousand of jobs routinely disappear and thousands of news ones are added. In good times, more new jobs appear than existing ones disappear. In hard times the opposite happens and unemployment rises.

Michigan’s economy saw 234,583 new jobs appear in the third quarter of 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the same period, 217,395 other jobs in the state disappeared.

To put the addition of 3,200 subsidized jobs in perspective, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the state’s corporate welfare agency, would have to generate the equivalent 68 new GM electric car plants every three months just to stay even with job losses.

Almost a month after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked President Joe Biden for an emergency declaration due to the May 20 tornado in Gaylord, that request still hasn’t been granted, reports the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Whitmer made her request on June 8.

At one point in 2020, Whitmer was widely considered as a potential running mate for Biden. That job went instead to Kamala Harris, then a senator from California.

Over the last year, the Biden-Whitmer relationship seems to have frayed publicly.

Whitmer did attend Biden’s inauguration. And early in his tenure, after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Michigan was among the greatest suppliers of National Guard personnel at the Capitol. As The Detroit News reported at the time, at one point, Michigan supplied 20% of the National Guard force there.

But after reports that the National Guard was served bad food, Whitmer visited D.C. personally.

“They’ve got to fix it,” Whitmer said of the military, of which Biden is commander-in-chief.

By November 2021, Whitmer managed to be clear across the country, in California, when Biden visited Southeast Michigan. Biden was in Detroit to tout the opening of GM’s Factory Zero. It was a big day for Official Michigan and its auto industry. And the governor wasn’t there.

Now, a month and a half after the tornado and nearly a month after Whitmer’s very public request for a presidential disaster declaration, she and Gaylord are still waiting. Whitmer has requested “individual assistance” for those who need it, according to the Record-Eagle.

“The president ultimately makes the final decision,” FEMA spokesman Dan Shulman told the paper.