Today's Las Vegas Reivew-Journal has an article about a union construction worker who is heading back home to Detroit because commercial construction in Las Vegas has slowed so much, and is predicted to stop completely this year. Many projects have been canceled or stopped, some not started, but there are many buildings around town that have been started and sit as monuments to frivolous dreams.

There are 2000 union carpenters on the waiting list ahead of him, so he doesn't have a hope of getting a job in the foreseeable future. He got bumped from his most recent job when the building contractor moved in long-time employees from California who had recently completed a job there.

Between 2004 and 2007 at least 11,000 construction workers moved from Michigan to Las Vegas because with all the casinos and condos being built, it was one of the few places in the country with dependable union construction jobs.

But now that has dried up, and even though the unemployment rate in Detroit is 22 percent, they want to be near their families and friends until unemployment compensation runs out.

On the way there, they might look around in Wyoming: the nation's top coal producing state, has an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.

Taylor said he heard from other construction workers and union leaders that former Vice President Dick Cheney made sure while he was in office that his home state "would do good even if there was a recession."

"I might as well take advantage of that."