Posted on 07/24/2012 2:09:33 PM PDT by MichCapCon
The Michigan Economic Development Corp. is the corporate welfare arm of state government.
The state agency provides tax breaks and outright cash subsidies to select corporations and developers chosen by legislators and bureaucrats.
The MEDC’s website contains press releases going back to 1998, when the agency was created by a Republican governor with bipartisan votes in the House and Senate (it replaced another agency, the “Michigan Jobs Commission”). There are a lot of them — several press releases a week in most years. Newspaper readers around the state have often seen these turned into “news” stories about particular corporations getting money or selective tax breaks (incentives), always with hopeful projections of some number of jobs that will be created.
Unfortunately, newspaper readers rarely see follow-up stories reporting whether those job promises panned out. The MEDC doesn't issue press releases when the jobs don’t materialize, or fall far short of the number promised. If it did, citizens would know that for all the hundreds of millions of dollars in MEDC handouts and lost tax revenue over the years, less than one-third of the promised jobs ever happen...
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfidential.com ...
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