Michigan Subsidies Fail
"A central belief in Washington and most state capitals nowadays is that government should 'invest' in certain businesses—'clean tech,' say, or manufacturing—to drive job creation.
We hope it all turns out better than it has in Michigan.
For the past 14 years, Lansing politicians have offered $3.3 billion in tax credits through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and spent another $1.6 billion in outlays to create and retain jobs.
The subsidies have ranged from tax breaks for Hollywood, to money for new industrial plants, to millions for TV ads starring Jeff Daniels and Tim Allen talking about business and tourism in the state.
It's one of the largest experiments in smokestack chasing in American history, but one thing it hasn't done is create jobs.
An exhaustive new 100-page study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, has reviewed where all the money has gone and what came of it.
The study finds that for every 100 jobs that were promised with these tax credits over 14 years, only 29 arrived.
Dare we call this cash for clunkers?"
The Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency recently found that "if a film production company spent $10.0 million in Michigan, the State will gain less than $700,000 in income and sales tax revenues but will pay out about $4 million to the production company."
"A central belief in Washington and most state capitals nowadays is that government should 'invest' in certain businesses—'clean tech,' say, or manufacturing—to drive job creation.
We hope it all turns out better than it has in Michigan.
For the past 14 years, Lansing politicians have offered $3.3 billion in tax credits through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and spent another $1.6 billion in outlays to create and retain jobs.
The subsidies have ranged from tax breaks for Hollywood, to money for new industrial plants, to millions for TV ads starring Jeff Daniels and Tim Allen talking about business and tourism in the state.
It's one of the largest experiments in smokestack chasing in American history, but one thing it hasn't done is create jobs.
An exhaustive new 100-page study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan think tank, has reviewed where all the money has gone and what came of it.
The study finds that for every 100 jobs that were promised with these tax credits over 14 years, only 29 arrived.
Dare we call this cash for clunkers?"
The Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency recently found that "if a film production company spent $10.0 million in Michigan, the State will gain less than $700,000 in income and sales tax revenues but will pay out about $4 million to the production company."
So in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 15%, taxpayers last year gave out $48 million in subsidies to Hollywood millionaires.
Almost $5 BILLION spent for this?
No comments:
Post a Comment