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Why doesn’t Michigan measure up?

State performs poorly on more than one state index

… corporations. Since January 2023 alone Michigan lawmakers have authorized $4.4 billion in targeted handouts. Mountains of scholarly evidence show corporate welfare programs to be ineffective and expensive. One large study of 2,400 subsidy deals across 35 states concluded that such subsidies have a “starkly …

The realpolitik of state business subsidies

Public loses when politicians and big companies win

… out of deals if they feel like it. But there are no political benefits from withholding money. People ought to recognize that the benefits of corporate welfare go to politicians and big businesses, not to the public. If they did, politicians would be more likely to reject requests for favors.

Six charts to change your mind about Michigan

Our state’s competitiveness ranges from poor to middling

… corporations is a bigger priority for lawmakers than the state police. Corporate welfare has fallen in and out of fashion among lawmakers. Subsidies were big … population has been stagnant. Resident incomes are up. Auto jobs are down. Corporate welfare doesn’t work and economic freedom does. All in six charts.

Lawmakers Should Adopt a Sustainable Budget

Michigan has a spending problem

… their disposal. This was evident last year, as Michigan spent nearly $2 billion on district-specific pork projects. Another $4.1 billion went to corporate welfare handouts. “Michigan has a spending problem, not a tax revenue problem,” said Vance Ginn, Ph.D., senior fellow at the Mackinac Center. “By following …

Michigan’s budget isn’t sustainable…Yet

Lawmakers should practice more restraint

… for the state’s unsustainable budget increases? Record amounts of pork. Lawmakers approved $4.4 billion in unfair, ineffective, and expensive corporate welfare spending last year. Surely, more restraint on the part of policymakers would have resulted in better spending habits. Gov. Whitmer’s executive …

Modest Expectations for Good Policy in 2024

… in both parties have touted open-records expansion for years, and this could be the year it gets done. Frustration with the massive surge in corporate welfare spending and secrecy around the large economic development projects it funds has renewed legislators’ interest in measures to increase the transparency …

Rewarding Some at the Expense of All: A Recap of the State of the State

… a familiar theme: Use higher spending to dole out money to favored groups at the expense of everyone else. The governor called for: A new corporate welfare program (on top of the $4 billion approved last year) Electric car rebates (almost exclusively benefiting the wealthy), with a bonus if the car …