MIDLAND, Mich. — Announcements ahead of tonight’s State of the State touted the return of a failed corporate welfare program, as well as increased spending on unproven community college and preschool subsidies. Policy experts from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy warn that lawmakers should be skeptical of these programs and the benefits they supposedly provide.

Gov. Whitmer is expected to announce her support for a revived version of the Snyder-era Good Jobs for Michigan program. This program would give taxpayer dollars to private businesses in hopes of creating jobs. Yet the previous program proved to be a failure.

Despite some of these deals being offered seven years ago, the state’s own data show that there have been no verified jobs created from any of the six companies that received a Good Jobs for Michigan handout. The deals offered a total of $200 million to those companies, including $26 million to Ford and $105 million to Stellantis.

“Gov. Whitmer’s proposed job program has been a jobless program,” said James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center. “Giving handouts to select companies is not an effective way to improve businesses in the state. Lawmakers should stop chasing headlines and instead look at broad-based reforms that have been proven to improve the state economy.”

Other proposals that will likely be mentioned in tonight’s address expand on things mentioned in last year’s State of the State, including expanding taxpayer-funded community college and preschool.

“The governor's preschool plan is costly, mostly benefits higher-income families, is unlikely to result in educational gains and harms low-income Michigan families by crowding them out of the small number of spots that are currently open,” said Jarrett Skorup, vice president of marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center.

Expanding Michigan Reconnect to all high school graduates in Michigan would be pouring money into a program that has yet to show proven results. The program currently gives residents 21 and over scholarships for community college, but no comprehensive data has been published on whether Reconnect students succeed in the job market after completing the program.

“Rather than hoping that the state meets an arbitrary goal of reaching a certain percentage of college graduates, policymakers should instead be questioning why that goal exists in the first place,” said Jennifer Majorana, policy analyst for the Mackinac Center. “The state has not provided any evidence that having more community college graduates leads to a stronger economy, and that taxpayers must therefore sponsor even more community college scholarships.”

Mackinac Center policy experts will be available for interviews and comment following the State of the State address.