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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    Is this a joke? State brags about spending $3 million per job.


    By leondrolet, Section News
    Posted on Tue Sep 09, 2008 at 04:49:40 PM EST
    Tags: (all tags)

    Only government bureaucrats would consider spending $3 million to create a job to be a success! Two new state government "job creation programs" are bragging that they have spent over 116 million to create 40 new Michigan jobs over the last two years - almost $3 million per "created" job!

    An article (link here: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080909/BUSINESS06/809090386 ) in today's Detroit Free Press describes how tax dollars have been borrowed and spent by two state programs, the Venture Michigan Fund and the Michigan 21st Century Investment Fund, to help new, fledgling companies start up in Michigan. These programs were created in 2005 because Governor Granholm and state lawmakers believed that not enough private sector investors were willing to risk their own capital in  new Michigan-based companies.

    Are 40 new state-program-created jobs worth $116.3 million in your tax dollars? According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics, Michigan's economy created 502,990 new jobs in 2004/2005 - and lost 602,913 jobs. That's a net loss of about 100,000 jobs. And those job losses occurred before the 2007 business tax and income tax hikes.

    Until recently, our state constitution prohibited state government from investing tax dollars in private sector companies. Why? Because in the 1800s, the state decided that it could make oodles of money by investing tax dollars in canal building companies. Those state investments cost taxpayers dearly after someone invented things called "railroads" which moved people and goods more efficiently than canals. Burned badly, the state constitution was drawn to prohibit future politicians from making private-sector investments with public funds.

    That prohibition changed in 2002 when voters approved an amendment to the constitutionally-created Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. That constitutional amendment was about securing revenues for conservation and recreation programs, but it also created a sneaky, little-publicized loophole that allowed the state to use your tax dollars to invest in, or own, private-sector companies.

    Is anybody in touch with reality?

    The print edition of the Free Press article's headline reads, "State venture capital funds pay off". Ned Staebler, director of capital markets development at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) is quoted as saying, "As a strategy, it's really paid off."

    Will somebody please tell the emperor that she isn't wearing any clothes? That 40 new jobs over two years is peanuts compared to the approximately 200,000 net-jobs lost during that period! Will a reporter or headline writer even ask how the MEDC could possibly think that spending $3 million in tax dollars per job is "paying off"?

    God save Michigan.

    Leon Drolet
    www.mitaxpayers.org

    < Detroit Free Press Editor Stacks the Deck | Obama Calling Palin a Pig??? >


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    Display: Sort:
    Leon (none / 0) (#1)
    by goppartyreptile on Tue Sep 09, 2008 at 06:29:16 PM EST
    You're not factoring in inflation.

    John Stossel did a report like ten years ago that showed it cost the feds 900k to retrain people to be dishwashers... and they all quit within a year.

    While it is possible that the DFP got it right... (none / 0) (#2)
    by El Grillo on Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 09:15:46 AM EST
    ...it is more likely that the whole truth is less inflammatory. Had the Gov. been JohnEngler, the whole truth might have been reported in a different way.
    Job creation by a government creates government jobs, by definition, and is not a good idea, in general.
    The exception might be to put non-violent offenders to work and applying the cost of imprisonment to the program. Most of the citizens in our County Jails are non-violent people who are not a threat to society. Teaching them what their parents and classroms failed to teach them would require a different training process for deputies, but I'm convinced that they could be educated for this task.

    You have a choice. You can offer other options for job-training and job-creation that originate in the creative part of your mind, or you can bitch me out. I'm good either way.

    Re: (none / 0) (#3)
    by 09009 on Fri Nov 07, 2008 at 02:08:26 PM EST
    Thanks for providing this information.
    --
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