Rick and TED's Bogus Journey

[XLFD]

One week before this last Christmas, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, fresh from re-election, issued a far-reaching executive order (seen in totality here).  Basically, the order created a new state agency called the Department of Talent and Economic Development (TED).  To create TED, several other agencies were reorganized, merged or subsumed.  The order had the effect of:

1)  Creating a new agency, the Talent Investment Agency, to coordinate all the state's programs involving job preparedness and worker training. 

2)  The TIA would absorb the Michigan State Housing and Development Authority (MSHDA), the Workforce Development Agency, the Governor's Talent Investment Board and the Unemployment Insurance Agency. 

3)  The Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) would be structured within TED and gain control of the State Land Bank Fast Track Authority from MSHDA.

4)  The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) would not incorporate into TED, but Steve Arwood (pictured below), currently head of the MEDC, will also lead the Department of TED.  His position on the appointment:  "The talent issue is singular. It's such a big issue that we need to just bring some of this to scale... it's time to leverage it with a lot more assets,"

 

At the time, Governor Snyder said:  "One of my top priorities has been to make Michigan a national leader in talent development by focusing on workforce training for the jobs of today and tomorrow.  That effort will require a comprehensive, unified approach to best help Michiganders while working to retain and attract businesses to create more and better jobs. Our state has made great strides. Now is the time to keep moving forward, taking the next steps to ensure Michigan's resurgence will continue long into the future."

The executive order was scheduled to come into effect a couple weeks into the new legislative term, which came this month, launching officially on March 16th. 

Snyder said the reorganization was not about creating more jobs in state government, but rather more jobs for Michiganders.  Asked if the new department would grow government or add staff, Snyder said his goal was to make government more efficient.

Nowhere in the news releases for the genesis of this growth of government in the speculative field of economic development is there any specific discussions on accountability or efficiency.  Creating a new department and putting some of the old agencies under the same roof really worked well for the transparency and smaller government for the Federal Department of Homeland Security, hasn't it?  The myth of a big, and at the same time, efficient government seems only to come to politicians who have lost sight of reality over their time of public service.

What has come to light with the MEDC and other similar agencies in the interim of the period between the executive order and the March 16th kickoff?  In February it was disclosed, the sum of refunds from unspecified tax credits handed out as incentives for creating jobs by the MEDC in the past is estimated to exceed $9 billion in the years to come.  Steve Arwood's MEDC has made transparency difficult by their liberal interpretations of tax law; one may assume that TED, being led by MEDC's chairman, will have similar issues with openness. 

These gifts of credits to corporations under cover of secrecy have led to over a half billion dollars ($532 million) in revenue lost to the state this year alone, that were not foreseen in the budget.  So what we have is that Governor Snyder thinks it's a great idea to make a bigger department, led by someone who currently leads the least-transparent most-corporate-welfare department in the state, and calls it progress. 

In his journey in 'reinventing' Michigan, he looks to be 'reinventing' the ways to give away tax money to corporations under the guise of economic development.  Perhaps what he should be seeking is to broker a cooperation within his own state and between states to end the 'economic development war' where localities/states try to outspend each other in the hopes of attracting businesses to their locality/state, by taking money away from truly public projects.

Expanding the breadth and realm of corporate welfare with his new buddy, TED, will only lead him, and us Michiganders, on a bogus journey to the future.

[Willy]

"Talent and Economic Development" or TED?  What kind of name is that. How about naming it "Tracking Intrastate Talent" or TIT. Now that's an abbreviation I can live with. Is it just me or is our Governor leaning a little further left every year he's been in office. It won't be long before his right foot won't even touch the ground.

[XLFD]

That name is already taken, here are a pair of female tits:

By the way those are Great Tits.  One things for sure TED is not going to be cheep for the taxpayers since  majority of right and left wingers love to give money away in the name of economic development along with raising taxes, and Snyder only wants to help with both.