Michigan Leaders Direct $1 Billion Secretly to Favored Corporations

[XLFD]

Michigan has enjoyed the mantle of being the least transparent state government since 2015, and they haven't done anything since that time to lose that title to other competing state governments.  Governor Gretchen Whitmer made transparency a large part of her 2018 winning campaign, but has she honestly done anything since the campaign trail to get there?  

Other than lip service during Sunshine Week, no.  But Whitmer is not the only bugbear here, the Republican-led state house and senate could get bills on her desk if they were motivated, but even though many of them did the same-sounding transparency campaign as Whitmer to get their position, they have failed miserably.  To the contrary, the only truly bipartisan effort in the legislature is to ignore the 500-pound gorilla in the chambers which relates to secrecy, especially at the state level.  The state judiciary has gotten the message and has weakened the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Open Meetings Act (OMA) considerably over the last decade in their rulings.  

All of these elected proponents of non-transparency recently outdid even themselves after two years of operating in shadows during the Covid pandemic.  The state legislature has fast-tracked a new corporate subsidy fund valued at over $1 billion designed to subsidize large, for-profit projects.  

The state has not learned from mistakes made in the past that such programs do not work.  Public incentive programs to private businesses are ineffective and expensive, not to mention fundamentally unfair, as they make smaller, local businesses subsidize their own competitors.  The legislation (signed by the governor into law last week) itself was born in secrecy, requiring lawmakers to sign Non-disclosure agreements before they receive details about specific projects that the Michigan Economic Development Corp. has in mind to subsidize.  The agreements reflect that at least four 'potential development projects' and their developers are going to be shielded from the public's knowledge.

The goal of using NDAs is clear: Keep the details of deals between governments and specific businesses secret from the public until they can be presented as a fait accompli, rather than a public policy decision that can be debated.  This is a fundamentally corrupt way for government and businesses to operate. Business insiders and politicians shouldn’t be able to decide in secret meetings how public dollars are dispersed. Legislation that will involve so much taxpayer money needs to be debated and designed out in the open.

When you see blatant secrecy like this, it's obvious that the powers-that-be know the public would be sickened by the deals being made between usually large corporations hungry for public welfare programs and politicians who defy their duties to the public to act in their interest.  

These secret deals never seem to be effective for creating jobs and prosperity.  A 2020 study found that some programs created jobs, but at a huge cost of incentives offered per job. For example, the state’s now failed and defunct Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) needed to offer $125,000 in incentives per job per year. Clearly, the costs outweigh the benefits of such programs.

Rather than embrace such programs, the state should ban such programs and the use of nondisclosure agreements in corporate incentive packages.  Even New York and Florida have proposed legislation that ban NDAs in public/private partnerships, one wonders why it has taken so long to attempt to reign in this disgusting practice of rewarding corporations using public funds.

One can hope that in the future, 13 of the highest ranked state legislators, including 8 Republicans and 5 Democrats, will not subvert the democratic process by signing such agreements and making public policy in the dark to the advantage of their corporate cronies.  This won't occur, however, if the public doesn't get outraged and vote for politicians who vow to fight such corruption.  Nor does the governor have clean hands in the process, she actually appears to be condoning the secrecy:

“That was what the governor’s team required to get in the room for negotiations. If that’s what it takes to get a deal done and keep jobs in Michigan, the speaker was willing to do it,” said Gideon D’Assandro, a spokesperson for the Michigan House Speaker Wentworth.

This was unrefuted by the governor's office.

[Freedom Seeker]

Good article, X. Thanks for pointing out the giant corruption of Michigan state government in secrecy of OMA. It would be nice if the state could be sued by Mackinaw Center (or someone or entity) in the Federal venue or somewhere, somehow. But you are probably right: if the electors don't demand better transparency, the state will probably get away with this secret corporate incentive but historically as Michael LaFavive (Mackinaw Center) shows, the taxpayer is not getting enough for their tax dollars. A lot like Ludington government in many ways, unfortunately, corruption often breeds more corruption, especially with promises of jobs brought to a community or cleaning up blight.

[XLFD]

Wikipedia says the Information Age began about 1947 with the invention of the transistor, which led into the invention of computers as we now know them.  When the FOIA and OMA laws were crafted, computers were in their infancy; nearly fifty years later, the storage and retrieval of information can be done almost instantaneously.

Government at all levels has no excuse to not be able to download their public records into an ordered database where interested citizens can find all public records affiliated with that public body by use of a search engine.  This would obviate the use of FOIA in most cases, probably over 90% of those requests.  

But this requires dedication to the ideals of government, which the State of Michigan regularly fails at, not even allowing the records of their governor or legislatures to be revealed as a matter of law.  A paradigm shift of thinking must take hold, the Michigan legislature needs men and women who do not act like your typical partisans who are more interested in their re-elections than going against their own political livelihood by making government truly transparent and accountable.

[Willy]

It is disgusting to see how elected officials can brush aside transparency  by signing an NDA. The Republicans have been no friends to the voters of Michigan. They wilt when anything controversial appears, such as when Whitmer locked down the State over Covid. Where were the spineless Republicans then? I don't trust either party and situations like this NDA  proves just how worthless both parties can be. Because Legislators are elected to their office they then become our representatives in Governmental affairs. Since they are acting as proxies, serving our interests, they are making the public party to any agreement they sign as our representatives. According to my humble interpretation  we are not third party to this agreement, we are primary parties and therefore should have full access to any information covered under the agreement.