The Center for Economic accountability criticizes subsidies for ford's blueoval battery park

 An open letter from the president

The average person, whether here in Michigan or elsewhere around the country, has been told by politicians and companies that subsidies work, but they don’t understand just how much they really cost. They see big numbers and just don’t have the context to understand at a gut level exactly how much money we’re talking about here. That’s why we’ve spent a lot of time trying to come up with examples that people can understand about what kinds of other things Michigan could be doing with this much money. 

• This one plant is potentially getting enough money from taxpayers to cover the state’s General Fund appropriations for the Departments of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy ($540 million), Natural Resources ($109 million) and Agriculture & Rural Development ($99 million) for a year, while also matching the $739 million sitting in the state’s various conservation, environment and recreation-related funds. Our retro license plates say “Water Winter Wonderland,” but if there were truth in advertising laws we’d have to change them to “Corporate Welfare Wonderland.”
• Local government officials regularly blame cuts in state revenue sharing for deficiencies in local public services, but this one battery plant project is getting more money than the $1.45 billion the state distributed in revenue sharing to all local and county governments combined.
• It’s roughly as much money as the state paid in unemployment benefits in 2021, while the COVID pandemic was keeping people across the state out of work.
• It’s four times as much as all Michigan homeowners were able to deduct in homestead property tax credits on their taxes that year.
• It’s also four times more than the total value of state tax credits for low-income and at-risk households, including the Earned Income Tax Credit as well as property tax credits for senior citizens, persons with disabilities and veterans.
• It’s more than the $1.5 billion in General Fund grants to the state’s colleges and universities.
• This subsidy deal is being advertised as “rural economic development,” which makes it all the more ironic that that turning farmland into a battery plant in Marshall is going to cost taxpayers three and a half decades’ worth of the state’s Farmland Preservation Tax Credit.
• In terms of investing in public safety, it’s more than the $1.6 billion in General Fund appropriations for the state judiciary, Attorney General, State Police…and the Department of Civil Rights to keep an eye on them all.
• If we want to invest in the future, it could pay off the entire $1.2 billion in outstanding general-obligation bonds with plenty of room to spare.
• It’s more than the $1.5 billion the state has sitting in the transportation fund earmarked for “fixing the damn roads” and other crumbling components of the state’s infrastructure.
• All this to dedicate so much money to one battery plant that at the reported $45,000 average wage and assuming reasonable inflation, Michigan’s taxpayers will effectively be subsidizing the plant’s entire payroll for the next 13 years – in a plant where three-quarters of workers will be earning less than the county median household income and making just 31 cents an hour more than the county’s $19.69/hour subsistence wage. (And, like you said, where labor force is already an issue for many employers.)

Thank you for taking the time and effort to reach out to us, and I hope that some of this information is helpful to add to your discussions whenever the topic comes up. Thank you for being someone who cares about this issue, and who wants what’s best for our communities. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any way we can help spread the word in your community. I’m always happy to come speak to community groups, or sit down with local elected officials to try to help them understand the issues in play.

John C. Mozena, President
The Center for Economic Accountability (a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit )
www.EconomicAccountability.org