A state senator says Michigan's economic development agency's inflated claims of job creation is costing it credibility and leading her to lose confidence in the program.

State Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, called out the Michigan Economic Development Corporation for its press release that boasted of new job creations that a state audit showed only occurred 28 percent of the time.

At a recent senate hearing, Cassis told MEDC CEO Greg Main, "The press releases are an absolute disconnect with reality."

Michael Shore, spokesman for the MEDC, didn't respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Cassis said the MEDC didn't seem too concerned that their projections seldom come true. The senator said she's putting together legislation that would require the MEDC to state in its news releases the minimum number of jobs needed to qualify for a particular tax credit.

"They were putting the administration and the governor's best foot forward," Cassis said. "And it was no glass slipper, let me tell you. It gives an almost false sense of actual jobs created."

MIRS News researched the MEDC's job claims under Gov. Jennifer Granholm's tenure.

It found that the MEDC's claim for total jobs added up to 1.4 million. This included retained and indirect jobs and would have accounted for 29 percent of the state's labor force. A retained job is when a company stays in an area due to tax incentives and those jobs don't leave the state. Indirect jobs are jobs created due to the economic activity created by the tax-subsidized business.

MIRS found that the MEDC had claimed credit for creating 204,818 jobs since 2003. A report from Michigan's Auditor General found that 28 percent of the new jobs the MEDC projected actually came to fruition.

Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, tracked how many of the MEDC's claims had run in media all across the state.

"Economic development bureaucrats and politicians on both sides are people too, which means the 'saved or created' jobs they care about most are their own," McHugh wrote in an e-mail. "The emptiest file in the cabinet contains government agency press releases that say, 'Our programs don't work, the Legislature should shut us down.' "

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See also:

Legislation needed to address MEGA audit findings 

MEDC: 'Stop Pointing Out Our Failures'

Thirty-One MEDC Salaries Top $100K

MEDC-Endorsed Bet on Horse Track Now Under Investigation by Wayne Co.

MEGA Careful?

Lawmaker Says 'Willful Neglect' Is the Rule at Embattled State Agency

Analysis: MEDC Letter an Admission of Failure

Lawmaker Says Special Tax Favors Are 'Cronyism' 

Bouchard 'Would Not Hesitate' to End State's Economic Central Planning Agency

Embattled Agency in Charge of Special Tax Favors Snaps at Critics

Critics Shoot at Special Tax Deal for Super Speedway

State Taxpayers Eat $350K Loan for East Lansing Property Purchase

Google Jobs Lacking, Yet Some Locals Still Consider It a 'Badge of Honor' for Ann Arbor

No Audits for Ten Years on Companies Getting Special Tax Breaks from State

Lawmaker Says $150 Million in Unearned Tax Credits Given Out by State

State Websites Give History a Rewrite

SMALL BUSINESSES VOTE DOWN "GIVE AWAY" PROGRAMS

Michigan #1 for Economic Development?

THE MOST DANGEROUS VOICE IN THE HOUSE?

MEDC needs accountability, transparency - Livingston Daily Editorial

MEDC outdoes fiasco - Traverse City Record-Eagle

Ann Arbor.com video: Gov. Granholm defends MEDC tax credits

 

The following are speculations, not predictions:

If they get control of Congress the GOP will try and mostly succeed in enlisting the Tea Party movement in confrontations with President Obama. Among other things, they will hold noisy hearings on red-meat hot-button issues, but will be extremely cautious and selective about holding actual accountability-generating roll call votes on them. Expect no roll call votes on systemic-change issues that challenge the political class itself (like repealing McCain-Feingold's restrictions on political speech, for example, or imposing term limits).

As in 1995, the budget will generate an unavoidable confrontation between a GOP Congress and the administration. We could see a Stalingrad-magnitude conflict, or perhaps GOP members will become puppydogs (and earmark hounds) who roll over to avoid the controversy. Either way, this could administer a huge Tea Party booster shot.

Gridlock will limit new spending programs, but also means no real change to policies already in place (i.e. Obamacare), which will cause tremendous Tea Party frustration and anger. They will try, but will Republicans succeed in channeling all of that against Democrats and Obama?

Republican members and caucuses inevitably will do some foolish, cynical and faithless things that will let President Obama make them the issue in 2012, just as President Clinton did in 1996.

Among other things, this creates the potential for a Perot-type third candidate in 2012 - and an Obama second term.

Republicans may try to ride the tiger of Tea Party anger against the generic, bipartisan political class, betting that Obama and the Democrats get the brunt of it. Will the Tea Party movement be so inflamed by the passion of current battles as to forget that their real beef is with the bipartisan political careerist class as a whole?

At the state level, Republicans will do the minimum systemic reform needed to enable their members to posture as change agents and build "the rest are bums but my guy is alright" immunity for individual members from Tea Party ire. State Republicans will benefit from the national GOP Congress vs. President Obama dynamic if this is primarily characterized by epic battles over issues they care about.

Conclusions: None. Uncertainties abound, and surprises may be the rule.

The following passage from Angelo Codevilla's recent article, America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution, provides a larger context for all this; by "country class" he means everyone not in the ruling class, and right now the Tea Party movement is its most visible expression:

Because, in the long run, the country class will not support a party as conflicted as today's Republicans, those Republican politicians who really want to represent it will either reform the party in an unmistakable manner, or start a new one as Whigs like Abraham Lincoln started the Republican Party in the 1850s.

The name of the party that will represent America's country class is far less important than what, precisely, it represents and how it goes about representing it because, for the foreseeable future, American politics will consist of confrontation between what we might call the Country Party and the ruling class.