I stand here today in support of these bills and encouraging all of us to be incredibly judicious with the funding we put behind them, with the knowledge that this must be a step. I agree with my counterpart in the Senate Economic and Small Business Development Committee that our goal—our united goal—should be 11 million people in the state of Michigan and we need to work together to get there. This is an important step and I will hold many of my stakeholders to the good-faith effort that starting in January, we will work on what’s next—improving our workforce, improving our communities, ensuring that our goal as a state should be to get to a place where we no longer need to offer such incentives because this will be a place that companies and families will be clamoring to stay in, to expand in, to move to because of the sheer power of the workforce in the place we all call home.
Senator Horn’s statement is as follows:
I would like to thank the Senator from the 13th District as well for her acknowledgement of economic development and some of the great things that are going on. I do want to talk a little bit about the previous speaker as well because I have been dealing with this mantra from some of these government subsidized entities, these think tanks that present their information to us, that really present their information in a static world. A zero-sum world where investments never pay off. And I really am frustrated that think tanks and other entities subsidized by the government don’t understand what investments actually mean.
Let me give you an example: The Ford Motor Company made their announcement, and we’ve talked about it—we’ve talked about it and now we are doing something about it. They are taking $11 or $12 billion investment down to Tennessee, 11,000 jobs. It should put my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are not supporting the bill, put their minds at ease that the average wage on those 11,000 jobs is $100 thousand each, making this nearly a billion dollar payroll—billion dollar payroll. That’s just the jobs. Tennessee doesn’t have an income tax, Michigan does, we have 4.25 percent income tax. Whether some of the think tanks believe that they can write a bill to eliminate income tax, or corporate income tax, or even lower it in today’s environment is a big question. They’re not proposing it, what they propose is a utopic world, but that billion dollar income tax in Michigan—had we spent that $400 million, would pay itself back in less than ten years.
These are investments, this isn’t money thrown down a rat hole—and then I ask my colleagues to consider—and most have—what will the region, what will the community immediately surrounding Blue Oval Park in Tennessee look like in 20 to 30 years? How many houses will be built? How many sandwich shops will be built? How many restaurants, bars, churches, gas stations, conference centers; will there be a sports complex? How many schools are going to be needed? How many roads will be fixed? How many roads will be built? These are real investments that we’ve missed out on because we’ve had these false narratives and these arguments against economic development.
Where I just can’t even grapple with is the notion that if we do nothing, that something is going to happen. We did nothing. We lost General Motors 6,000 jobs just the year before. They begged us to do something and we turned them down. We lost Ford Motor Company 11,000 jobs. In the same week when I heard the Ford announcement—Leprino Foods made its announcement; nearly $900 million investment, 600 jobs. They make cheese, not cars. They went to Texas. You know what Texas gave them? A water treatment plant and $4.2 million in cash. That’s it.
These bills that are in front of us right now deal with site preparation; water, sewer, electric, fiber, curb cuts, these are community developments, these aren’t going to companies. This is for our community, it’s for our counties, it’s for our regions, to leverage dollars, make real investments. And then we have some closing dollars, that as I’ve mentioned, get paid back because of the tax structure that we do have. These are very positive investments and this is such a critical time, Mr. President. This isn’t just a year that we need to make change. This is the month that we need to make change. We have some opportunities on the hook right now that will change Michigan’s future and I ask for a “yes” vote.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 770, entitled
A bill to amend 1984 PA 270, entitled “Michigan strategic fund act,” by amending section 9 (MCL 125.2009), as amended by 2017 PA 109, and by adding section 88t.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: