Kmart Property is MEGA Reminder Not to Extend Subsidy Program – Michigan Capitol Confidential

Kmart Property is MEGA Reminder Not to Extend Subsidy Program – Michigan Capitol Confidential:

• Good Jobs for Michigan is modeled after the failed MEGA

"I testified last week in the state Senate in opposition to the extension of a corporate subsidy program known by the misleading title of “Good Jobs for Michigan.”
Such programs are unnecessary, unfair and expensive.
The GJFM is a derivative of the state’s failed and now defunct Michigan Economic Growth Authority — or, MEGA — program...

• There’s a larger incentive history here, however, and it should be instructive for lawmakers: Kmart itself was offered and accepted MEGA incentive deals and still failed to perform as advertised. Another was reportedly offered to prevent the company from leaving Michigan. ...For Kmart’s second MEGA deal, in 2000, the state’s consultants predicted that the incentive deal would generate exactly 753 jobs through 2013. The tally would be split, 450 direct jobs by the company and another 303 through “spin-off” employment, they said.The claims demonstrating this kind of exactitude are striking when you consider that the company filed for bankruptcy just 17 months later. Why trust the state with its claims of job creation 13 years out when it can’t see failure looming less than two years ahead? The company ultimately moved to Illinois..."

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