In a recent story in MLive, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation is given credit for "retaining" 40,200 jobs in Michigan when it awarded two MEGA tax credits to the Ford Motor Company. The story reports: "… in the end the two credits were supposed to retain up to 40,200 jobs.”
ForTheRecord says: At the time of the agreement in 2010, the MEDC reported that Ford had 36,720 employees in Michigan. Ford Motor Co. estimates there are 40,000 employees in Michigan currently. That means the MEDC is taking credit for retaining every job in the Ford Motor Company.
Would the company that Henry Ford founded in Detroit in 1903, whose family now also own the Detroit Lions and whose name is on the football stadium, pick up stakes and move out of Michigan if it hadn't received a couple of tax credits worth $1 billion spread out over 20 years? Ford's worldwide revenue in 2010 at the time of the deal was $128.92 billion with net income after taxes of $6.56 billion.
If that scenario doesn't seem likely, did the MEDC really "retain" every one of Ford’s Michigan jobs? Would Ford be in South Carolina right now without the state handouts?
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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