GOP Combines Corporate Welfare & 'Cool Cities'

From MichiganVotes.org:

Senate Bill 567: Create another subsidy program for particular developers

• Introduced by Sen. Mike Kowall, R-White Lake, to authorize cash subsidies of up to 25 percent of a project’s cost up to $10 million for developers who create certain “community revitalization” developments meeting a broad definition contained in the bill. Essentially, the political appointees on the board of the state government's “Michigan Strategic Fund” would have broad discretion to hand out these subsidies to particular developers as they see fit.
• Passed 35 to 1 in the Senate on Sept. 20, 2011.  Who Voted "Yes" and Who Voted "No"

 Republican Arlan Meekhof from West Olive was the lone "no" vote.

A Senate Fiscal Agency summary describes the criteria for the handouts:

-- Increased the density of the area.
-- Promoted mixed-use development and walkable communities.
-- Promoted sustainable development.

In other words, the usual politically correct social engineering that also characterized former Gov. Jennifer Granholm's "Cool Cities" handouts.

Here's the corporate welfare angle from Michigan Economic Development Corporation Michael Finney, in a related press release: “We can now offer quicker access to funding assistance for businesses and developers while affording lower costs and greater flexibility for economic developers."

How nice for them.

Republican politicians increasingly talk like Tea Party stalwarts during the autumn of even-numbered years, but back in Lansing votes like this suggest they don't understand at all what this social movement is really about.

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