State governments want to attract companies to do business within their borders. Lacking creativity, many lawmakers resort to just giving out cash, either directly through grants or indirectly in the form of tax credits. The high-dollar giveaways often come at great expense to taxpayers, especially when the promised benefits fail to materialize.
Earlier this month, General Motors (G.M.) notified the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) that it planned to lay off more than 1,000 of its Michigan employees in 2024. While that's troubling news for those 1,000 workers and their families, it's also a blow to Michigan taxpayers, from whom the state promised hundreds of millions of dollars in public incentives.
