Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on May 12, 2009, to increase the number of selective tax breaks that can be granted by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) each year, and reduce another eligibility standard to get a tax break, this one requiring at least 25 percent of the total operating expenses of certain “high technology” businesses to be for research and development for the first three years of their tax break deals

The vote was 92 in favor, 15 opposed and 3 not voting

(House Roll Call 287 at House Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.

 

Senator Cassis’ statement is as follows:

Earlier in our session today, my good Democratic colleagues attempted to break a deal and discharge House Bill No. 4922 which sits in the Senate Finance Committee. Interestingly, this bill came over to the Senate as a House Democrat bill simply expanding MEGA credits without any accountability after the MEDC and MEGA blithely blew through all of their allotted statutory credits in seven months. This prompted a renewed outcry for the House to pass important MEDC/MEGA transparency and accounting bills which have been languishing, and still are languishing, in the House for more than six months. I want to say on the record I’m proud of these good government transparency measures.

So I have one important question for the good Senator representing Livonia, who supported the discharge today. Senator, where were you when Quicken Loans got almost $50 million in MEGA credits to locate in Livonia and then leave this fair city for Detroit and gain another $42 million in credits? Where was your voice then? Why didn’t you stand up for your hometown Livonia, losing jobs, losing important revenue? It took a Senator from across 8 Mile Road, a neighbor from Novi, to do so.

This is a precise reason to require transparency and accountability from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. There couldn’t be a more glaring example. So I would say this: Please, let’s all work together. Political gamesmanship only undermines those who play it.

 

Senator Cherry’s statement is as follows:

I rise this afternoon just to say quickly that while there may have been some agreement between MEGA and the Senator, there has been no agreement between any of us and the Senator that we attempted to break any deal. While I may understand her deal which she has made with somebody else, I resent the fact that I’m being told that I broke my word when my word was never apart of this. In fact, we never even got the bills until the Senate committee and didn’t get to know what was in them prior to that. It never was part of any kind of discussion or negotiation, so how could a deal be broken?

Let me just say that it is important to pass the House bill, too, if we want to make sure that certain projects get done quickly. There’s one right now in Wixom, I believe, that we could be acting on quickly if we pass House Bill No. 4922. We are not against transparency, but we believe, I think, that the bill should not be held up just to make sure that one house doesn’t get credit and the other house does.

That is why I believe it is important to pass House Bill No. 4922. We should have done it today. We should do it as quickly as we possibly can, and we should get this issue resolved very quickly.