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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

> Taxpayers spent $600 million to create 4,000 jobs

Taxpayers spent $0. They gave up the potential to make $600 million. And that was only if Orion created the full 4,000 jobs. So they potentially only forwent ~$135 million based on the actual amount of people hired.

But it's ridiculous to frame it this way. If a store gave you a coupon for $20 off your order, no one in their right mind would say the store "spent $20 on a subsidy". Especially if I never even cashed the coupon!

If you don't think corporations should get tax breaks that's totally fine. But framing it as an outlay is misleading.

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This is not at all like a coupon that you never cashed in. The company actually received $824 million in corporate welfare. Meaning if it weren't for the state they would literally have $824 million more and the state would literally have $824 million more.

Respectfully, I do not think this is fully correct. These are in part state tax dollars being paid to industry. I’d welcome a good source to the contrary.

https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billanaly...

Maybe! This article could be mistaken calling this a tax abatement. The original press release refers to this as a "grant" (perhaps still tax abatement with financial shenanigans).

Still, under the terms of the grant program, the state has lots of options to claw back any grant money if the recipient doesn't fulfill their requirements: https://www.michiganbusiness.org/48f6cb/globalassets/documen...

I can't find any source on what the actual financial agreements of the grant are.

UPDATE - I found the terms of the $600 million dollar grant (not tax abatement!): https://www.mackinac.org/archives/2022/GM%20Board%20Pack%20A...

> The MSF may require repayment for: (i) failure to obtain the Jobs Commitment (proportional), (ii) mass relocation of jobs out of state, and (iii) breach of representations, misappropriation, insolvency.

GM has been getting reimbursed quarterly based on real expenses they have occurred, but may have to give some or all of it back.

You should update your original comment. HN is full of desperate efforts to dodge any skepticism of sketchy and dishonest capitalist behavior. It doesn't need more of them.

Page 9 of the document you linked to:

* A provision that all money subject to a clawback or repayment provision must be paid within 90 days of notification by MSF. Amounts not paid within 90 days would be subject to a penalty of 1% per month, prorated on a daily basis. *

That word "clawback" is key. Elsewhere in the document it refers to benchmarks, so I presume if the benchmarks are not met that the clawback would take effect. In this case I have no idea what the contract is with GM, so we also don't know the benchmarks that would impact the clawback.

This is a good start though - hopefully someone can find the actual contract with GM.

> $66.1 million in site readiness

This sounds like cashs spent up front. But you're correct, I don't think it went to GM.

It's hard to know exactly what "site readiness" includes, but it usually means putting down roads, traffic control, etc. In this case, it could literally also mean the real estate costs of permitting and clearing the lots for their construction.

But again, these are usually improvements the state gets to keep, or are marketing costs for the land they were trying to develop. So not ideal but not a total loss either.

If that's the case, it's possible the money could be considered spent to overdevelop an area that will now be underutilized and will create an increase in maintenance costs for no good reason.

That's a good point, but I wouldn't assume they spent $0.

The direct costs and increases in undesirable externalities do have quantifiable costs.

If the government has been prudent and thorough, most if not all of those costs will be offset by positive direct benefits and externalities.

If not, the activity will be a net negative to the community.

How is it like a coupon issued by the store and not like purchased gift cards that later go unused? Do you think $600 million were generated by the state?

That's a terrible way of framing it because taxes for a corporation are involuntary.

> no one in their right mind would say the store "spent $20 on a subsidy"

I could be wrong but... when you sell a business, the people buying it very much want to know about outstanding liabilities in gift cards and 100% add it to some accounting column to count them as "in-existence"?...

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