This article originally appeared in The Detroit News November 11, 2025.
One job created for every 11 promised. That’s the dismal return from Michigan’s taxpayer-funded economic development efforts over two decades, according to a recent study.
The backlash against the agency responsible, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., has leaders across the political spectrum calling for the MEDC to be reformed, defunded or even shuttered.
These critics are hammering the state’s economic development agenda on multiple fronts. Last year, incoming House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, stymied the final months of a Democratic trifecta by opposing new business subsidies. The Michigan Legislature just zeroed out the MEDC’s Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve, a program Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and a Republican-led Legislature championed four years ago.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, one of the state’s highest-ranking Democrats, says the Legislature should defund the MEDC, at least temporarily. This came after the attorney general raided MEDC offices because the agency stonewalled an investigation.
The leading gubernatorial candidates running to replace Whitmer have proposed major reforms. Among the Republican candidates, Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt and former Attorney General Mike Cox would dismantle the MEDC. Former House Speaker Tom Leonard agrees and would replace it with a customer service entity. Congressman John James would conduct a “top-to-bottom” audit and cut what’s not working.
Independent candidate Mike Duggan doesn’t go that far, but in August, he called Michigan’s track record “a national embarrassment,” and said he’d end the state’s Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) Fund. Secretary of State and Democratic candidate Jocelyn Benson said the MEDC needs significant reform.
Nolan Finley, editorial page editor of The Detroit News, urged policymakers to “scrap” the MEDC and fire its CEO Quentin Messer.
State lawmakers in both the House and Senate introduced bills in the last two weeks to dismantle the MEDC.
“The MEDC has failed massively and is beyond repair,” said Sen. Tom Albert, R-Lowell.
Rep. Jay DeBoyer, R-Clay Township, agrees. “The MEDC has failed this state,” he said.
All this talk has Whitmer brandishing her veto pen. “These bills are a waste of time, and they are dead on arrival,” said a Whitmer spokesperson.
Why is the governor protecting an agency that keeps embarrassing her administration?
The MEDC has tripped over its feet, with years of controversy swirling around a $20 million grant. Businesswoman Fay Beydoun, a Whitmer political donor and appointee, secured the grant from the Legislature and used it for extravagant purchases such as a $4,500 coffeemaker.
Two major manufacturing deals collapsed recently. The state killed a controversial deal to give China-based Gotion $175 million in subsidies for an electric vehicle battery plant in Mecosta County. And Sandisk walked away from a proposed semiconductor plant near Flint, even after state officials reportedly offered $20 billion.
Not that these projects would have succeeded, given the MEDC’s woeful track record. My colleague James Hohman recently reviewed all the job deals from 2000 to 2020 that generated front-page coverage. Those deals were supposed to create 123,060 new jobs, but they only created 10,889 — a mere 9% of what the state promised.
Everyone wants job growth, but after 25 years of failure, Michigan needs a new strategy. No government bureaucrat can predict which companies will succeed and which ones will fail. There’s talk in Lansing of replacing MEDC’s failed programs with a new one, but that would only perpetuate the record of failure.
Lawmakers should instead focus on programs that stimulate a strong economy. There are many options, from regulatory reform to occupational licensing reciprocity to across-the-board tax cuts.
Here’s one: Make it as easy as possible for all entrepreneurs, not a favored few, to start a new business.
That’s real economic development.
