From the Michigan Conservative Coalition:
With just five bills, Michigan lawmakers shoveled out $2.9 billion (that’s $2,900,000,000) of your taxpayer money through cash handouts, grants and other giveaways to winners (and likely losers) picked by bureaucrats.
Senate Bill 7 gave away $946 million in one quick deal. That spending includes $200 million for a paper mill in Escanaba that will not even be asked to create a single new job.
Another of the five bills is House Bill 4001, which spent $1.65 billion of taxpayer dollars on business subsidies for the Ford’s proposed Marshall, MI EV battery plant (Ford’s partner in that plant is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP))!
Which Republicans like to vote with Democrats to fund CCP projects?
Here is that list: Representatives Phil Green (District 67 – Genesee, Lapeer and Tuscola counties), Curt VanderWall (District 102 – Manistee, Muskegon and other counties), Kathy Schmaltz (District 46 – Jackson and Washtenaw counties). Oh, and our earlier friend Mike Mueller (District 72 – Oakland, Genesee and other counties) is back again.
The Mackinac Center has estimated that, even if the expected 2,500 jobs are actually created at the proposed Ford Marshall EV battery plant, each job will cost taxpayers $680,000—–that is per job.
What can go wrong with that?
The Senate bill could not have passed without the support of Senator Joe Bellino (R-Monroe) and Senator John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs), who openly supported the special interest deal. But the dirty work was here. The Bill also needed immediate effect to keep the cronies happy, On that vote, four more [senators] were needed. Those Senators were Kevin Daley (R-Lapeer), Dan Lauwers (R-Brockway Twp.), Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) and Roger Victory (R-Hudsonville).
“Immediate effect” requires a two-thirds vote. So those four loser Senators – Daley, Lauwers, Nesbitt, Victory – voted no on the recorded vote regarding the actual bill (when their votes weren’t needed), but then voted yes on the off-the-record vote regarding immediate effect, when their votes were needed.
In other words, these [senators] hope to fool their voters, by voting one way when the vote was on record, and then a different way when their vote was hidden from the record.
Update: At the Van Buren County GOP meeting, Sen. Nesbitt defended his actions by stating they were going to spend the money anyway. He left out the fact that immediate effect allowed the Chinese Communist Party to put their battery factory in Michigan.
Sen. Nesbitt voted no on the final bill. But in a secret vote, assisted the Democrats in giving the spending spree immediate effect.
Rep. Wendzel voted no.