John Mozena
Michigan
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Fighting corporate welfare at @AccountableEcon. Fellow at @ReasonFdn, @BCP_Policy, @ITRFoundation, @BluegrassPolicy. Opinions=mine. #DCTID
Articles by John Mozena
Arkansas’ proposed economic development amendment is fatally flawed
Voters in Arkansas are being asked to approve a constitutional amendment that would authorize powerful and unaccountable economic development districts and vaguely defined corporate subsidy programs, opening the door to long-term fiscal instability, public corruption, and other harmful outcomes.
Liveblog: What economists are telling us this year about sports stadiums
I unfortunately had to cancel my trip to this year’s sports economics conference at University of Maryland-Baltimore County starting today, but friend of Field of Schemes John Mozena of the Center for Economic Accountability generously offered to liveblog from there instead.
Republicans Fumble Away Fiscal Conservatism in Stadium Subsidy Projects Original
Subsidies Small-government conservatives are tripping over themselves to give millions of taxpayer dollars to billionaires. | (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire DCT/Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire/Newscom) Republican politicians love to talk a good fiscal conservatism game, but they've been quick to throw out their penny-pinching playbooks when pro sports team owners come calling.
Mozena: Michigan should ditch corporate welfare for good
Michigan’s leaders have a generational opportunity to make a real and meaningful difference in the state’s economic future. They shouldn’t squander it by putting another coat of legislative lipstick on corporate welfare pigs.
Taking on corporate subsidies in Michigan-and winning
“Good Jobs for Michigan” was a state corporate subsidy program that cost taxpayers an estimated $40,000 for every job it claimed to have created. The program was limited in size and scheduled to sunset in 2019, but business and political leaders pushed legislation to expand the costly program and extend it indefinitely.
Corporate Social Irresponsibility
Executive summary State and municipal governments across America are engaged in a massive transfer of public resources to private corporate interests in the name of economic development. However, the evidence is clear that these corporate subsidy programs operate more for the benefit of the cronies who control them than for any measurable public interest.
Kentucky makes dumb choices about data centers. You may foot the power bill. | Opinion
Kentucky's data center subsidies are questionable investments in the age of AI. Data centers create few jobs, offer limited local benefits, and strain energy resources. Subsidizing data centers may lead to higher electricity bills for Kentucky residents. Government economic development subsidies are generally ineffective. In this age of artificial intelligence, could Kentucky’s elected officials be making some dumb decisions with taxpayer dollars when it comes to data-center subsidies?
Will Amazon choose free markets or corporate welfare?
Jeff Bezos is becoming an increasingly vocal champion of free markets. What remains to be seen is whether he will put his money where his mouth is and end his company’s participation in state and local governments’ efforts at central economic planning through ‘economic development’ subsidies. If he does, others will follow. And, if he doesn’t, then it’s fair to question just how deep those free market principles go.
Candidates are running on nothing
People should notice that the candidates running to represent them are not promising to do much. More than in the past, this election doesn’t seem to be about policy. Yet candidates are taking tough stances. Interest groups have gotten candidates to state their views on the issues that interest groups care about. And voters will never be told how much their candidates have deferred their judgment to special interests. Check out campaign web sites this election to confirm this observation.
A generational wave of stadium subsidies is approaching
Beginning roughly 30 years ago, cities across the U.S. subsidized a wave of new professional sports stadiums based on promises of major economic impact from the new facilities. But those stadium projects failed to live up to their original promises. Today, despite a much better understanding of just why stadiums are not economically justifiable public investments, a similar wave of stadium subsidies is surging across the country.
John C. Mozena, Author at Reason Foundation
John C. Mozena is a senior fellow at the Reason Foundation specializing in state and municipal economic development policy. He is also the president of the Center for Economic Accountability. Mozena spent more than two decades in a variety of private sector roles that frequently took him behind the scenes of economic development deals before he transitioned to public policy advocacy as a vice president at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan.
Stadium subsidies are bad deals for communities like St. Petersburg
It’s clear to economists and other experts across the country that the residents of St. Petersburg are being asked to make a bad deal to keep the Tampa Bay Rays in town. John C. Mozena [ Mozena.org ] To some extent, what’s happening in St. Petersburg is the same kind of thing that’s happened in city after city across the country, where team owners threaten to move the team with one hand while holding out wonderful promises of massive economic benefits with the other.
Let voters decide on stadium subsidies Original
However bad inflation may seem at your grocery store or gas pump, it’s got nothing on the inflation of the price tags for professional sports stadiums over the past few years. As with their gas tanks and grocery baskets, voters are responding by becoming smart shoppers when it comes to the increasingly expensive deals their state and municipal governments have been making to subsidize sports stadiums, arenas and “stadium district” real estate projects.
Big Labor’s death knell in Michigan
Michigan became the first state in decades to repeal its right-to-work law by legislative action, which took effect Feb. 13. With the repeal in place, anyone who works at a company with a union contract, at least in the private sector, must join or pay fees to a labor union or be fired. The repeal comes at a time when union membership numbers are the lowest ever officially recorded. Over the past decade, the number of employees in Michigan has risen by 500,000, going from 3.9 million to 4.4 million.
America Began with a Battle Against Corporate Welfare
By John C. Mozena On a cold Boston night 250 years ago today, Americans started down the path to revolution by standing up against corporate welfare. Young Americans are taught in elementary school that the Boston Tea Party took place because the American colonials were “mad about the tax on tea.” The reality, however, is slightly different. The Americans certainly didn’t like the tea tax, but the tax itself had been in place since 1767.
Michigan’s Subsidies for Ford Motor Company Electric Vehicle Battery Plant Named 2023’s “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” by The Center for Economic Accountability - The Center for Economic Accountability
December 4, 2023 –The Center for Economic Accountability has selected Michigan’s $1.75 billion in planned subsidies for an electric vehicle battery plant operated by a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and Chinese firm CATL as America’s “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” for 2023.
Right-to-work was key to pandemic recovery
This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner September 10, 2023. Is your state stronger today than it was before the pandemic? The answer is closely tied to whether it has a right-to-work law. Workers have the freedom to create and join unions, but only some states let employees decide not to join the union that may exist at their worksite. These states, which protect the “right to work,” bounced back from the pandemic much faster than states that restrict this freedom.
Ohio’s Long-Running Corporate-Welfare Farce Takes Another Absurd Turn | National Review
The companies' bankruptcy is the latest cautionary tale for states' efforts to conquer the economic realities of global marketplaces through the use of economic-development subsidies.
MOZENA: Politicians From Both Parties Are Selling ‘Sidewalk Socialism’. It Needs To End
Opinion (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) July 10, 2023 10:05 PM ET Font Size: If you’re wondering where so many Americans got the idea that government can and should micro-manage the economy, look no further than your state or local economic development agency and their “sidewalk-level socialism” corporate welfare programs.
When public laws are private policy
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% By James M. Hohman Sometimes a law seems to be almost wholly owned by the interest groups it affects. Cosmetologists want to control laws about licensing cosmetologists. Energy companies want to control laws regulating energy companies. Citizens should be upset when public policy gets used to benefit private interest groups. But there are larger problems with laws shaped by special interests.
CEA calls for St. Augustine, Fla. leaders to unwind PGA Tour subsidies after Saudi takeover announcement
Statement by John C. Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability, on preexisting PGA Tour subsidies in St. John’s County, Fla: Taxpayers in Florida will soon be subsidizing efforts to make a deadly regime more respectable on the global stage. Before that happens, elected officials in St. John’s County, Fla.
#EconDevWeek23
In Honor of Economic Development Week 2023, the CEA’s Review of Official Government “Job Creation” Claims in all 50 States Finds Irrelevant Results at Increasing Costs According to their own data, America’s state economic development agencies’ “job creation” efforts don’t make a meaningful difference to the nation’s workforce or economy.
The union takeover has arrived in Michigan
This article originally appeared in The Hill March 18, 2023. Michigan is about to become, once again, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Labor. Fresh off their narrow election victories in November, Democratic majorities in the state legislature have joined with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to repeal the state’s decade-old right-to-work law, which ensures that no worker can be fired if they decide not to join a union.
Michigan must choose top-down or bottom-up
This article originally appeared in Crain’s Detroit Business March 13, 2023. The choice between a top-down or bottom-up economic approach is becoming clear as Lansing politicians prepare for two important debates. Legislative Democrats are considering a bill to repeal the state's right-to-work law, while also supporting plans backed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to use billions in state funds to subsidize a handful of rich corporations.
Op-Ed: On right-to-work, and economic development, Michigan must choose top-down or bottom-up
The choice between a top-down or bottom-up economic approach is becoming clear as Lansing politicians prepare for two important debates. Legislative Democrats are considering a bill to repeal the state's right-to-work law, while also supporting plans backed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to use billions in state funds to subsidize a handful of rich corporations.
Amazon HQ2 Project: Financial Incentives for Economic Development Risky
The announcement that Amazon is pausing construction of its HQ2 project in Arlington, Va., demonstrates yet again that the best way for an American city or state to "win" in economic development is by not playing the game.
Op-Ed: Virginia dives deeper into the cold, dark world of data center subsidies
Lawmakers asked to amend spending to address education funding shortfall (The Center Square) – Virginia lawmakers are being asked to amend their proposed spending plans to address an error with a state calculation tool, that will result in schools across the state receiving millions less in state aid than they initially expected. The Virginia Department of Education confirmed this week a calculation tool estimating the amount of state funding each school division will receive had an error.
Op-Ed: Virginia dives deeper into the cold, dark world of data center subsidies
If you set out to design a facility that would offer the smallest possible economic benefit to the surrounding community, what would you do? You might start by making it a place where virtually nobody works on a full-time basis, so as not to generate income taxes or create more business for local restaurants, retailers or landlords. You would make it one that doesn’t have much by way of customer or supplier traffic, for the same reasons.
Make a Donation
Thank you for your interest in supporting The Center for Economic Accountability’s mission to bring transparency, accountability and free-market-based reforms to state and local economic development initiatives across America. The CEA is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization (EIN 83-3122559), and we rely on charitable donations from supporters like you to make our work possible.
Georgia’s Rivian Plant Subsidy Recognized as 2022’s “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” by the Center for Economic Accountability
Insufficient due diligence, speculative returns, lack of concern for local impacts and convoluted structure set project apart in a historic year for corporate welfare megadeals. December 27, 2022 – Georgia’s $1.5 billion subsidy of a Rivian electric vehicle assembly plant has been selected as the “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” for 2022 by the Center for Economic Accountability (CEA).
It’s Time to Call Out America’s Corporate Welfare State | National Review
The subsidy-focused 'economic development' model that prevails in America's state and local governments simply doesn't work.
CEA Statement on Tennessee Titans Stadium Subsidy
By John C. Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability October 17, 2022 “This is the worst decision in Nashville since someone thought it’d be a good idea to let pedal bars piloted by drunk bachelorettes take over Broadway on any given Saturday night.” “Metro Nashville voters were asked to approve the last stadium deal.
Opinion | Michigan’s future: No flying cars, but plenty of corporate welfare
A proposed multi-billion-dollar, 30-year subsidy deal for Chinese battery manufacturer Gotion’s plant in Big Rapids is the latest example of government officials making decades-long bets that commit our cities, counties and state to a particular future that’s far past their ability to predict.
2022 Is the Worst Year in History for State Corporate Welfare Megadeals
Facing election-year pressure from voters and flush with federal cash, governors across America have signed three times more billion-dollar subsidy deals than any previous year in history. September 15, 2022 – An unprecedented flood of economic development “megadeals” with potential billon-dollar price tags across the United States is turning 2022 into a uniquely expensive year for corporate welfare at the state and local level.
Column: Time for tax-credit reform
Iowa’s historic tax reforms this year focused on lowering the income tax rates paid by Iowans and the companies that employ them. The next step needs to be changing who is — and is not — paying those taxes. If Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Legislature want to truly position Iowa for the future, it’s time to take on the state’s addiction to special tax breaks. The 2022 reforms couldn’t have come at a better time to help the state compete for people and jobs.
Op-Ed: Time for tax credit reform
Iowa’s historic tax reforms this year focused on lowering the income tax rates paid by Iowans and the companies that employ them. The next step needs to be changing who is – and is not – paying those taxes. If Gov. Kim Reynolds and the legislature want to truly position Iowa for the future, it’s time to take on the state’s addiction to special tax breaks. The 2022 reforms couldn’t have come at a better time to help the state compete for people and jobs.
The Bills' new stadium is a bad deal for taxpayers
The longer you spend in local government, the more likely it becomes that you’ll have to deal with one of the more distinctly American interactions between government and business: Public subsidies for professional sports stadiums. More than anything else, it’s important for local leaders to understand one simple fact: Sports stadiums are provably ineffective economic development tools.
#EconDevWeek22 Disaster #7: A Football False Start in South Carolina
Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper is reportedly the richest owner in the National Football League – which is saying something. His reported net worth of $16.7 billion is $6 billion more than the second-richest NFL owner, Stan Kroenke of the L.A. Rams. Unlike the current Super Bowl champion Kroenke, who largely paid for his own stadium in Los Angeles, Tepper is one of the more aggressive owners in the country at securing public subsidies for his teams, which include the Charlotte FC of MLS.
#EconDevWeek22 Disaster #3: Georgia’s Film Tax Credits
What could your family do with $220? In Georgia, thanks to that state’s film tax credit program, that’s not an idle question. Independent analyses of the program discovered that it had gotten so big that in 2018, it was costing Georgia’s taxpayers an average of $220 per household. And because Georgia is the only state not to cap the total amount of film tax credits that it can hand out in any given year, it’s only gotten worse since then.
End the secrecy and misinformation in economic development
For all the concern over “misinformation” in the public sphere, one of the greatest crises of public deception in America is going almost completely unchecked. State and local elected officials, agency bureaucrats and corporate public relations departments have duped the American public into believing the massive transfer of public resources to politically connected businesses in the name of “economic development” is necessary to a functioning economy. This is simply not true.
Offseason Primer: Seattle Mariners - Baseball Prospectus
Did you know the Mariners haven't made the playoffs in 20 years? You did? Oh.
MLB’s Lockout Makes Stadium Subsidies Even Worse Deals Than Before - Baseball Prospectus
Adding insult to injury.
Does Daulton Varsho Have Too Much Helium? - Baseball Prospectus
The backstop's potential contains multitudes.
The Commissioner Was Never Neutral and Never Will Be - Baseball Prospectus
What is it that the commissioner does that we couldn’t live without?
Catcher Tiered Rankings for 2022 - Baseball Prospectus
It's a steep cliff after the top tiers.
Catcher Is Dynamic But In Flux - Baseball Prospectus
The landscape is sparse, so prepare accordingly.
Opinion: Why GM's $824 million subsidy exemplifies unnecessary spending
Here’s a question for business owners and managers: If someone came to you and said, “If you move your business from the best location you can find to someplace that isn’t quite as good, I will compensate you with the equivalent of two additional days’ worth of your sales revenues spread out over the next decade,” would you take that deal?
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