From the Last Year of Granholm to the Third Year of Snyder, We’re Still Ranked the 47th Best State for Buisiness.

For the fourth year in a row, Forbes has ranked Michigan as the 47th “Best State for Business.” Last year’s list was posted less than 24 hours after the right-to-work law was passed in Michigan.  Snyder, who was clearly disappointed in those rankings, wrote  a featured op-ed for Forbes highlighting his perceived accomplishments.  He finished that piece by saying that “we expect to be at or near the top of these rankings in the years to come.”  We now know that was just another failed prediction.

This isn’t the first piece of bad news that Governor Snyder has received in the past few weeks.  This month’s unemployment numbers showed that the unemployment rate has risen for three straight months.  Additionally, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. issued a report that stated that their grant recipients are only creating 19% of the jobs they promised!

If Snyder would like to learn something about economic development, he should consider looking at Minnesota.  Minnesota is now ranked 8th on the Best State for Business list.  According to Forbes, Minnesota ranked high in part because they have “the second highest percentage of adults with a high school degree” as well as a “low poverty rate and healthy population.”

What seems clear is that Snyder’s economic policies are not working.  Instead of investing in students, health initiatives, and training workers, he gave away huge tax breaks to businesses (and continues to do so) and engaged in divisive politics such as right-to-work.  Snyder has spent his political capital and came up empty.  Now he is gong to spend a half million dollars for an advertisement in order to spin his record so he can offer us four more years of failed policies.