After the Detroit News ran a column promoting business tax credits in Michigan, the CEA’s John Mozena responded a letter to the editor pointing out the fundamental flaw in the original column’s argument:
Howes writes that “incentives are built on a crucial assumption: that new jobs create new tax revenue.” However, that’s not the truly crucial assumption being made. Rather, the actual assumption these programs are based on is that the incentives change what a business was already going to do anyway — and the evidence is that they very rarely do.