As I wrote in the Detroit News this week, “The true purpose of economic development incentives isn’t to create jobs. Rather, it’s to make voters think that politicians are creating jobs.”
Tag: Transparency
New Articles: Federal Budget Dysfunction and FOIA Delay Games
Two articles published today, and there’s a serendipitous common theme of people in government doing what’s best for themselves rather than what’s best for their constituents.
At Think Freely Media, I make the point that any discussion of the “federal budget process” should start from the basic point that we really don’t have “federal budgets” any more, at least in terms of how most people think of a budget. That’s great if you’re a politician or lobbyist; not so good if you’re a taxpayer.
Once politicians get our money, it’s a core tenet of representative democracy that we should be able to keep tabs on what they’re doing with it. That’s why we have FOIA, the Open Meetings Act and other transparency laws. Michigan’s already one of the worst states in the country for transparency, but the City of Detroit seems to have found a new way to get around the FOIA law’s requirements: They told me closing their Law Department for a week paused their 15-day deadline to respond to my FOIA request: 
Journalism and transparency advocates think this is a terrible precedent to set.
John Mozena 