Left of Lansing
208: Friday Short: Michigan Dems Help Big Tech Billionaire Trump Supporters
It's time for the left of Lansing Friday Short with Pat Johnston. Here's the Friday Short for December 13th of 2024. On this week's episode featuring the American prospects, David Dayan. David talked about a major piece of legislation that many Democrats and Republicans raised to the finish line to pass. This legislation that Mr. Dayan talked about grants, major tax breaks to big tech companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta, so they could build large data centers in some areas across the state. And just yesterday, the state Senate passed the two bill package, which is now headed to Governor Whitmer's desk. And I'm sure she's excited to sign the bills into law because granting corporate welfare to companies is really all we seem to do around here anymore. And meanwhile, we continue to get very little return on our investment. Even more, these data centers require copious amounts of water and energy to keep their tech equipment cool. The Sierra Club of Michigan's Christie McGilvery told Planet Detroit that it's disgrace that Democrats refused to insert language that would have protected utility customers who are already paying high costs for mediocre service. And she blasted Democrats for refusing to protect the state's newly enacted climate change goals, saying they just blew a hole in their own clean energy package. So I guess we care about the environment a little bit. Look, it's too bad that most Michigan Democrats went along with yet another costly vote in a proven failed strategy at creating jobs. It's sad because rather than fighting to give Mark Zuckerberg and Google enormous tax breaks, Michigan Democrats could be spending their times passing more bills designed to help working people. I mean, as MLive reports, critics of these bills argue that due to the demand for these data centers, these companies would have shown up here and set up shop here eventually. There's no need for this. And like with all other misguided corporate subsidies, the jobs that big tech promises will never come to fruition. In fact, when the company known as switch set up a data center near Grand Rapids after receiving corporate welfare, the company promised 1000 jobs would be created. Yay. But I'll be darned. They never got that close to creating that many jobs. Earlier this week, Metas Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos kissed the ring of Donald Trump promising to each donate $1 million for Trump's upcoming inauguration. Wasn't that cute? You see, big tech companies want to ensure that they are in dear leaders, good graces, and since everything with Trump is transactional, they hope that he will reward them later. And he and the Republican majority in Congress will do just that when they pass yet another bill next year lowering the corporate tax rate because that's what true populists do, right? Huh? And perhaps Zuckerberg hopes Trump will reverse course and ban TikTok, one of Facebook's major competitors. Now, Trump is surrounding himself with billionaires in his cabinet, which when you add up all of their worth amounts to around $340 billion. And of course, that includes Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump is put in charge to cut government spending on social security and Medicare because again, they're true populists. What a joke. And don't even get me started on how Trump is getting rid of the Federal Trade Commission chair, Lena Kahn, in favor of a corporate stooge like Andrew Ferguson. Trump is pro billionaire, pro management, pro monopoly, pro elite. Why in the world are Michigan Democrats shelling out millions to people like Zuckerberg and to other big tech behemoths? It just sends mixed symbols and mixed messages to the working class voter that Democrats like Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are fine with a little fascism. If it means their campaign coffers are filled up quite handsomely. Left of Lansing at gmail.com is the best way to reach me. Follow me on blue sky and also on Zuckerberg's Facebook and Instagram and also on Elon's Twitter. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to us on YouTube as well. Take the battle to them and go lions. [MUSIC]