When The Means Become The Story And Kill The End

As someone who saw many a sunrise in the great state of Michigan, I don’t do as good a job as I ought to following the local news out of Detroit, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Flint, etc.  I was reminded of this in a discussion with my best friend the other day, who tells me that one of the biggest election year issues in Michigan is tax incentives for businesses.
 
And guess where this debate started? If you guessed Steve Munson, that’s a good guess – but wrong, unfortunately.  It’s not far off the mark though. It started with faux-environmental entrepreneur Richard Short, CEO of Renewable and Sustainable Companies, Inc. (RASCO), which was awarded $9 million in tax credits by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) in March. Short/RASCO got these credits by promising to bring an $18.5 million investment and over 750 jobs to Flint.  Effing great, right? After all, who’s going to turn down ANYBODY that wants to bring jobs, let alone green jobs, to Michigan?
 
You see where this is going.  Although obligated to look their gift horse in the mouth and figure out if RASCO was actually a plausible enterprise, the MEDC did no such thing.  A day later, they find out that Short was sentenced for embezzlement in 2002, was on parole and had previous fraud convictions in two counties.  At the time, he was living in a trailer with a friend because he couldn’t afford a rent payment.  The prosecutor in his embezzlement case said he had “an extensive criminal history” and “a history of scams.”
 
Although Rick was nice enough to offer to step down after the story broke, because, as he put it, “It’s all about the business, it’s not about me,” the truth is that the minute Short’s background was uncovered, EVERYTHING was about him.  Now the green jobs, whether they were there or not, are linked in everyone’s mind with the scam artist. Now renewable energy is associated with another hack, huckster, charlatan, whatever.  You should know, Rick, that no matter how good your product or how great your message, if you’ve got a disgraced salesman you’re not going to get very far.  With the inevitable consequence that things like tax incentives and subsidies become political fodder, and the armchair politicians latch on to them as the newest proof that politicians are wasting tax dollars and neglecting their duties. 
 
While there is certainly a debate to be had about tax incentives in general and who’s getting them and why, I think it’s quite clear that the green movement as a whole is going to need some type of government support (at least at first) to make its technologies cheaper, its products competitive and its start-ups strong enough to survive their first few years.  Every time a loser like Rick Short comes along and turns the process into a joke – and starts a domino effect that runs all the way into statewide elections – the job gets just a little bit harder for all of us.