Sometimes, it feels like Michigan’s economic development strategy is managed by someone flying 30,000 feet in the air. Everything looks great when you’re coasting through the clouds. But no one that high up understands what’s happening on the ground. All they can see are the largest corporations and cities. Regular people and small businesses are nothing more than specks.

“This plan is about fairness and transparency across the board,” said Steele, R-Orion Township. “While so many of my colleagues are in Lansing for all the right reasons, there are people in state government who know how to abuse our budgeting system for their own benefit. Opening our process up would mean you don’t have to spend 40 years in this town before you can successfully understand the system and call out the people abusing it.”