House Republican Leader Matt Hall on Tuesday reiterated calls for a focus on growing Michigan’s entire economy instead of the governor’s ongoing attempts to get high-profile announcements of job creation regardless of results.

After the House Economic Development and Small Business Committee took up legislation Tuesday morning to revive the lapsed Good Jobs for Michigan program, Hall said the state needs to focus on underlying economic problems instead of symptoms.

“As Michigan struggles to grow, the governor just wants to slap a Band-Aid on our economy while ignoring the deep-seated problems that Democrat policies have exacerbated,” Hall said. “Our state needs to strengthen our economy by lowering our taxes and fostering a fair, reasonable regulatory environment that makes sense for Michigan workers and small businesses. Instead, Gov. Whitmer and Democrats have rammed through laws that will deepen our economic problems. They’ve repealed our right-to-work law that gave workers choices and attracted business investment, raised taxes on people and small businesses, and imposed energy mandates that will raise electricity costs for job providers and residents. Many of these destructive laws take effect today. The governor wants to suppress the harmful economic symptoms by giving handouts to a few corporations, but instead, Michigan should craft a bold, coordinated economic growth strategy that heals the underlying economic sickness.”

House Bills 5413-5415 would bring back the Good Jobs for Michigan program, which offered income tax withheld from employees to any jobs created under an agreement with the state. The bills rebrand Good Jobs as the HIRE program and make a few other minor changes. Similar bills in the Senate would also require businesses to make commitments aligned with Democrats’ social agenda on union labor, clean energy, and other issues in order to be eligible.