ROMNEY TOUTS "PRIVATE-SECTOR" SUCCESS OF COMPANY THAT GOT MILLIONS IN GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES
Mitt Romney is running a new ad about he and his "private-sector leadership team" helped make a company called Steel Dynamics a success. Elsewhere in the ad, the success of Steel Dynamics is called a "perfect entrepreneurial story."
Capitalism! Pure capitalism!
Except that the full truth, as the L.A. Times reported in January, is somewhat different:
What Romney doesn't mention is that Steel Dynamics also received generous tax breaks and other subsidies provided by the state of Indiana and the residents of DeKalb County, where the company's first mill was built....
The county promised $23.4 million in property tax abatements and tax increment finance bonds, as well as a new income tax to generate economic development funds. The latter was required by the state, which shelled out another $13.6 million in tax credits, energy grants, workforce training and funds for roads.
A new quarter-percent tax on DeKalb County residents financed infrastructure improvements such as roads and railroad exchanges that benefited Steel Dynamics, Bercaw said. The county also created a new redevelopment commission and redevelopment authority to oversee the activity....
In the story, a Cato Institute spokesman calls this "corporate welfare"; a local Republican activist calls it "pro-business welfare" and an example of "the liberal socialist mind-set."
Frankly, it's the way we do business in America, for better or worse. But Romney and every other Republican in America will tell you that when Democrats do it, it's treasonous, un-American socialism. And they'll tell you that what they stand for is pure free enterprise.
Needless to say, they're lying.
2 comments:
I began dating a guy who lived in Peekskill in 1984. MetroNorth and the state had just finished reconstruction of bridges and crossovers spanning the Hudson River rail tracks so that GM could ship cars from the North Tarrytown plant over rail lines. The bridges and crossovers had to be raised a few feet so that the shipping cars could fit under them. I don't know how much the project cost but I don't believe GM paid anything toward it -- MetroNorth and the state undertook the project so that GM wouldn't close the North Tarrytown plant. Of course, the plant was closed within a few years anyway. GM also demolished the plant -- you can't tell that there ever was a plant and huge parking lot there anymore.
States and cities are suffering from Corporate Stockholm Syndrome.
They actually now pay for the hostage takers to keep them hostage - and have been for decades.
Feck 'em!
Let 'me go!
They'll always go for the better/best deal.
If every state and city felt that way, there'd be no place for them TO GO!
Maybe then they'd stay.
But even if they didn't, at least you'd know you weren't throwing good tax money after bad, just keeping them there.
If your significant other wants to prowl around, a nice dinner and some jewelry ain't gonna keep 'em home.
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