I hear often about "economic development" plans from localities that are essentially subsidizing private projects via tax dollars, either directly by backing bonds or indirectly by giving tax deferrals. Either way, these subsidies amount to millions of dollars spent by localities in furtherance of private industry.
Two examples of taxpayer-subsidized projects come to mind: Lucas Oil Stadium and the Wilshaw development. I have said before that if the Town of Speedway wants public parking, it should just build a parking garage instead of borrowing the money to build one, lending that money to a developer, then leasing the garage to the developer in exchange for revenue from the garage. It's a rube goldberg device.
I also hear justification for Lucas Oil Stadium in the form of "look at how many jobs it creates" with all of the hotel, restaurant, convention, etc., traffic created by the facility.
I suppose my big question is this: Why don't we just directly invest in those jobs by doing things like hiring teachers? Paying for their health insurance? Hiring construction workers to build better roads? (the NW corner of 465 comes to mind, but that's just because I commute past that area every day).
In a nutshell, it appears that there is a bipartisan consensus that government spending to create jobs is OK. In that instance, why settle for low-wage ALICE ("asset limited income constrained employed") jobs? Why not go for good middle-class jobs with benefits? It seems that we could do so if we cut out the middle man, i.e. Jim Irsay or Loftus/Robinson.
Just a thought.
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