Legislators have one heck of a time trying to be logical about incentives. Nothing illustrates this better than the current debate about the $40 million being offered to Goodyear in Fayetteville, not to add jobs but to simply stick around in NC. The bill is facing a potential veto to the dismay of Senator Tony Rand who illustrates what’s really wrong with incentives.
But Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Cumberland County Democrat
and Easley ally, said Goodyear deserves a custom-fit grant package
after search-engine giant Google and computer maker Dell Inc. were
offered hefty tax breaks to build new operations in North Carolina.
“Is
it One North Carolina?” Rand asked, referring to a state
economic-development fund. “Is that what we’re trying to do, or are we
playing favorites?”
The ENTIRE point of incentives is that they ALWAYS play favorites, how could it be that Rand is only now realizing it????? If they didn’t want to play favorites maybe, just maybe, they would treat all companies the same and lower taxes for all of them rather than just the ones that Rand and his contemporaries choose.
