The incentives insult
Published March 21, 2015
by John Butler, small business owner in Cornelius, published in Charlotte Observer, March 20, 2015.
I wonder if the N.C. Legislature understands the “smack in the face” effect its incentives to lure new businesses to the state has on a business like mine that has been operating here for over 35 years, employing people and providing their benefits, building and rehabbing the very infrastructure needed to make ours a good place to live.
We started small, suffered boom times and almost bust times, sweated through recessions, and jumped through all the hoops governments can conceive for us – having to hire people just to do that alone.
I feel my business is a solid example of many good, small businesses in this state that people count on as an employer and the government depends on to help our communities thrive.
Yet when I read of the millions of dollars the state is willing to hand out to a company from another place to simply open up shop here, it makes me feel outraged that our legislators and governor don't seem to appreciate how unfair those incentives are for the thousands of small businesses that operate here with very little if any help beyond government infrastructure.
It not only feels unfair – it is unfair.
March 23, 2015 at 10:53 am
Jimmy Rouse says:
How is the state coming out on the $240 million or so pledged to Spirit Aero to entice them down to the Global Transpark?
As I recall the Golden Leaf Slush Fund wrote the first check for $100 million.
Have the taxpayers made out? Or was it another typical incentive program whereby the hype was more politics than dollars & cents?
March 23, 2015 at 6:44 pm
Norm Kelly says:
Nice to hear a business owner speak the truth. This guy is actually penalized in order for some other business to receive a reward. There is no other way to look at this. Every business that does business here, as well as every other tax payer, is penalized in order for the state to reward some (basically) unknown business. It is a fact missing by most libs that no government has any money of it's own. The only money any government has to play games with is the money it confiscates from those who earn it. Incentives is nothing more than playing games with money. And it's not really investment banker type playing, it's usually politically motivated playing. And it's confiscating money from earners because this is an area where no government should be going, and the only way they get to go the incentive route is by taking money from any other business in order to GIVE it to the favored, politically connected business. Penalize Peter to buy off Paul. Not just not fair. Should be illegal. Just because some other state does it does not mean it's right or that we should follow. It's time government give-away, corporate welfare went the way of the dinosaur.
