Quid Pro D'oh

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Me Thinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much

It's been a great strategy for the Republican party - accuse Democrats of being guilty of all the Republicans' wrongdoings. 

They repeat the lie about rampant voter fraud...and in the majority of the few cases of fraud, the perpetrator is a Republican.

During this latest campaign, and most recently at the Republican National Convention, one prominent Republican talking-point point is that Biden (or the Biden administration) is corrupt.

I thought it might be helpful to remind all of the crimes committed by Trump and his associates. 

The Cases Against Trump: A Guide

Donald Trump's criminal cases, in one place

Trump criminal charges guidebook: Here are all the felony counts against the former president

A guide to Donald Trump's four criminal cases

Keeping Track of the Trump Criminal Cases

Trump Investigations: Tracking The Cases

Here’s a list of Trump’s ex-associates who have faced charges

What Trump allies have faced criminal charges?

Charted: Trump world allies sentenced to prison

Bannon Joins List of Trump’s Allies With Convictions

11 Trump associates have now been charged with crimes.

A Guide to Trump Allies Who've Pleaded Guilty or Been Convicted of Crimes

Trump allies Meadows, Giuliani among 18 indicted in Arizona election scheme

There is a swamp in Washington...brought to America by the Donald Trump administration. The fact that the Republican party has chosen this felon (and his cabal of miscreants) as their leader and candidate for the presidency is hypocritical, irresponsible, and embarrassing. The (supposed) party of law and order, Christian values, right and wrong, etc., supporting a philandering, tax cheating, felon for president is as stupid as it is shameless.

Donald Trump and his sycophants are not fit for office. No responsible, reasonable, clear-thinking American should vote for any of these Republican clowns. They are selfish, spineless, greedy, opportunists only concerned with their own well-being. None of them have any inkling of duty or commitment to public policy and what is best for America. 

Let's keep government functioning in the interest of the citizens, not the monied elite. Let's keep investing in American infrastructure and jobs, Social Security and Medicare, public schools, clean air and water, to name a few. To go back to the ways of Trump and Project 2025 would be to abandon the American dream and relegate America to a dictator and plutocrats. 

Keep America sane. This November, vote Democrat.

For Further Reading:

30 Things Joe Biden Did as President You Might Have Missed

Disorder In The Court

It’s Impossible to Overstate the Damage Done by the Supreme Court in This Term

The Supreme Court Took A Sledgehammer To American Democracy

The Neverending Grift

How dare workers expect more than $7.25 per hour! Don't count on a decent retirement or health care plan from your employer either. Fix poisonous lead pipes? Gonna have to wait. Repair potholes and crumbling bridges? Not this decade. Strengthen Social Security and Medicare? Not a chance! Maybe we should phase them out. 

More money for private, billionaires' sport stadiums? No problem. There's always hundreds of millions in public dollars for private playgrounds and speculation.

Milwaukee's Miller Park (now American Family Field) baseball stadium (for the Milwaukee Brewers) opened in 2001. Total cost to taxpayers was estimated over a billion dollars. Already, twenty years later, the Brewers need nearly $300 million more from taxpayers.

The same old myth is playing out in this greed and grift saga, wrapped in the contrived cloak of economic development and jobs. As the fairy tale goes, sports have a significant economic impact, spurring other developments, and creating jobs. And, as always, there's the threat of leaving. The Brewers may find a new host city if Milwaukee and Wisconsin don't fork over the cash.

Thought experiment: Can a business (sport team) claim to be infinitely successful and astoundingly economically impactful if, every twenty years or so, said entity must bribe and blackmail to be able to afford, supposedly, needed upgrades for their place of work (the sport arena)? 

Or, sadly, is that just how this blackmail song-and-dance shakes out, each and every time, in city after city? [Spoiler - yes, this is how it plays out in city after city, year after year.]

The boondoggles march on.

For Further Reading:
Site Selection Shenanigans

Stadium Swindle

Bonds & Bondage: Indentured to the Sports Stadium Cabal

Little Economic Impact From Stadium Projects

Report Finds Little Economic Impact From Stadium Projects

For Further Reading:

The Legalized Bribery That Is Sport Subsidization

It's A Scandal! It's A Outrage!

The Math and Taxes of Stadium Boondoggles

Big League Confusion

Brewing Up An Inflated Impact

Big League Broke

Bonds & Bondage: Indentured To The Sports Entertainment Cabal

Midweek Reading

A New Understanding of Herd Immunity

Tom Brady's pseudoscientific wellness racket is the American dream

Financial challenges will force conversation about cutting Milwaukee police budget

Mike Pence’s Unreality Show

Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus

The State of Black Milwaukee in National Perspective: Racial Inequality in the Nation’s 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas. In 65 Charts and Tables

Ohio House Speaker Arrested In Connection With $60 Million Bribery Scheme

A new Trump campaign ad depicting a police officer being attacked by protesters is actually a 2014 photo of pro-democracy protests in Ukraine

Obama Built Most of Trump’s Good Economy

The Math of Social Distancing Is a Lesson in Geometry

The (Fox)Conn Continues

So, Scott Walker gives billions away to Foxconn. Thousands of jobs are promised. Now, according to Foxconn, Wisconsin actually doesn't have the workers to fill the jobs. Foxconn Says It Can't Find Enough Workers For Wisconsin Project. WTF?

Hopefully everyone can see this bribery that is called economic development is pure extortion. Inflated economic impact reports are released along with CEOs and politicians congratulating each other on the wonderful "partnership" they've created, which will result in massive job growth.

Business 101 instructs that you don't locate your business somewhere that can't efficiently provide your needed inputs (labor, obviously, being one of those).

The Wisconsin-Foxconn debacle perfectly illustrates how distorted our economic development policies have become. To pretend that Wisconsin had some underlying competitive advantage regarding Foxconn's business needs, and they just needed a little boost in the form of Wisconsin subsidies to reach that reality. Then, slowly, the job numbers decrease, and facility construction is delayed. Now, Foxconn tells us Wisconsin doesn't even have the workers for the jobs they are planning in Wisconsin. This is just another crony capitalist shakedown.

For Further Reading:
Skills Shortage, Labor Shortage, Skills Gap ... All Bullshit
The So-Called "Skills Gap" Is Complete Bullshit
More Skills Gap Crap

More Wisconsin Corporate Welfare

Convention Center Moves Forward

For Further Reading:
Milwaukee's Boondoggle Twofer
The Convention Center Cabal

Out Of Touch White Privilege

I generally like Alec Baldwin in his dramatic and comedic acting roles.  Yet, with every passing year, as more of his actions and opinions come to light, he seems to represent the epitome of out of touch, wealthy, white privilege.

Alec Baldwin defends Felicity Huffman: 'The demonisation of wealth in this country is mind blowing'

As Baldwin put it, "I don’t think anyone involved in the college fraud cases should go to prison.  That includes past cases as well.  Community service, fines, yes.  But prison time, no."  

As someone on Twitter responded, "If they can afford hundreds of thousands of $$ to get their kids in [to college], how will a "fine" be a deterrent?"

Baldwin continued, "Community service is better.  The demonization of wealth in this country is mind blowing.  A country built on both freedoms and commerce.  Now, all success is scrutinized.  Merely to succeed, especially financially, invites scrutiny, judgment, abuse."

Wow.  Baldwin is so wrong and out-of-touch here.  There's a lot to unpack.

Yeah, if you can afford half a million dollars to bribe your kid into college, a fine isn't going to mean shit.  The same reason fining billion-dollar companies a few million for their wrongdoing doesn't stop them from continuing to do wrong.

"Demonization of wealth"?  WTF?

Not demonizing wealth at all.  It's just that people whom aren't "wealthy" (99% of the population) are sick of the wealthy cheating, lying, bribing and scamming their way into more privilege and ill-gotten gains.

The wealthy blather on and on about meritocracy - you get what you deserve based on talent, effort, and achievement.  With the wealthy always implying that this is how they made it.  But to believe this we would have to ignore nepotism, tax avoidance, bribery, inheritance and a litany of other schemes and scams the wealthy use to oppress the rest of us.

Baldwin also waxes nostalgic, "A country built on both freedoms and commerce."

Our history of slavery, racism and oppression seems to contradict Baldwin's rose-colored memory of how this country was built.   

Baldwin goes on complaining about success being scrutinized.  

Just the opposite.  This country drones on and on about every other fucking idiot who has made a buck or had an idea, and how great, fantastic and entrepreneurial they are.  Television is littered with wealthy know-nothings prattling on about anything and everything.  This country has a lot of self-loathing in that we keep eating up this shit, believing that these loudmouths have something to say and that they are actually better than anyone else.  Most believe they have some personal setback or inadequacy and that's why they aren't as good as some TV bozo like Donald Trump.  It's all bullshit.

Success being scrutinized?  Fuck that.  We mythologize and romanticize it into our own disadvantage.

In this country, we criticize the poor and the working class.  We're continually reducing wages and/or increasing costs for those whom can least afford it.  For the non-wealthy, retirement accounts are disappearing, benefits are shrinking, wages are stagnating, and health care is either too costly or nonexistent for many.

And, despite this, if anything, this country worships wealth.  It's why people keep voting against their own economic interest.  It's why Donald Trump is in office.  He's a big business man.  He has financially succeeded.  (At least this is what many of his supporters believe.)  And, because he did it, many believe they can too, and that's why they keep voting for cutting taxes on the rich and corporations - because someday they will be rich, too, and they don't want to pay those big taxes then either.

So fuck Alec Baldwin, Felicity Huffman, Lori Laughlin and all those assholes that think a slap on the wrist in fine for the wealthy that cheat the system.  Workers in the U.S. have been struggling for decades based on our worship the wealthy system of governance.  Economic inequality is at an all-time high.  It's well past the time where we should have already cleaned up this mess and punished these wealthy, spoiled perpetrators. 

We lock poor people up for decades of their life for much less than a $500,000 bribe.  It's time the wealthy started facing the same justice as the rest of us.  

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Strauss, Amazon projects force local competition questions

“I’m told there was an informal agreement that no municipality would poach from each other,” Franklin Mayor Steve Olson told the Milwaukee Business Journal. “I’m not sure that’s the case any more.”

That's rich. Suburbs, like Franklin, exist because of poaching.  Suburbs were happy to offer 'economic incentives' to attract formerly good paying jobs and companies away from the central city.  Now that cities are seeing a resurgence and can compete, the suburbs are pretending this (economic development incentives) is some new occurrence.  Perfectly fine when they do it ... but when it happens to them, not so much.

For Further Reading:
Corporate Tax Breaks
Failure of Economic Development Incentives
Grading Places
Industrial Incentives
Rethinking Growth Strategies
Tax and Spending Incentives and Enterprise Zones
The Great American Jobs Scam

Ending The War Among The States

Economic Development, Tax Incentives and The Plutocracy It's Creating

Job Piracy

Blackmailed Into Oblivion

Legalized Bribery

Buying Jobs

Amazippi

Weekend Reading: Kimberly Clark Corporate Welfare Edition

Tax Incentives For Kimberly Clark Could Hit Roadblock In Senate Heading Into Election
Tax Incentive Package For Kimberly Clark Faces Challenges In State Senate
Kimberly Clark Ready To Consider Incentive Package From State
More Questions, A Few Answers, As Uncertainty Swirls Around Kimberly Clark's Wisconsin Mills
Kimberly Clark Says It's Open To Talks On State Incentives Package

Sunday Reading

Water Safety, Lead Removal Plans Advance At Milwaukee City Hall
Watch 1998 Rudy Giuliani Torpedo 2018 Rudy Giuliani's Trump Arguments
Minnesota Outpaces Wisconsin, Report Says
Who Is The Freeloader: The Working Poor On Food Stamps - Or Corporations That Don't Pay Them Enough?
Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project
Journey Through The Land Of Extreme Poverty: Welcome To America
Scott Walker Has A Message For Wisconsin Voters: Here's Some Cash
All Betsy Devos Knows Is How To Profit From Schoolchildren
Enrollment Counts Expose Loophole In Wisconsin Parental Choice Program
Democratic Candidates For Governor Would End A Nation's First
Former DOT Head Is Scott Walker's Chief Critic On Transportation
The Anti-Roads Governor
The 9.9 Percent Is The New American Aristocracy

Buying Jobs

Corporate welfare is abundant in Wisconsin.

As the Milwaukee Business Times reported:

The $2.85 billion in tax credits offered to Foxconn Technology Group is nearly 25 times more than the total incentives offered to the next 49 largest projects the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. supported this year... 

The remaining 49 projects in the top 50 are eligible for roughly $114.2 million in incentives, primarily through tax credits, although three projects are receiving loans.

Here's the top 10 corporate welfare bribes awards:

[source]

Here's a breakdown of the cost per job for the top 10 welfare recipients:

Scott Walker really loves handing out millions of Wisconsin taxpayer dollars to his corporate cronies. So, it's not that Republicans don't like spending money and using the government as a piggy bank, as they claim. They just prefer that low-income, working-class and middle-class go without, while giving most of the bounty to their corporate paymasters.

Republicans constantly bark about the Democrats "taxing and spending." Yet, Republicans do they same thing. The difference is that when Republicans do it, the benefits go to millionaires. And, instead of keeping taxes at a responsible level to pay for it, Republicans just run up the tab for someone else to figure out how to pay for it somewhere down the road. 

Republican policies are bad at creating jobs. They're really just using taxpayers dollars to reward their contributors. Republicans tax cut fetish is only indebting the country and preventing us from making necessary improvements and infrastructure advancements. 

We should be using our tax dollars to invest in better transportation options, greening of buildings, improving the electric grid and replacing our sewer and water systems. These, and other investments like these, are what will attract businesses and residents. This is what a broad-based plan for shared prosperity looks like.

Rather than short-sightedly picking winners and losers - the crony capitalism bribery that is the Republican plan for economic development - we should be making the general investments in our society (schools, workforce) and our infrastructure (road, trains, airports, water, energy) which benefits all and enables growth for the long term.

Backdrop Boy Involved In Another Possible Backdrop

Milwaukee Police Union Accused Of Peddling Plan Like Infamous County Backdrop Scheme

Okay. Can we agree that it's time to rein in the Milwaukee Police Department?

Neither the County or the City needs another retirement scandal.

And, the "Backdrop Boy," Tony Zielinski, who voted for the County pension backdrop, has been involved in this latest scheme:

At the union's request, Ald. Tony Zielinski asked city attorneys in November if Milwaukee could increase the city's property tax levy to help defray the city's pension obligations. 

City Attorney Grant Langley said the only way to exceed the levy limits was through a vote of city residents in a referendum. But doing this, Langley wrote, could jeopardize how much money the state gives to Milwaukee each year.

Two days after the city issued its opinion, the Milwaukee police union endorsed Zielinski in his mayoral bid against Barrett in 2020.

But Zielinski said there was no connection between the endorsement and the letter, labeling the notion "preposterous." He said his support for Milwaukee cops is well known. 

Zielinski said the city attorney's letter was "off my radar" since November.
"Did I do anything with this?" he asked. "I didn't do anything with this." 

Reminded that he twice voted for the backdrop program as a county supervisor — a sore spot with the alderman — Zielinski said the staffer who created the Milwaukee County plan was convicted of misconduct in office. Also, he said, supervisors were misled by the county's pension actuary, which later paid the county $30 million to a settle a lawsuit.

Zielinski criticized the mayor and his people for trying to tar him by making an issue of the deferred retirement plan. He said Barrett should focus on his poor record on crime, not Zielinski's letter to the city attorney. 

"I do my due diligence," Zielinski said.

Two things we now know for sure: 1) the City of Milwaukee needs to restructure and rein in the salaries, pensions and costs of the Milwaukee Police Department and 2) Tony Zielinski is, by all appearances, sleazy and corrupt, and the last person Milwaukee should elect mayor and allow to guide the City budget.

Pay To Play With The "Backdrop Boy"

"Tony The Tiger." Milwaukee Magazine. March 2018.

The Bay View alderman chairs the city Licenses Committee, which holds sway over tavern, restaurant and other licenses in the city. It's a demanding but powerful post with great fundraising potential: In 2017, 34 of 154 people who donated to his campaign fund did so either before or after they sought approval from his committee in 2016 or 2017. Some of these folks appeared before the panel more than once, making for a total of 54 occasions in 2017 when past or future donors were on the agenda for license matters, the vast majority of which were approved. 

A nice nugget from Milwaukee Magazine's article on Tony "Backdrop Boy" Zielinski. This insight shows the pay-to-play politician that Zielinski is. Another worthless public servant using the office to enrich himself and further his career [very similar to Scott Walker]. A reality far different than his scripted sound bites and oh-so-earnest press releases.

The Wisconsin Idea: The Possibilities Of Cooperation

The push and pull forces of development seem to be at odds across the State of Wisconsin. Rarely does it seem that cooperation or a more regional perspective takes precedence in molding economic development around the state. The Governor has his take, mayors have theirs and different private players in the different cities have theirs.

Transportation (and its routes) takes a certain shape in one locality, while a completely different strategy prevails elsewhere; with no cooperation between the two in the final product, even though agglomeration economies are there to be had.

Energy and environmental policy shares this same blinder. Rather than working together to decrease energy costs, to upgrade systems, to protect the environment, parochial self-interest prevails and we all end up less efficient and less attractive for businesses or residents.

Public policy (heavily influenced by private interests) seems to be encouraging a "me first" attitude. Which is fine for many decisions. But when transportation, the environment, education, and health care issues (which impact every citizen) are being planned, a broader metropolitan, statewide or regional perspective is imperative.

We need to retreat from the quick, flashy impulsive economic development paradigm that currently operates across the state.

PAY-TO-PLAY DEVELOPMENT

Corporate welfare is growing in Wisconsin. Scott Walker has transformed public aid to encourage private investment into a shadowy backroom shakedown. The former Commerce Department was turned into the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) by Scott Walker.

The WEDC has been unaccountable and unable to track job growth or even keep good records on how much they are giving away and to whom.

Walker and Wisconsin Republicans have whole-heartedly embraced crony-capitalism. They are more than happy to mortgage the future of Wisconsin residents and the environment for flashy press releases, news conferences, and campaign contribution promises.

Giveaways to Amazon in Kenosha and the looming Foxconn welfare are the most recent examples of Scott Walker's corporate welfare bonanza. And, Amazon has their hand out again hoping to bribe their way to a few more bucks at the Wisconsin taxpayers' expense. As Henry Grabar wrote, "North American cities have debased themselves in the Amazon HQ2 reality show. The worst is yet to come."

As John C. Brown detailed:

The Foxconn project comes at a high cost with uncertain economic benefits, but clear political payoffs. The political economy of Foxconn suggests who the winners will be: the governor of the state, for whom the proposal is the cornerstone of an effort to redeem himself on a pledge of job creation; the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who can claim credit for a multi-billion infusion of investment in his district; and owners of land for the greenfield site, who will be paid sums well above the going price for farmland. For most of the rest of the state’s 2.8 million employed residents, the Foxconn deal likely misses the target. Near-term, it guarantees all residents will pay millions of net costs in higher taxes or reduced services. Promised for the longer term are jobs most likely concentrated in one of the most prosperous regions of the state and mostly inaccessible to those in the greatest need of an effective—and equitable—strategy for economic development.

Bruce Thompson concluded, "Bribing companies to relocate here doesn't work...Wisconsin’s attempts to lure companies—particularly manufactures—through subsidies have been largely ineffective and threaten to become increasingly expensive, by promoting an arms race among states...It is past time for our state’s leaders, particularly those charged with development in Wisconsin, to take advantage of increasing research data on what works and what does not."

Marc Eisen highlights better public policy pillars for economic growth:

ENVIRONMENT & DEVELOPMENT

In an odd (dis)incentive toward good environmental policy, Scott Walker is proposing a fee for Wisconsin electric and/or hybrid vehicles. A policy which would end up discouraging behavior that would be environmentally and economically positive. We would all (logically) prefer less dependence on oil, less pollution and the encouragement of green policies.

Walker's comments put him in the camp of Republicans who have argued owners of electric and hybrid vehicles should pay higher fees because they don't contribute as much toward maintaining roads. The state's 32.9-cents-per-gallon gas tax is its main source of funding, but electric vehicles don't use gas and hybrid vehicles use far less of it than standard vehicles.

It's all about the road-building cabal and the Republican's never-ending boosterism for such. The persistent march of sprawl ... wasteful, inefficient and unhealthy. Walker and Wisconsin Republicans would rather discourage clean energy (which results in cleaner air and water) and connective mass transit options; they prefer roads, interchanges and off-ramps.

Yet this continual spreading of concrete is also waterproofing the land from absorbing rain water...which is resulting in more destructive flooding.



Here, again, in numerous (environment, energy, development, transportation) instances we see the Republican position is in direct opposition to the best interests of the citizens. In fact, their position is wasteful, inefficient and harmful.

MILWAUKEE: WISCONSIN'S ECONOMIC ENGINE

Milwaukee has been on a roll. New development and redevelopment has been at a brisk pace for the past few years.

Often, surrounding such development, there are questions about funding, winners and losers, and equity in the location of these investments.

Recently there has even been talk of allowing a dedicated sales tax to fund certain programs.

Minneapolis/St. Paul and Indianapolis have been the economic stars of the Midwest over the past few decades. One of the key tools used in their ascension was the implementation of regional tax sharing. Rather than one suburb competing against another, or the city competing with a suburb, they pool tax dollars to enable an equitable growth to benefit the entire metropolitan area, rather than pitting one area against another.

As Whet Moser put it, "Building connections, both transit and political, between its municipalities while sharing the financial burden."

After speaking with Tom Weaver of the Minneapolis Metropolitan Council, Ed Brock reported :

Seven counties in the Minneapolis metropolitan area have had a tax-sharing agreement since 1971, says Tom Weaver, regional administrator for the Metropolitan Council. The point of the programs is to discourage competition for the tax base created by shared infrastructure. "All this public infrastructure is paid for by all of us, so you shouldn't have one particular community where this infrastructure just happens to be located that gets all the tax benefits from that infrastructure," Weaver says.

As the Institute for Local Self-Reliance wrote:

The drive for increased property tax revenue, and in some cases sales tax revenue, can lead local governments to make land use decisions that conflict with other planning and economic development goals. A community might reject much needed affordable housing in favor of expensive homes, for example, or forgo office buildings with high-paying jobs in favor of big box retail stores with low-wage jobs, in anticipation of generating more tax revenue with a comparatively smaller burden on public services. 

The quest for revenue-generating development creates competition among neighboring jurisdictions, which may engage in bidding wars to offer developers the biggest tax breaks or least stringent environmental regulations. From a regional perspective, providing subsidies for businesses that have already decided to locate in the area is unnecessary and even destructive. A big box store, for example, will cannibalize sales from existing local businesses and shopping centers and, for the region as a whole, there will be no net gain in economic activity. 

In metro areas, the “fiscalization of land use” or “cash box zoning,” as this problem is known, fosters sprawl and polarization. Some jurisdictions are winners; others are losers. New suburbs on the urban fringe with extensive new commercial development and relatively affluent homes will have high quality public services with a relatively low tax rate. The central city and older suburbs, with declining commercial centers and lower-income families, will be forced to impose higher tax rates and deliver poorer quality services. This disparity tends to snowball and engender a cycle of sprawl as more middle-income families flee to the suburban fringe. 

Regional tax-base sharing offers one way to alleviate this problem. Under tax-base sharing, all of the municipalities within a metropolitan area agree to share tax proceeds from new development. This eliminates inter-regional competition; facilitates other planning goals such as preserving open space or maintaining a vibrant downtown; encourages suburbs and central cities to cooperate on regional economic development goals; and leads to a more equitable distribution of tax burdens and public services. 

State legislation is generally required to implement regional tax-base sharing. 

Here again, the state seems to be unduly burdening the primary wealth generator of the state whilst also handicapping Milwaukee's ability to raise revenues. Sadly, Milwaukee and its surrounding neighbors have never had a meaningful conversation about regional taxation and our shared interests. This is the outside-the-box thinking we need from our public policies to make the state a more attractive place for living and for investment.

CONCLUSION

Until, as a state, we can get past our prejudices about what we think about the big city, a small town, a rural area, etc., we won't be able to thoughtfully and adequately address the issues that impact everyone in the state.

Clean air, clean water, efficient transportation options, clean energy and other smart public investments benefit all citizens. If this state has any practical and forward-thinking leaders, we should be able to move forward to address some of these policies and implement meaningful action plans to not only benefit the citizens of Wisconsin, but to also make Wisconsin a more attractive place for business and tourists.

The current "me first" blackmail and bribery school of development isn't working.



For Further Reading:
Ending Job Piracy, Building Regional Prosperity
Regionalism On Purpose
Regionalism For Financing Development
Multilateralising 21st Century Regionalism
Regionalism: The New Geography of Opportunity
Comprehensive Study of Regionalism
The Calculus of Coalitions
The Regional City
Reflections On Regionalism
Governing The Fragmented Metropolis
Metropolitics
A Policy Agenda For Older Suburbs In The Midwest
Chicago Metropolitics
Fiscal Regionalism Levels Playing Field
Regional Tax-Base Sharing
Progressive Policies For Raising Municipal Revenue
Regional [Metropolitan] Tax-Base Sharing
Introduction to Tax-Base Sharing
How Minneapolis Is Growing
U.S. Metro Economies
2016 Public Transportation Factbook

Job Piracy

“It’s a zero-sum game,” Nathan Jensen, a political science professor formerly at Washington University in St. Louis who recently started teaching at George Washington University, said during a recent conference held by the Kauffman Foundation. 

Simply shifting companies from one state to the next does nothing, at least not right away, to create new openings for the millions of still unemployed Americans, Jensen added while presenting some of his latest economic development research. Nevertheless, nearly every municipality across the country offers some type of tax incentives to encourage existing companies to relocate, costing taxpayers around $70 billion annually. 

Often, the hope is that those incentives will not only prompt employers to bring their existing jobs to this state or that city, but that it will also accelerate the company’s future growth and generate additional jobs for residents down the road. [source]

Ending Job Piracy, Building Regional Prosperity

Local job piracy – the use of subsidies to attract businesses from nearby communities in the same metro area – generates heavy costs for regions in terms of both lost tax revenues and externalities associated with sprawl while failing to create new jobs. But anti-piracy agreements used by the Denver, Colorado and Dayton, Ohio regions have cultivated an economic development ethos that is focused on shared regional prosperity.

Evaluating Firm-Specific Location Decisions

The use of financial incentives to attract and retain companies has become one of the most common economic development strategies of U.S. states and municipalities. Despite the widespread debate on the effectiveness of these programs, few systematic academic studies have examined how incentives affect job creation and local economic development. The result is that policymakers often lack objective data from which to draw conclusions about the benefits of these programs...

... Incentives recipients are statistically not more likely to generate new jobs than similar firms not receiving incentives.