The makers can be the takers

DALLAS — The Preston Hollow neighborhood has been home to many of Texas’ rich and powerful — George and Laura Bush, Mark Cuban, T. Boone Pickens, Ross Perot. So it is hardly surprising that a recent political fund-raiser was held there on the back terrace of a 20,000-square-foot home overlooking lush gardens with life-size bronze statues of the host’s daughters.

The guest of honor was Gov. Rick Perry, but the man behind the event was not one of the enclave’s boldface names. He was a tax consultant named G. Brint Ryan.

Mr. Ryan’s specialty is helping clients like ExxonMobil and Neiman Marcus secure state and local tax breaks and other business incentives. It is a good line of work in Texas.

Under Mr. Perry, Texas gives out more of the incentives than any other state, around $19 billion a year, an examination by The New York Times has found. Texas justifies its largess by pointing out that it is home to half of all the private sector jobs created over the last decade nationwide. As the invitation to the fund-raiser boasted: “Texas leads the nation in job creation.”

Yet the raw numbers mask a more complicated reality behind the flood of incentives, the examination shows, and raise questions about who benefits more, the businesses or the people of Texas.

Along with the huge job growth, the state has the third-highest proportion of hourly jobs paying at or below minimum wage. And despite its low level of unemployment, Texas has the 11th-highest poverty rate among states.

“While economic development is the mantra of most officials, there’s a question of when does economic development end and corporate welfare begin,” said Dale Craymer, the president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a group supported by business that favors incentives programs.




http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/us/winners-and-losers-in-texas.html?hp&_r=0

 

Good post.

 

+1

 

I wonder whether there is anyone here that would argue capitalism is adequate by itself as a way to guide a nation and provide a just and ethical society.

 

Probably. Is there anyone here that can accurately and truthfully argue liberalism is adequate by itself as a way to guide a nation and provide a just and ethical society?

 

So honestly, what is this nonsense supposed to even mean? What "system" would you put in place to mean your vision of utopia? Socialism? Communism? Please elaborate on your silly comment.

I was going to ignore this thread since it was completely irrelevant to the discussion of Makers vs. Takers, since we were talking about individuals and the OP thought that we could draw a parallel to corporations being counted the same - which is complete stupidity. ALL private, for-profit corporations are makers. To imply that a corporation can wholly exist on welfare alone from the government is to ignore all of the other facets the corporation puts out, and all of the other taxes it generates (employees that pay income tax, sales tax, etc). Even Obama's buddy company GE, which paid no taxes because of loopholes contributes in more ways than just corporate taxes.

The NY Times article did no such comprehensive research. It first points out that Texas goes beyond all other states in incentives to businesses, then makes an ambiguous statement of

But it doesn't really go into any detail. It also questionably states the following:

So how are these hourly rates calculated? How does a state get away with paying so many jobs below minimum wage, when it is against the law in order to do so? Who are the other two states ranked above Texas? How can they get away with it? Are we including waiters and farm jobs to youths, where we don't have to pay minimum wage? Who are the other 10 states who have worse poverty? Fun with statistics.

The article talks about grants to energy companies, but then points out Pennsylvania just gave $1.3 B to entice Shell to come to it's state. So what?

States have been offering incentives to companies that bring jobs - ALL states try to do it. To make this the same as the Takers vs. Makers argument, you would have to make the equivalent situation on the individual side of the equation, having states try to get welfare and other such entitlement beneficiaries to move to their states by offering them higher food stamps, more unemployment weeks, etc.

Companies bring jobs, jobs employ a state's population and provide income taxes, property taxes, and the like. Unless you do a complete analysis on what a company is bringing a state - and I mean complete - you cannot compare it to a total incentive number and magically create a full mock P+L of what it costs the state. Even if you did this, there are intrinsic benefits of lowering the unemployment rate you cannot capture.

So while the article is basically an attack on Perry and Texas (which is certainly in the mission statement of the NY times) it doesn't offer any more info than what was already known: All states offer incentives for companies in order to attract business.

 

Even if they could, liberalism isn't an economic model. Replacing Capitalism with Liberalism is like replacing Free Market Theory with Jello.

 

Little Tsingy is upset that his domain appears violated. He feels that discussion on makers vs takers should be circumscribed by him alone. Boo hoo, how unfair. He says all states compete with tax incentives, implying it is therefore a productive and necessary
enterprise. Well, all states have public welfare programs too.

Corporate welfare is a form of of feeding at the public treasury, whether by tax incentives or by effecting favorable legislation and is ripe for discussion.

Chop Chop!

 

And having Lucrum enter a conversation on Free Market Theory
is replacing a conversation on Free Market Theory with Jello

 

Lmao, nice.