Let’s have some REAL economic development for a change
While you can still find people who think that “economic development” means throwing tax breaks and”incentives” at every Fortune 500 that lifts it’s skirt, some municipalities are starting to put the corporate welfare system under greater scrutiny.
From USA Today:
Business incentives lose luster for states – Some question value to local economies
By Dennis Cauchon
Generous tax breaks given to companies that threaten to take their business elsewhere are coming under increasing scrutiny from state and local officials who say taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth.
Critics say the tax breaks and other financial incentives have gotten out of hand, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and doing little for the economy.
“There’s an entitlement mentality about tax breaks today,” Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Mark Funkhouser says. “Every developer thinks it’s his right not to pay property taxes.” Funkhouser was elected mayor in May after campaigning against tax breaks to developers, including one for a luxury condo development in an affluent part of his city.
Instead of prostituting our state to the likes of BoA and Walgreens (yuck!) how about building an infrastructure that supports entrepreneurs and small businesses?
A good start would be looking at some state based entrepreneurship “Best Practices” like…
1) Integrate Entrepreneurship into State Economic Development Efforts by making entrepreneurship part of the explicit mission of the state’s economic development efforts
2) Use the public education system to nurture and encourage future entrepreneurs
3) Incubate Entrepreneurial Companies by increasing access to venture capital and through Physical Incubators
4) “Get Out of the Way” through Regulatory Reform and Streamlining by putting regulatory and licensing processes on-line and allowing instant online licensing.
This is not expensive stuff, and it is not earth-shaking revolutionary stuff. It is basic and we are already losing ground to states where “economic development” is being done right.
Frank Rizzo discovered the political benefits of exempting large businesses from taxes. Rizzo’s political career was well funded by the corporations he subsidized with taxpayer money. The benefit to the city of Philadelphia, and its citizens, was that the city went broke.
Good point, Jason.
The money Carper used to provide road improvements for AstraZeneca was originally slated for easement purchases in Sussex County, which would have allowed our road situation to improve over time.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that.
how about building an infrastructure that supports entrepreneurs and small businesses?
Single-payer health care, subsidized day care, fix the digital divide, better job-training programs through vocational schools and community colleges.
Trickle-up, baby!!
“Single-payer health care”
Sure. Lowering the quality of healthcare is always good for small business. Of course all the customers would die off. Minor detail.
“subsidized day care”
Let’s start with full-day kindergarten as see where we can go from there. Better yet, let citizens use their portion of school taxes to pay for the daycare of their choice.
“fix the digital divide”
Uh dude, its 2007 now, not 2000. There are handheld video games in just about every kids hands. If they can afford that, they can afford an inexpensive computer.
“better job-training programs through vocational schools and community colleges”
Isn’t that what they have supposed to have been doing for all these years? How do you propose fixing it now….oh wait….I think I know…raise taxes…right?
“Trickle-up, baby!!”
Wrong direction..baby!!
Uh dude, its 2007 now, not 2000. There are handheld video games in just about every kids hands. If they can afford that, they can afford an inexpensive computer.
The computers are no longer the problem; it’s the monthly broadband bill. If broadband is available in your neighborhood at all.
The elephant in the room here is a semantic one. Jason is lauding efforts of entrepeneurs and encouraging them. What do entrepeneurs do? The start their own companies. When does an entrepeneur cease to be that and become a “developer” who wants a tax break? Is there some revenue point that determines when one is an entrepeneur vs. a company? The companies referenced above are owned by thousands (or tens of thousands) of people. Entrepeneurships are owned by one person. You’re effectively advocating concentration of wealth in people who have the will and ability to start their own company.
P’shaw…
You know full well I am advocating no such thing. Yes, small start up grow into big companies – that is the whole point. So which is better for Delaware… (and this is not a samantic issue or a rhetorical question)
…to be the kind of state where we, from time to time , lure a big business to move 1,500 job here by cheating everyone else?
OR
…to be the kind of state that has a business and edcuational infrastructure that is appealing to hundreds of creative of business people – any of which might be the next Bill Gates, Larry Page or Sergey Brin?
And even if they don’t grow to Microsoft sizes those hundreds of businesses are less likely to lay off and fire people in pursuit of wall streets whims and quarterly profits. Those businesses are going to be the kinds of places that womone and minorities have a better chance for advancement and those businesses are not going to up and leave if Michigan throws some tax breaks at them.
We did that, with the Financial Center Development Act.
MBNA started with a bunch of guys in the shell of a former supermarket, and it grew, in Delaware, to be what it was.
But this Administration isn’t putting the priority on entrepreneurs. Neither did the last one.
It really wouldn’t be that hard to move up to, say, 45th in the nation in entrepreneurial activity. You gotta care, though.
Left to our own devices in a low intrusion environment, we find our own tools and grow our interests.
Cut the crap of corporate welfare and keep taxes low and predictable. Do that and the entrepreneur will thrive.
Some of our best home grown businesses like Host My Site did not receive ANY help from the State when they got started. Now the State Economic Development Office is coming to them to ask what they can do. The response? Go away and leave the entrepreneurs alone! But don’t subsidize the entrenched business interests either.
Single-payer health care does not mean reduced-quality health care. It might cause a slightly longer wait, but not reduced quality.
Even that “longer wait” meme is breaking down.
51% Americans report that they can see a doctor on the “same-day” or “next day” when sick.
In Fance it is 57%
Not sure your sources, but this one says quite the opposite.
http://www.al.com/opinion/press-register/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1187516101250280.xml&coll=3
why are you feeding the troll people. Just ignore him. You know darn well he is wrong and just assuming.
“Single-payer health care does not mean reduced-quality health care.”
Really? You believe that? When you sick, in most cases your chances are better the earlier you get treated. So just the simple fact that it takes longer to be seen, treated, and God forbid operated on, already has lessened your chances, and there by the quality of medical help you get.
Many countries, such as Britain, are finding a shortage of doctors and are often recruiting doctors from third world nations where I am sure they are properly educated.
I will say there does appear to be a big difference in how France implements theirs as opposed to the pure socialized medicine in UK and Canada. Perhaps there might be worthwhile ideas coming out of that. But Canada and the UK are NOT a models we should be using.
That guy is part of the ‘noise machine’. He belongs to a site called stopsocializedmedicine, which has plenty of posts from hacks from Town Hall and the other Pajama Media echo chamber…
Your ‘proof’ seems to be on par with that lone Global Warming denier who’s subsidized by Texxon.
We have a shortage of doctors in this country too Chrissy. It’s what the AMA does. The keep the demand high and the supply low so they can get rich.
Why would a single payer system in America incorporate something that is broken in other countries?
Your arguement doesn’t make sense. It is like building a car with a defect, spotting the defect and then doing nothing about it.
spare us little boy.
it is a typical right wing talking point. It’s is such a weak arguement.
Lets go ahead and model single payer health care EXACTLY like the ones that have faults.
yes, that is what we would do Chrissy.
We have the benefit of seeing what is wrong with those countries and implementing something else.
good god.
Pardon me. But there are still liberals that want full blown socialism that has failed miserably in other countries to be implemented here. It is not a stretch to think you would do the same thing with socialized medicine.
Liberalism does not equal logic.
“We have a shortage of doctors in this country too Chrissy. It’s what the AMA does.”
What are you smoking? I work in the health care industry and listen to doctors complain all the time about the shortages and the difficulty in getting new ones. The AMA IS doctors. So your assertion makes no sense. Doctors WANT more doctors because they are terribly overworked. They are also not getting as “rich” as you would like to believe. There may be a few top surgeons that wrack up big bucks for high risk stuff, but the bread and butter docs work HARD just to even get their loans paid off. Part of the shortage is due to the reduced compensation and the HIGH insurance premiums. Through a socialized system in and forget about it.
explain to me then how the AMA decides how many doctors enter what field each year then Chrissy?
Your premise is way off. Waits may occur for procedures that we already wait some amount of time for. If you need immediate attention, you’ll get it. The best thing is that we can steal the best of the single-payer systems from around the world and create our own system.
And just and FYI – A substantial majority of Americans want a single-payer system. If this majority vote in politicians to implement their wants, then how in hell can you say that such a system is anti-democratic or a slippery-slope toward socialism? If that’s what you believe, well we are already socialist, since Gov’t workers and the military receive free, taxpayer-subsidized health care. Oh well!
There are so many arguments for single-payer/universal health care (here, but dissenters only come up with “Socialism/Communism”, words without context or real meaning, or worst of all – the extinction of parasite companies, whose sole purpose is to make the most money possible off of people’s ills. Now there’s a morality questions for ya….
“explain to me then how the AMA decides how many doctors enter what field each year then Chrissy?”
Maybe because they know which fields are hurting the most. They are trying to do their best to deal with the shortage as best possible. But I guess you would rather a government bureaucrat with no medical training make that decision.
orrrrrrrrrrr maybe because IF JUST IFFFFFFF, they know where to put who and how many to put where they can make sure they have jusssst the right number of doctors working in each profession so everyone makes a nice income…..
supply meet demand
nah, that hypocratic oath thing should prevent that….
Going back to the original thread. If you want to really get businesses to move to Delaware, build a 600MW wind farm and drop the price of electricity back to 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour. Especially as neighboring states start paying 15 to 20 cents for the same energy coming from Carbon sources…….
No one answered my question about what the tipping point is between “entrepeneur” and “evil greedy corporation”. Is there a certain revenue limit? Is it when they become publicly held? Taking MBNA for example, when did they cease to be entrepeneurial and become Evil Hated Big Business?
Also: DV is right about the AMA, they’re effectively a union that distorts the market by keeping services with doctors that don’t need to be. Nurses can sew stitches and set bones and such but the AMA makes the rules and that shortage keeps the doctor’s salaries artificially high.
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