Ya see, these obscene tax breaks and other incentives come with no guarantee. Say buh-bye to 550 top-paying jobs.
No doubt, what WON’T be cut is Astra Zeneca’s steady stream of contributions to our corporate controlled legislators.
Here’s the bad news:
Cuts at AstraZeneca’s brick complex on US 202 between Wilmington and Chadds Ford include “550 research and development” professionals “due to our exiting psychiatric laboratory research” between now and 2012, AstraZeneca spokesman Tony Jewell tells me. “That’s about one-third of our research and development presence in Delaware.”
Delaware moved US 202 and offered tax incentives to move AstraZeneca and over 4,000 jobs from Chester County and other Pennsylvania sites earlier this decade. But that was before the drug business headed south… AstraZeneca says it’s going to cut 3,500 research & development jobs worldwide.
This is what happens when businesses are allowed to pit states against each other. It’s the pits.
And it’s time to stop this insane game of Relocation Musical Chairs. As always, the only losers are the taxpayers. At least, we’ll always have those labyrinthine traffic circles adjacent to 202 as a memorial to the greedy excess that was and is Astra Zeneca. And, the Pit.