End wasteful corporate handouts

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Call it, if you will, the crack cocaine of state and local governments' economic-development practices — their endless flow of tax breaks and outright gifts to private corporations they want to land, or figure they have to pay off to stay put.

Today, the practice runs so deep, pervading such a huge number of corporate location moves, that officials — even those who privately admit it's an insane, zero-sum system — keep on forking out the cash, no matter how incredibly costly the addiction.

For years, Greg LeRoy has been America's chief whistle-blower on the subsidies, which he now estimates add up nationally to an eye-popping $50 billion a year. LeRoy's just-published book, "The Great American Jobs Scam" (Berrett-Koehler) tells the story in full and colorful detail.

There's the story of how Raytheon, threatening to move defense operations out of Massachusetts in the '90s, got the Legislature to give it tax breaks of some $21 million annually — and then proceeded to reduce its Bay State payrolls by 4,100 people, or 21 percent, anyway.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002440633_peirce15.html