Industry incentives vs. the Oreck challenge (Lott questions corporate welfare)

[intheflow]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/editorial/16415411.htm

Posted on Tue, Jan. 09, 2007

Industry incentives vs. the Oreck challenge
By SEN. TRENT LOTT

Before taking on the big issues expected in the Senate this year, I want to address something all Mississippians should note. It's a lesson about corporate citizenship and corporate responsibility that our state should resolve to remember, particularly as we try to bring new jobs here.

Right before Christmas, the Oreck vacuum company announced it would close its plant in Long Beach. This 10-year-old plant was considered a success by the company, but the plant and its workers took a hard hit by Hurricane Katrina.

(snip)

Second, and more troubling, in 1997 Oreck signed a 10-year tax exemption to locate in Long Beach. That exemption will expire at about the same time Oreck completely closes the Long Beach plant. A lot of Mississippians will have very legitimate questions about this timing, and I think the company should have made a genuine effort to address it.

(snip)

Mississippi's public officials, myself included, must resolve to remember the Oreck example when a company is bestowed help from the public vault. The next time a guy on television asks us to "take the Oreck challenge," we should remember the many challenges Oreck left on Mississippi's doorstep.

:wow:
In related news, hell freezes over.

[trotsky]

1. Oh, hypocrites like Lott are all about "free markets"...

until it's a business that affects their constituents. I'm sure that if this exact same scenario was happening in Alabama or Louisiana, Lott wouldn't give a flying fig.

[intheflow]

2. True.

But living on the Mississippi Coast post-Katrina, I'll take any enlightenment that comes Lott's way.