Diligent readers of the newspaper business section learn about these deals all the time. A new auto assembly plant receives hundreds of millions of dollars from a Southern state. One city offers a major corporation huge tax breaks to entice it to move its headquarters. Another city gives similar breaks to another company to prevent it from leaving. A major retailer is allowed to keep a large portion of property or sales tax revenue associated with the creation of yet another big-box store.

Most of these are what are known as discretionary subsidy deals--ones that are negotiated with individual companies, supposedly to influence an investment decision. These are distinct from entitlement-type subsidies (such as investment tax credits) that are automatically available to all companies that meet certain criteria. What makes discretionary subsidies so controversial is not only their fiscal impact but the fact that there are often no specific guidelines for determining which companies get them. These deals pit communities against one another, forcing them to engage in an ill-advised bidding war for the investment; or, a company may concoct a phony threat to move out of an area in order to extort subsidies for staying put.

Good Jobs First is a leading monitor and critic of company-specific subsidy deals. We track which companies go most often to the public trough for assistance, and we critique egregious giveaways. In this section of the website, we have company profiles of some of the leading over-users and abusers of economic development subsidies, including household names such as Boeing and Dell. We summarize their major deals and provide resources for additional information. Given that the terms of discretionary subsidies are often not completely disclosed, the information available may unavoidably be incomplete.

We have collected a particularly large quantity of information on Wal-Mart, which because of its size and rapid growth has probably been involved in more subsidy deals than any other company. Building on our 2004 report Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never-Ending Growth, we have created a special section of this site called WAL-MART SUBSIDY WATCH. It makes available the data from the report as well as additional information in a convenient electronic format.

INDUSTRIES. Along with individual company data, we have profiles of certain industries--auto manufacturing, biotechnology, private prisons, etc.--that have made frequent use of subsidies for their expansion.

CONSULTANTS. We also present material on the site location consultants. These are the middlemen who match up companies planning new facilities with state and local officials hungry for investment in their area. These consultants routinely use high-pressure tactics to get public officials to give higher subsidies, despite the evidence that companies are usually more concerned about other factors such as location, infrastructure and the characteristics of the local workforce.

LOBBYING. Another group of consultants used by corporations to gain advantages vis-à-vis government are lobbyists. These well-connected individuals and firms help business win the entitlement-type of subsidies from state legislatures and sometimes from Congress. We present an overview of business lobbying activity for specific types of subsidies, especially tax breaks such as Single Sales Factor.

HIDDEN TAXPAYER COSTS. In addition to the explicit subsidies granted to companies in the name of economic development, taxpayers may end up subsidizing business inadvertently. For example, the failure of many larger employers to provide adequate health insurance benefits to their workers means that many of those workers turn to public programs such as Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance for coverage. The availability of these programs, which were not intended to be used by people working at big companies, means that taxpayers are in effect enabling employers to avoid substantial healthcare costs.

This issue of hidden taxpayer costs has become a matter of growing controversy. To highlight the dimensions of the problem, more than a dozen states have disclosed the names of the employers with the largest number of workers (or their dependents) using programs such as Medicaid. We present a summary of these disclosures.

LISTS. This section, which we will build over time, will consist of broader data to supplement the individual company and industry profiles. It will include lists such as the largest subsidy deals of all time and lists of major deals by state.

RESOURCES. Finally, we present lists of key company- and industry-specific reports on subsidy deals published by our own and other organizations as well as key books and articles.

Doing Your Own Research

If you want to do your own research on the subsidies granted to a particular company, be sure to look at the Researcher's Guide in the Accountable Development portion of this site, especially the subsections on determining whether a company has received subsidies and the one on researching the general background of a company receiving subsidies.