Good Jobs First Subsidy News
Leave it to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. In his zeal to be disruptor-in-chief, he has pulled back the green curtain on America's corrupted economic development system. More publicly than ever, taxpayers have been shown how our nation's tax break-industrial complex works — and quite rightly, they want to end it.
Amazon's search for its HQ2 has created a bidding war between cities and states worth millions or even billions.
By Greg LeRoy and Maryann Feldman
Fostering local hi-tech success doesn’t have to mean offering huge subsidies to companies like Apple and Amazon. Here are some alternative strategies
Every mayor and governor wants to attract hi-tech jobs. And why not? Depending on the nature of the facility, such jobs can be well-paid and strengthen a region’s economy.
By Ese Olumhense, The Chicago Tribune
Amazon’s search for a location for its second headquarters has been unusually public, but the secrecy surrounding the incentives state and local governments are offering to lure the Seattle-based e-commerce giant could set a troubling precedent for taxpayers, a group that tracks corporate subsidies said in a Tuesday report.
By Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First
The Caddo Parish debate over a costly tax-break program deserves the attention of every Louisiana taxpayer.
Why? Because local elected officials in Louisiana recently regained a very important power they were stripped of 80 years ago. Unlike any other state in the nation, parish councils, school districts, sheriffs and cities were denied the right to control decisions about whether to grant property tax abatements to corporations.