Boeing is shopping for a location, threatening to leave Washington and take with it more than 80,000 jobs. Parallels are being drawn to Detroit, of course, and the “death spiral” that followed the automobile industry’s departure from that city. Alas, in both good times and bad companies are able to get localities to engage in […]
subsidies
Sports stadiums: an inevitable drain on city budgets?
Behind the rhetoric about public employees bankrupting cities, there are a few silent drains on city budgets (and now London faces the likelihood that its hopes for a post-Olympics windfall, like nearly every other city in history, won’t materialize.) Sports stadiums are perhaps the biggest single subsidy packages doled out, and nearly every study shoes […]
Economic development, or blackmail?
The New York Times is running a terrific series on tax breaks and other subsidies given by governments, especially local and state governments, to corporations that promise jobs and revenue, despite the patent failure of such subsidies to improve the economic situation of communities. This first part of the series features GM, among other companies, […]
Minding the Candy Store: State Audits of Economic Development
Sara Hinkley and Fiona Hsu Executive Summary An analysis of 122 audits of state economic development programs in 44 states reveals a troubling policy landscape. In a time when these programs – such as tax breaks, grants, and loans – are rapidly proliferating, many audits reveal that taxpayers are getting a poor bang for their […]
No More Secret Candy Store
A Grassroots Guide to Investigating Development Subsidies with Greg LeRoy Since No More Candy Store was published in 1994, the grassroots movement to reform economic development has continued to surge. Seeded in the mid-1980s by activists fighting plant closings, the movement has grown enormously to include tax and budget watchdogs, living wage campaigns, labor unions, […]