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,…
Tag: taxes
Following the money
It’s no secret that local governments give billions of dollars to companies in the form of tax breaks and other benefits, in both good times and bad. But policymakers are loathe to tally up the real costs of this approach to economic development. Today the New York Times launched a series of articles on such…
Return of Debtors’ Prisons – NYTimes.com
A bit far afield maybe, but an interesting bit of fallout from the recession and the continued squeezing of government: This devastating problem has gotten far worse the past five years, the result of budget-strapped state courts looking for sources of revenue and ever more poor people becoming ensnared in the court system. For decades,…
Thousands of towns face budget squeeze in downturns wake – Economy Watch
Sean Mulvey, the newly appointed finance director for the town of East Greenbush, N.Y., is trying to solve a riddle facing cities and towns across the country. Though property tax revenues in the Albany suburb have yet to recover from the worst housing collapse since the Great Depression, fixed expenses like long-term contracts, debt interest…
“Cities Facing Worst Fiscal Situation Since 1980”
The Pew Charitable Trust report, outlining the bleak context in which I’m trying to devise a dissertation research strategy. 2012 looks to be one of the worst years in the cities I’m studying since the early 2000s. City officials and the vast majority of workers are deeply entrenched in an ongoing recession, despite the fact that…