We Could’ve Told Them…

handshake_business_dealFrom AlterNet, “Corporate Extortion: States Are Giving Billions to Corporations That Don’t Create Jobs.” We learn that…

“Economic development officials value business tax incentives as tools needed to compete with other states,” a November report commissioned by New York State’s Tax Reform and Fairness Commission began, stating their presumptive selling point. “There is, however, no conclusive evidence from research studies conducted since the mid-1950s to show that business tax incentives have an impact on net economic gains to the states above and beyond the level that would have been attained absent the incentives.”

That doesn’t stop the flow of public money to insiders for private gain. In Chicago we’ve still got 154 TIF districts extracting almost $500 MILLION in property taxes every year.